Posts by Mark Asch

The Boy and the Heron review – poetry, philosophy, pure emotion

By Mark Asch

Less a swansong and more a heronsong from the Japanese maestro Hayao Miyazaki, a mystical and ambitious message of hope for the future.

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Next Goal Wins review – chillingly eager to please

By Mark Asch

Taika Waititi's feel-good comedy about the plight of a hapless Samoan football team strives for nothing more than maintaining the status quo.

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Dream Scenario review – easy to enjoy, harder to remember

By Mark Asch

Nicolas Cage plays an otherwise unremarkable college professor who unexpectedly finds himself appearing in peoples' dreams in Kristoffer Borgli's latest satire.

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The Royal Hotel review – harrowing, but doesn’t burrow under the skin

By Mark Asch

More cinema of ominous discomfort from Kitty Green as she takes us to an out-of-the-way Australian boozer for some low-boiling violence.

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The Old Oak review – trades largely on didacticism and sentimentality

By Mark Asch

In what could be his final film, Ken Loach fixes his gaze on a pub landlord in a town reckoning with a new population of Syrian refugees.

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Dream Scenario – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Nicolas Cage plays an otherwise unremarkable college professor who unexpectedly finds himself appearing in peoples' dreams in Kristoffer Borgli's latest satire.

Next Goal Wins – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Taika Waititi is way-too eager to please with this aggressively feel-good comic fictionalisation of the lovely 2014 documentary of the same name.

Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – first-look review

By Mark Asch

The new film from one of Romania's foremost cine-ironists, Radu Jude, is a glorious, poisonous, everything-in-the-pot treatise on the state of the world today.

Les Indésirables – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Ladj Ly’s follow-up to his Cesar award-winning Les Misérables is a hyperbolic state-of-the-nation address that lacks the logic and fire of that first feature.

The Boy and the Heron – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Less a swansong and more a heronsong from the Japanese maestro Hayao Miyazaki, a mystical and ambitious message of hope for the future.

The Royal Hotel – first-look review

By Mark Asch

More cinema of ominous discomfort from Kitty Green as she takes us to an out-of-the-way Australian boozer for some low-boiling violence.

The Super 8 Years

By Mark Asch

Annie Ernaux and her son David piece together a magical home movie essay on marriage, motherhood and the whole damn thing.

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The Old Oak – first-look review

By Mark Asch

In what could be his final film, Ken Loach turns his eye to UK immigration, focusing on a pub landlord in a town reckoning with a new population of Syrian refugees.

La Chimera – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Josh O’Connor breaks out his halting Italian as a grave-robbing rascal in Alice Rohrwacher’s divine exploration of time, history and memory.

Kidnapped – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Italian veteran Marco Bellocchio’s adaptation of David Kertzer’s The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara is an occasionally enthralling, yet often staid and repetitive affair.

Paul Schrader: ‘My movies are more on the witty clever side than the drop-your-pants funny side’

By Mark Asch

The legendary filmmaker and writer reflects on his curious horticultural drama, Master Gardener, and reveals which of his films he thinks is the funniest.

The Book of Solutions – first-look review

By Mark Asch

A filmmaker in crisis finds inspiration in the mountains in Michel Gondry's first film in eight years.

EO

By Mark Asch

A donkey sets off on a long journey to reunite with his mistress in Jerzy Skolimowski's far-reaching drama.

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The Greatest Beer Run Ever

By Mark Asch

Peter Farrelly’s follow-up to his Best Picture winner Green Book is a hokey Vietnam tall tale.

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Empire of Light – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Olivia Colman channels her inner Anna Karina in director Sam Mendes’ mawkish ode to the magic of the movies.

The Greatest Beer Run Ever – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Zac Efron goes on a mission to bring tinnies to the troops in this banter-y Vietnam War movie misfire from Peter Farrelly.

Devotion – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell star as Navy pilots in JD Dillard's superficial rendering of America’s forgotten war.

How to Blow Up a Pipeline – first-look review

By Mark Asch

A group of activists take radical action against climate change in Daniel Goldhaber's eco-thriller.

The Fabelmans – first-look review

By Mark Asch

This bittersweet rummage through the Spielberg family album sees the maestro deliver a late-career masterwork.

Tori and Lokita – first-look review

By Mark Asch

The Dardenne brothers return with a harrowing story of human trafficking in Belgium, centring on two young migrants.

The Super 8 Years – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Annie Ernaux and her son David piece together a magical home movie essay on marriage, motherhood and the whole damn thing.

Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Ethan Coen’s solo debut effort is a ribald and energising archive montage on the life of taboo-busting rocker, Jerry Lee Lewis.

EO – first-look review

By Mark Asch

A donkey in a travelling circus grapples with cruel fate in Jerzy Skolimowski’s strangely captivating drama.

Tchaikovsky’s Wife – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Kirill Serebrennikov focuses on the relationship between one of Russia’s greatest composers and his adoring, but unloved, partner.

Compartment No. 6

By Mark Asch

Two strangers meet on a fateful train journey from Moscow to the Arctic Circle in Juho Kuosmanen’s romantic drama.

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Petrov’s Flu

By Mark Asch

Kirill Serebrennikov presents a fascinating, intense portrait of a comic book artist who suffers from a strange illness.

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Flag Day

By Mark Asch

Sean Penn’s directorial follow-up to The Last Face is a blatantly self-indulgent vanity project full of tiring clichés.

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Memoria

By Mark Asch

Apichatpong Weerasethakul meticulously crafts a sensory journey soaked in introspection and metaphysical perplexity.

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France – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Léa Seydoux plays a TV journalist in Bruno Dumont’s satire-of-sorts about France’s relationship with its media and itself.

Memoria – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Tilda Swinton is extraordinary in a film by Apichatpong Weerasethakul which comprises of “pure vibes”.

Petrov’s Flu – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Kirill Serebrennikov’s delirious latest offers a strikingly singular vision of life in post-Soviet Russia.

Flag Day – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Sean Penn returns to Cannes five years after the fiasco of The Last Face with a somehow even more calamitous family drama.

Compartment No. 6 – first-look review

By Mark Asch

This delicate Finnish comedy of social and political manners has all the trappings of an arthouse crowd-pleaser.

Lingui – first-look review

By Mark Asch

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s bright, hopeful film addresses the persistent issue of women’s reproductive health in present-day Chad.

Vitalina Varela

By Mark Asch

Portuguese master Pedro Costa charts a Cape Verdean émigré’s journey through the outskirts of Lisbon.

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Richard Jewell

By Mark Asch

Clint Eastwood continues his stellar run of films about unlikely American heroes hunted by the spotlight.

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The Mule

By Mark Asch

Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this outstanding American road movie about an ageing drug runner.

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Distant Constellation

By Mark Asch

The inhabitants of a Turkish retirement home contemplate life’s big questions in this captivating doc from Shevaun Mizrahi.

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Why Superman Returns is the greatest blockbuster of the 21st century

By Mark Asch

Rejecting the physics of an ever-expanding comic book universe, Bryan Singer’s Superman reboot has passed the test of time.

The Danish novel that’s exactly like the Tree of Life

By Mark Asch

Everything is connected – including Peter Adolphsen’s ‘Machine’ and Terrence Malick’s 2011 film.

Tales of Cinema No. 1 – Chris Hemsworth’s Abs

By Mark Asch

Intimidating and otherworldly, the Australian actor’s impeccable physique has earned him the title of Manliest Man in Hollywood.

God’s country? How The Witch recalls America’s Puritanical past

By Mark Asch

Robert Eggers’ film provides an evocative reminder of the anxieties, fears and early religious beliefs that shaped the New World.

Tokyo Tribe

By Mark Asch

A kaleidoscopic and intentionally lurid gangster rap battle movie from Japanese provocateur Sion Sono.

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National Gallery

By Mark Asch

One of cinema’s Old Masters returns with this poetic and profound dissection of art and storytelling.

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Wake in Fright (1971)

By Mark Asch

A meek and mild school teacher spirals into Aussie Hell in this riveting, repellant restoration.

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The Night of the Hunter (1955)

By Mark Asch

One of classic cinema’s great, uncategorisable outliers returns triumphantly to the big screen.

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Little White Lies was established in 2005 as a bi-monthly print magazine committed to championing great movies and the talented people who make them. Combining cutting-edge design, illustration and journalism, we’ve been described as being “at the vanguard of the independent publishing movement.” Our reviews feature a unique tripartite ranking system that captures the different aspects of the movie-going experience. We believe in Truth & Movies.

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