Tributary Stu

Bodied (2017): I have zero rapping affinities, but there’s something inherently cool in this witty, irreverent and ambitious movie. Joseph Kahn didn’t quite convince me with his previous feature, Detention, but he applies his flair and experience from doing music videos effectively to elevate Bodied into a perfectly entertaining story about rap, race and friendship.… Read more

Schumacher (2021): The docu takes us from Michael’s financially-stricken youth to his first title for Ferrari, before fast-forwarding through the next ten+ years. It makes some sense, because most of the strong feelings F1 fans have toward him were shaped in those early years, but it also highlights how ineffective it can be to distill… Read more

CODA (2021): Not sure why I have a bit of a fascination with movies portraying the deaf community – while sometimes crude in their depiction, they tend to charm me. CODA does a heck of a job at that – being charming – as it tells the story of Ruby, the only hearing person in… Read more

In the Same Breath (2021): Nanfu Wang follows up the traumatizing One Child Nation with an infuriating documentary about the early days of the COVID pandemic. There’s something in Wang’s style that feels off-putting at first, a personal angle which seems limiting, only to prove the key to unlocking the immediacy and absurdity of a… Read more

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain (2021): Even I’ve read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential, a thoroughly enjoyable read about his life as a chef in the 80s and 90s. Although I never followed any of his TV ventures, he was a sympathetic figure and his death a couple of years ago was a sobering moment.… Read more

Riders of Justice (2020): Mads Mikkelsen is rocking the revenge drum in this surprising Danish movie: wife dies, army guy and absent father Markus returns home to take care of his daughter, just as some middle-aged nerds/scientists turn up to tell him that it’s statistically near impossible for the accident that caused his wife death… Read more

Pig (2021): I was under the false impression that Pig would be a John Wickian affair. In fact, it’s pretty much the opposite of that, even though a cherished animal is stolen by some nefarious people at the start of the movie. Starring Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff and Adam Arkin, it’s a movie about connection… Read more

No Sudden Move (2021): Soderbergh might not be at his ingenious best, but he’s still had his name on some inspired projects. NSM is an old-school crime/mob movie, with a solid script and an exceptional cast – Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro, David Harbour or Amy Seimetz, to name just a few. What’s more, they do… Read more

Reprise (2006): I loved Joachim Trier’s movie when I first saw it soon after its release, a perfect tale of dreams, ambition, friendship, romance, youth that rang so true at the time. Rewatching it the other day (a reprise, if you will), a lot of the things I loved were still there, as Erik, Philip… Read more

His House (2020): Most horrors movies have some kind of social theme to them, but the recent crop seems to be creating very convincing and hard-hitting allegories to the horrors of various social traumas. His House is about a refugee couple that is provided a home in the UK, but adapting to “normal life” and… Read more

The Kid Detective (2020): It’s hard not to relate with the ageing kid detective of yesteryear, the embodiment of endless potential turned into a husk of a human being. Director/writer Evan Morgan takes a simple idea that could easily have turned into something ridiculous and miraculously keeps finding the perfect nuance to allow the realness… Read more