Jim Ross
Verified
(He/Him)
As seen in:
TAKE ONE Magazine,
Letterboxd,
Little White Lies,
Cultured Vultures,
Varsity,
Film Inquiry,
Vague Visages,
Roobla
Covers:
Film, Cinema, Movies, Film Festivals
Now elsewhere under same name • Scottish, part-time film critic • Editor @TAKEONECinema • 📻🎙️ Co-prod’ @Cinetopia @EHFM_live • ✍️ @VagueVisages @LWLies & ++ •
Articles by Jim Ross
TAKE ONE Magazine
LA BOLA NEGRA is a sweeping, multi-strand story of queer love, conflict perpetuating suffering, and balancing survival against complicity. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi (collectively known as Los Javis) deliver a visually luxurious film, strong with symbolic imagery and emotionally charged lead and supporting performances. Although the film’s emotional eagerness is palpable, there is a melancholic beauty and ambitious structure that successfully elicit empathy and sorrow.
TAKE ONE Magazine
WILD HORSE NINE harnesses a prickly but witty John Malkovich performance, along with reliable Martin McDonagh collaborator Sam Rockwell, to elevate sharp but overly familiar material. McDonagh’s latest is an amusing swipe at American imperialism, yet hews too closely to previous work to stand out in his filmography. Malkovich leads the cast as Chris, an ageing CIA operative with terminal cancer.
The Social Reckoning
Reflecting on The SOCIAL NETWORK sixteen years after its release, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s collaboration has aged in complex and interesting ways as the influence of the film’s subjects has grown. Sorkin returns to the subject as writer-director with THE SOCIAL RECKONING and Jeremy Strong taking over as Mark Zuckerberg, with the narrative focused on The Wall Street Journal publication of The Facebook Files.
TAKE ONE Magazine
Many people from Pope John Paul II to legendary coach Arrigo Sacchi have been credited with variations of the description of football as “the most important of the least important things”. Every so often an event comes along in the sport that drives home the truth of this statement, such as the match between Argentina and England at the 1986 World Cup.
TAKE ONE Magazine
SORRY TO BOTHER YOU roared onto screens in 2018, with Boots Riley deploying dense and absurdist comic metaphors to examine the effects of capitalism on society. The focus of I LOVE BOOSTERS feels fuzzier. However, the film maintains an acerbic, colourful approach and witty dialogue that demand action now by bringing hypocrisy and near-comical injustice into sharp relief.
TAKE ONE Magazine
Zinedine Zidane, who recently made his much-anticipated bow as the manager of the men’s French national team, has a case to be the most cinematic of footballers. His career arc has the beats of a great epic: the European frustrations with Juventus; iconic glory with France; a legendary chapter at Real Madrid; a typically enigmatic but glorious managerial career.
TAKE ONE Magazine
THE SAVIORS is an accomplished debut from Kevin Hamedani that pivots on engaging performances, chiefly from Adam Scott. Although it has interesting things to say about xenophobia, suspicion, and acceptance, it holds its most interesting cards in reserve for a hand it never ends up playing. Sean (Adam Scott) and Kim (Danielle Deadwyler) are a married couple nearing separation, who rent out their guest house to brother-sister pair Amir (Theo Rossi) and Jahan (Nazanin Boniadi).
TAKE ONE Magazine
On January 1st, 2026, the newly inaugurated Mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, ruffled a few feathers when he said, “For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty”. The statement prompted many declarations that the Mayor was attacking the idea of dissenting opinion, critics would be ignored or silenced, and the concept of constructive disagreement had been tossed aside.
TAKE ONE Magazine
Standing almost alone in the landscape of modern cinema, few directors are making films on the scale afforded to Christopher Nolan. THE ODYSSEY feels like a culmination of sorts for the filmmaker. If elements of MEMENTO still echo through his filmography, then THE ODYSSEY shows the enduring strength of classical epics (elements of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid are also realised here).
TAKE ONE Magazine
BLUE HERON is a superb debut feature that plays with perspective, memory, and childhood to tell an affecting family story. Director Sophy Romvari’s feature draws upon her own childhood, but the fascinating interplay of recollection and emotional truth creates something with remarkable broad resonance.
TAKE ONE Magazine
BACKROOMS is an effective transition to cinema for Kane Parsons, the creator of the web series of the same name based on a viral creepypasta. The film brings together enough from its creator’s short-form work and other influences to make something engaging and disquieting. While the production design and approach keep tension high and attention locked, attempts to flesh out BACKROOMS feel stretched nevertheless.
TAKE ONE Magazine
Michael Jackson is often cited as a contender for the greatest entertainer of all time. That reputation makes the dullness of MICHAEL, as it moonlimps to its vapid conclusion, all the more remarkable. Before that, a few flourishes allow it to bumble through a script and edit that have clearly been scrubbed to sterility with the hagiography brush. However, the final result is a film which is bland at best and cowardly at worst.
Save The Ultimate Picture Palace
Cinema may kill itself trying to remain relevant, but independent cinemas with interesting programming and a love of film are among the best ways of prioritising the art itself and the community’s engagement with it. The Ultimate Picture Palace (UPP), the only fully independent cinema in Oxford, is a prime example of such an institution.
TAKE ONE Magazine
The emotional weight OMAHA craves comes, despite some other inelegant reaches for it, from the performances of the core cast. As a cinematic whole, Cole Webley’s debut feature is perhaps too keen to get bottom lips quivering, and you can sense that eagerness. Fortunately, the empathy generated by young Molly Belle Wright and John Magaro stops the film from cloying. The film opens with a father (Magaro) sweeping his children into their car early in the morning.
TAKE ONE Magazine
The ‘liminal space’ trend was never a truly new phenomenon. A post-pandemic acceleration of internet culture foregrounded a longstanding fascination with unusual spaces. That ephemeral feeling of danger as you walk down an abandoned corridor or through an eerie public space is well-established in pop culture.
The Wizard of the Kremlin
There is so much verbiage in THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN, it feels as if it’s attempting a complex incantation. Although Jude Law’s work as a young(er) Vladimir Putin is often transfixing, the spell cast by Paul Dano in the lead role and director Olivier Assayas is a much more soporific one. Dano’s role is a fictional person, Vadim Baranov, drawn from Giuliano da Empoli’s novel of the same name. The lead character is a fictionalised version of Putin loyalist and spin-doctor Vladislav Surkov.
TAKE ONE Magazine
DEPARTURES has an unabashed fondness for its influences, yet its own flashes of filmmaking personality add freshness to the echoes of Danny Boyle’s TRAINSPOTTING and Andrew Haigh’s work. Even if the film begins a little too energetically to let its emotional moments land, it settles into an engaging dynamic, driven by the chemistry between David Tag and Lloyd Eyre-Morgan (who also co-directs with Neil Ely and wrote the screenplay).
TAKE ONE Magazine
Cinema has the power to be a provocative medium, but the execution can sometimes create a binary of either solemn intellectualism or needless controversy. Kristoffer Borgli’s newest feature, THE DRAMA, is both fiendishly juvenile and thought-provoking, with a signature black comedy approach that harmonises these two qualities. The film focuses on (apparently) happy couple Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson), opening with the latter drafting his speech for their upcoming wedding.
TAKE ONE Magazine
Maggie Gyllenhaal’s THE BRIDE! takes inspiration from 1939’s BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, but looks to recontextualise the narrative trappings with a more feminist thrust. However, even if the film tries to defer to Mary Shelley, the way it does so is frequently bizarre and lacking in coherence. The film takes plenty of swings in all areas – performance, narrative focus, framing devices – but with few working, the film ends up an interesting exercise more than an enjoyable or memorable one.
TAKE ONE Magazine
While the ‘hard science fiction’ category of literature prizes scientific accuracy, the most resonant themes of its best cinematic adaptations or cousins lie outside factual detail. The moral, philosophical, and emotional questions of humanity are what reach beyond the screen. PROJECT HAIL MARY evokes many forebears which have perhaps examined such themes more deeply or to better effect.
TAKE ONE Magazine
The brief synopsis of THINK OF ENGLAND, a story based on rumours the UK government commissioned pornography to boost World War II troop morale, reads a little like something boldly pitched as a modern incarnation of bawdy CARRY ON humour. Inviting a Glasgow Film Festival audience, of all people, to “Lie back and think of England” seems bolder still.
Wuthering Heights
Emerald Fennell manages to achieve some new and striking things with her adaptation of Emily Brontë’s most famous novel. However, it’s an odd irony that in trying to be stirring and daring, WUTHERING HEIGHTS ends up rather blunted and safe. In the lead-up to the film’s release, much has been made of the title’s stylised presentation using quote marks, to indicate this is very much Fennell’s vision or interpretation.
TAKE ONE Magazine
Director Gore Verbinski’s impact at the box office probably outweighs the cinematic accomplishments of the films themselves. However, if one word were to define where his work has performed best it would be ‘shenanigans’. PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL spawned a franchise of diminishing returns off the back of Jack Sparrow’s shenanigans.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
As belated sequels go, 28 YEARS LATER was much more interesting than it had any right to be. Danny Boyle’s return to a zombie-ridden UK after 23 years was a thematically dense but muddled affair. Nia DaCosta takes directorial duties for this sequel, arriving much more quickly, and delivers a more focused story, which perhaps trades some narrative propulsion for a more coherent set of central themes that nevertheless leaves the door open to many readings of the film.
Marty Supreme | TAKE ONE | Reviews
Disgraced Prime Minister Boris Johnson once infamously tried to claim the invention of table tennis for the English using the archaic term ‘wiff waff’ in a mix of faux whimsy and imperial bluster. Josh Safdie’s MARTY SUPREME is arguably no more interested in table tennis than Johnson was. Still, it uses the sport as the driving force behind an altogether more engaging mix of stress, narrative propulsion, and its American protagonist’s self-aggrandisement.
Ultras | TAKE ONE | Reviews
As the world’s most popular sport, the influence of football (or soccer) is hard to overstate. That assessment could seem overblown to those not familiar with ‘the beautiful game’, even though there has been greater scrutiny of it in recent years, with global-scale corruption, sportswashing, FIFA’s deepening links with the Trump administration, and the corporatisation of clubs and institutions once thought of as community assets.
Kenny Dalglish | TAKE ONE | Reviews
Kenny Dalglish casts a long shadow across Scottish football, still holding records for appearances and (jointly) goals for the national team, and as the nation’s only genuine Ballon D’Or contender in the last six decades. However, few cities hold Dalglish in such high esteem as Liverpool, in England.
One Woman One Bra
ONE WOMAN ONE BRA is a stealthily devastating film. For long stretches, Vincho Nchogu’s feature debut gently pokes fun at the absurdities observed from its rural setting. However, its many strands come together to have a heartbreaking impact and show the effect of a community abandoning its most vulnerable members. Sarah Karei’s versatile, layered performance is an asset that Nchogu utilises to the fullest.
A Sad and Beautiful World
Director Cyril Aris’s A SAD AND BEAUTIFUL WORLD tells a story that can and has collapsed into a maudlin heap many times on film. However, the gentle chemistry of the romantic leads, the dexterity with which the film handles the passage of time, and the sincerity of relatable themes refracted through a Lebanese prism make the film an affecting and engaging romantic drama.
Die My Love | TAKE ONE | BFI London 2025
Lynne Ramsay returns to parenthood themes with her fifth feature film, but zeroes in on motherhood and post-partum difficulties with a new specificity for her work. Once again, she captures an underlying dread and low hum of anxiety, perhaps with less sharpness than her previous features. However, Ramsay’s visions of terrible beauty and fraying selves, coupled with an intensely committed performance from Jennifer Lawrence, are as captivating as ever.
Anemone | TAKE ONE | BFI London 2025
ANEMONE is fortunate in being able to call upon Daniel Day-Lewis’s first film performance in eight years. Although Ronan Day-Lewis manages to garner a performance of simmering intensity from his father, their co-written script is flat and opaque to the point of tedium. The younger man shows an eye for an arresting shot choice, but the film’s desperation for a crescendo moment or catharsis comes at the expense of a coherent narrative, theme or mood.
Frankenstein | TAKE ONE | BFI London 2025
As a project he has spoken many times about and has longed to make, FRANKENSTEIN has been billed as the culmination of sorts for Guillermo Del Toro. Indeed, his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s landmark novel feels uniquely his; Del Toro’s story is a heartfelt meditation on the nature of creation and parenthood, with changes from the source that highlight these themes.
Ballad of a Small Player
BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER foregrounds a flashy, wide-eyed performance from Colin Farrell and derives some cinematic beauty from the seedy gaudiness of Macau. Edward Berger’s latest film stakes a lot on these two standout elements, but they turn out to be a flimsy bluff rather than a sure bet. We are introduced to Farrell as Lord Doyle, who has run up an extremely large bill at his hotel in Macau.
LFF25 Shorts: Are You Kidding?
There’s a hint of trepidation in ARE YOU KIDDING?, the title of the London Film Festival’s strand of darkly comedic shorts, which reflects the disquieting uncertainty of the scenarios depicted in each piece of work. The selection spans a wide range of positions on the dark-to-comedic spectrum (sometimes even within the individual shorts themselves). Still, it is uniformly engaging thanks to each film’s capacity to twist and turn narratively.
The Smashing Machine
THE SMASHING MACHINE is the solo directorial debut of Benny Safdie, best known for his collaborations with brother Josh, such as UNCUT GEMS. The combat sport drama is also a showcase for the dramatic work of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, overlapping to some extent with his pre-acting wrestling experience. Whilst the film is accomplished work from everyone involved, and frequently takes an interesting path in telling a common story type, it goes the distance without leaving a lasting impact.
One Battle After Another
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER is Paul Thomas Anderson’s first contemporary film in nearly a quarter of a century. Combining a story embedded in modern America and Western political structures with his proven filmmaking ability has been a long time coming, but the result is a picture that is gripping and entertaining, taking sides in the battle for history without losing its capacity for doubt.
From Ground Zero
Short films presented as an anthology feature present a key critical question: what is gained by presenting the component works of art together? Viewer reaction to different approaches and tones across the set will inevitably vary. Sometimes, the answer is purely a thematic or cultural through line that provides context and knowledge for each other.
Sinners | TAKE ONE | Reviews
Since his debut with FRUITVALE STATION in 2013, it might be easy to lament Ryan Coogler’s move into the franchise filmmaking machine. However, to do so would overlook the creative and intelligent edges he brought to both CREED and BLACK PANTHER; films that were both much better than audiences had any right to expect.
Jurassic World Rebirth
JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH is the seventh entry in a series that resolutely and ironically refuses to die in the way the implied resurrection would require. Instead, Gareth Edwards takes the reins on a new entry that makes a clean break from the characters of the original JURASSIC PARK and JURASSIC WORLD, but not from the increasingly convoluted world that the series inhabits.
Late Shift (Heldin)
Petra Volpe’s LATE SHIFT starts with a laundry production line of nurses’ scrubs. The images are likely to be a comment on the revolving door through which individuals pass in this stressful profession with a high attrition rate. The taut feature, foregrounding an empathetic and pathos-filled performance from Leonie Benesch, builds up the stress of a nurse’s evening with skilful pacing and shot choices.
Hot Milk | TAKE ONE | Reviews
HOT MILK, the directorial debut of Rebecca Lenkiewicz (whose previous writing credits include SHE SAID and Steve McQueen’s SMALL AXE films), is meandering and enigmatic, much like its lead character. Emma Mackey is an engaging screen presence that keeps the film more or less on track in her lead role, but the lack of narrative direction leaves her character, Sofia, and the film to languish in the hot Spanish sun.
Sophia Carr-Gomm on Return
Danny Boyle, attending the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2019 for a screening of his film YESTERDAY, once made a touching observation that film is an especially powerful form of time travel; a snapshot of either real or imagined times, or even an opportunity to reflect on people and places we loved.
28 Years Later | TAKE ONE | Reviews
There is a neatness to 28 DAYS LATER, Danny Boyle’s seminal 2002 feature that kickstarted a new wave of zombie cinema and television. At the height of the COVID pandemic, nearly twenty years after its release, the combination of simple, striking imagery (like the deserted Westminster Bridge) and a lack of heavy-handed allegories allowed the film to flourish with new meaning.
Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning
Since the original feature debuted in 1996, the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE films have evolved in strange, interesting, but nearly always engaging ways across six sequels. With almost thirty years having passed since the first film, the series has lasted much longer than the legendary 5-seconds-until-self-destruction. However, even if this latest spectacle delivers more than a tiny puff of smoke in an 80s tape player, it represents a fizzling out nonetheless.
The Brutalist | TAKE ONE | Reviews
The cinematic construction of THE BRUTALIST is long and complex, but Brady Corbet’s film bears the heavy load with standout aesthetics, characters, performances and script. After a brief but thematically important prologue in which a young girl is interrogated about her ‘true home’, Adrien Brody leads as László Toth, a Holocaust survivor and architect relocating to the USA in the 1940s.
Flow | TAKE ONE | Reviews
FLOW is a beautiful voyage that invites as many questions as it offers answers. A dialogue-free animation that cuts across languages and travels to familiar yet new realms, Gints Zilbalodis’ film is a pure and expressive picture, with profound depths beneath the glimmering surface. The film follows the voyage of a black cat whose homeland – devoid of humans, but not their architecture and landmarks – experiences a flood of biblical extent.
On Falling | TAKE ONE | Reviews
Building on her superb pair of short films, Laura Carreira’s first feature, ON FALLING, achieves the difficult credit of being both a deeply affecting character story and a compelling indictment of how precarious labour markets undermine our communities. The film is spent with Aurora (Joana Santos), a Portuguese expat who works in an online retail distribution warehouse.
Nosferatu | TAKE ONE | Reviews
The vampire myth is so well drawn from by cinema that it must resemble an exsanguinated corpse. The very act of remaking a landmark moment in the medium’s depiction of the undead carries metatextual connotations of reanimated corpses. Robert Eggers’ passion project, NOSFERATU, undertakes this daunting prospect with a level of craft that is remarkably engaging but is let down slightly by the qualities of the more original embellishments to themes and characters it pursues. F. W.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
ON BECOMING A GUINEA FOWL – Rungano Nyoni’s second feature film – is a skilfully constructed balance of tone and expectations. The film finds reason in oddities, truths in ambiguities, and joy despite trauma, all underscored by a superb performance from Susan Chardy. The film opens with Shula (Susan Chardy) stopping her car, exiting it in an elaborate fancy dress, and finding a dead body in the road, one oddly stiff and straight as a board.
Rumours | TAKE ONE | Reviews
RUMOURS is a crude and broad satire which openly mocks the notion of trying to read deeper meaning into its bizarre portrait of feeble world leaders. Guy Maddin’s latest film follows a G7 summit which lurches between banal political inaction and a nonsensical apocalypse. Nevertheless, despite a messy and unfocused narrative trajectory, the depth of absurdity Maddin (and co-directors Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson) offers skewers the modern geopolitical scene better than most.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Jim
Contact Jim, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack