Like a road-movie with a flat tire, this is a dull 1950’s journey along Route 66 in the company of a young man, his mother and brother, searching for….well, not much. And they find it – everywhere. Loosely based on the childhood of actor George Hamilton, it’s an overwritten and witless comedy, long on trivial […]
You’ve heard those urban legend horror stories about unsuspecting folk who get picked up in bars and wake up the next morning in a bath full of ice with their kidneys removed? I am terrified something similar might have happened to me – I think I may have had a humour by-pass without realising it. […]
I have long been an admirer of director Lasse Hallstrom, a composed and confident filmmaker who, despite making the ABBA music videos back in the 1970s, has never been seduced by the quick cut or the gritty handheld look. His feature films – from My Life As A Dog and Who’s Eating Gilbert Grape to […]
As elegant and stylish as a 1960’s advertisement for exclusive menswear, A Single Man is more of a showpiece for style than an emotional journey, with fashion-designer turned film director Tom Ford overwhelming Colin Firth’s performance of a bereft man with scene after scene of impeccably beautiful but detached imagery.
What a treat to see and feel an independent American movie that sifts gently across the Western landscape with a heartfelt touch – albeit dusted over with a hazy drift of nostalgia. Based on the novel by Thomas Cobb, actor-turned director Scott Cooper shows a deft hand at focusing on the intimate nature of alcoholic […]
A visceral, gripping and totally absorbing film that follows one man’s life on the front line of bomb disposal, The Hurt Locker will surely take out an Academy Award nomination for Best Director next February. Director Kathryn Bigalow puts you right in the adrenaline rush zone along with the remarkable Jeremy Ranner playing the man […]
You can almost feel Martin Scorsese straining to create some magic in his latest feature Shutter Island, with its pounding music, ominous cinematography, jaw-clenching close-up performances and overblown gothic flashbacks. Sadly the screenplay – a tale of a man losing (or finding?) his mind in a mental asylum - is fatally flawed and the film […]
Despite the hairy production process, Universal Pictures has managed to rescue a half decent chiller in this remake of the 1941 classic B-grade Wolfman that starred Lon Chaney as the man turned beast. With a delayed release caused by producer-director battles over budgets, a sacked director (Mark Romanek), weeks of re-shoots and re-editing, there was […]
Jason Reitman, the young director who previously brought us the caustic Thank you for smoking and the critical and commercial darling Juno, proves himself again adept at intelligent comedy with Up in the Air. In it, George Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a man who has perfected the art of distance. A seasoned corporate traveller, he […]
The producers and distributors of Precious faced an Everest-sized obstacle in making such miserable subject matter palatable. The story of an obese, illiterate and unloved girl growing up in conditions of horrible abuse in Harlem, Precious is a hard sell for audiences. The character of Precious, pregnant at 16 with the second child to her […]
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