There’s nothing quite so nostalgic as going back in time – remembering what could have been, where life’s turning points happened, recalling old loves and best days. The idea of someone starting life old and living life backwards – getting younger each day – seems a strong premise for a film, and it’s the core […]
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Occasionally – far too occasionally – a film comes along that once again reminds you of the power of the cinematic experience: how movement, composition, light, colour and music can be stunningly shaped to create the most exquisite drama. Director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Millions) is no stranger to style and has never […]
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One of the most prodigious filmmakers of the last forty years, Woody Allen has had as many misses as hits in his long career – particularly in the last ten years. He churns out his films – one a year – and more often than not writes himself into the story, playing some version of […]
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Those of you with no children or teenagers in the house, or the houses of anyone you have ever met, may have missed the phenomenon that is High School Musical, the 2006 made-for-TV movie from Disney that broke all sorts of sales and viewing records, and spawned a fairly average though equally lucrative sequel in […]
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About fifty years ago, Twentieth Century-Fox came to the Australian outback to make a film called Kangaroo – a lavish epic in the Western tradition, and the first movie to be shot in Technicolour in Australia. It was an epic tale of an English adventurer, an evil plan to take control of a drought-stricken cattle […]
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With Bond’s action to the left of you and Baz’s epic to the right, you might want to take a dip into this thoughtful and intimate portrait of a man slowly warming to the beauty of life as he shakes off the ghosts of a family lost in the Holocaust.
Based on an award-winning novel by […]
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Chinese director Wong Kar-Wai is well known for his lush stylistics, and the opening sequence of My Blueberry Nights is an exercise in texture, with deeply layered, slow shutter cinematography shot through glass and fabric, all in a glow of reds and oranges and neon blues. Lost in the steam bath of colour and light […]
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The back-to-basics reimagining of the James Bond franchise that producer Barbara Broccoli began with Casino Royale in 2006 continues to pay off with Quantum of Solace. Showbusiness industry newspaper Variety reports the film scored the biggest ever opening weekend for a Bond film, taking in US$70.4M, a whopping 74% up on predecessor Casino Royale’s 2006 […]
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More than any other, the horror and supernatural thriller genres spawn movie franchises, with brands like Friday the 13th, Saw, and The Omen as difficult to kill off as the evil power that lurks at the heart of their stories. Much of the attraction for filmmakers is their immunity to poor reviews: despite what the […]
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Does Guy Ritchie – audacious creator of cockney gangster films Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch – have anything more to say to the world? Not much. RocknRolla is a self conscious re-working of his now familiar style and storyworld – but this time without the charm that pervaded the central characters of […]
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