Film Reviews
The AnomalyFriday, 04 July 2014
An anonymous voice screams “Please stop” over the opening credits of Noel Clarke’s sci-fi thriller and after about fifteen minutes of watching it those words are sure to haunt your thoughts, as this dull slog runs out of ideas far too quickly for it to sustain any semblance of tension or real worth. Read more... |
TammyThursday, 03 July 2014
Melissa McCarthy has been one of the decade's most notable comic finds. Although she's been plugging away for years on TV, as a stand-up, in sketch troupe the Groundlings and in various supporting roles, it was Bridesmaids and The Heat which brought her much deserved attention - including an Oscar nomination for her part in the former. Read more... |
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and DisappearedWednesday, 02 July 2014
Despite the profusion of slapstick jappery, explosions, a whimsical veneer and cartoonish portrayals of its characters, The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared is not a film aimed at children. The Swedish blockbuster also includes castration, explicit violence, death by being locked in a freezer and near-the-knuckle racial categorisation. Balancing the picaresque and the macabre, the film ends up as neither one nor the other, or a harmonious hybrid. Read more... |
GoddessTuesday, 01 July 2014
Women everywhere may start cutting loose in their kitchens after seeing Goddess, a sweet if slight Australian film that suggests a hybrid of Mamma Mia! and Shirley Valentine. Read more... |
ChefFriday, 27 June 2014
It’s not unusual for Jon Favreau to go small, despite his reputation for the big hits such as Iron Man, Iron Man 2 and Elf. There was the much-touted squib Cowboys & Aliens alongside the nifty minnows of Made and Very Bad Things. Favreau loves acting and making movies so much that he’s a realist when things go wrong. Read more... |
Mistaken for StrangersThursday, 26 June 2014
Two brothers who are at polar opposites, one an indie rock star, the other a heavy-metal loving, B-movie making slacker who still lives at home with his parents and is longing to find his place in the world, are at the centre of this gleeful, touching and manic rockumentary about The National. Read more... |
The Golden DreamWednesday, 25 June 2014
You can almost feel the dust on your skin in Spanish director Diego Quemada-Diez’s debut feature The Golden Dream. It’s the dust of the precarious journey from Central America towards the US, undertaken by four teenage Guatemalan kids intent on finding a better life north of the final border. Read more... |
Cold in JulyMonday, 23 June 2014
Director Jim Mickle and writing partner Nick Damici made a big splash on the horror scene back in 2007 with fierce debut Mulberry St. Since then they have impressed with low-key apocalyptic vampire flick, Stake Land, and a reimagining of the well-regarded Mexican cannibal horror, We Are What We Are, which they turned into a story of female empowerment and a slight on organised religion. Read more... |
Jersey BoysFriday, 20 June 2014
Given that Jersey Boys is about a singer, Frankie Valli, whose voice - or so we are told within the first five minutes - constitutes "a gift from god", it's a shame Clint Eastwood's film of the stage musical smash hit doesn't feel more heaven-sent. There are thrills to be had across the two hour-plus running time and enough Italian-Americanisms to make audiences feel as if they may have wandered into Goodfellas-lite. Read more... |
Camille Claudel 1915Thursday, 19 June 2014
Camille Claudel was not only Rodin’s student, mistress and muse, but a talented sculptor in her own right. Some years after the two parted, her mental health started to decline. In 1913 her family committed her first to a psychiatric hospital, then an asylum; but their actions appear to have been needless and cruel, the family persistently ignoring doctors’ recommendations that Camille be released. She would remain locked up until her death, some 30 years later. Bruno Dumont’s... Read more... |
The Fault in Our StarsWednesday, 18 June 2014
For a film that begins with the remark "this is the truth, sorry", The Fault in Our Stars could up its honesty quotient. Slickly made and very nicely acted within the confines allowed by the script, Josh Boone's adaptation of John Green's young-adult blockbuster novel nonetheless can't help but sell candour (not to mention plausibility) down a tear-laden river in its tale of young love cut short by cancer. Read more... |
3 Days to KillWednesday, 18 June 2014
Alarm bells jangle when the first thing you see on the screen is a caption saying "CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia". It's the sum of all cliches, and therefore the perfect way to tee off this incoherent pseudo-thriller from director McG which can't decide whether it wants to laugh or cry. The viewer may not share its indecision. Read more... |
Miss ViolenceTuesday, 17 June 2014
Miss Violence opens with an 11th birthday party whose brightly coloured balloons, pointed party hats and forced family jollity might seem unremarkable if a little girl hadn't chosen to stick Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love" on the stereo - not only Cohen at his most sinisterly sensual but a song inspired by the Holocaust. Read more... |
Spring in a Small TownMonday, 16 June 2014
Shanghai director Fei Mu’s final film Spring in a Small Town appeared at the end of an era, coming out in 1948, a year before revolution engulfed China. The subsequent upheaval saw the director branded a “rightist”, or reactionary (he fled to Hong Kong. where he died three years later, aged only 45), and Spring… was shelved for almost three decades, only returned to audiences when a new print was made at the beginning of the Eighties. Read more... |
OculusFriday, 13 June 2014
Karen Gillan’s first Hollywood leading role finds her in the surely unusual position of not liking what she sees in the mirror. Read more... |
BelleThursday, 12 June 2014
Sadly the battle to shape stories from a female perspective, or even to tell stories about women is far from over. The Centre for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University recently found that women represented only 15 percent of protagonists in the 100 top-grossing films of 2013. Read more... |
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