Reviews in a nutshell
After playing such an intense and psychologically disturbed young woman in Black Swan, Oscar nominee Natalie Portman deserves a bit of light relief, and Ivan Reitman’s No Strings Attached offers just that – for both actor and viewer alike. Instantly, it has critics convulsing at the very thought of ‘yet another romcom’, and even more …
It’s absolutely true that you need to be of the Twilight teen generation to engage with Gough and co’s screen adaptation of ‘Pittacus Lore’s youth sci-fi novel of the same name. It’s also true that you need to appreciate the ‘crash-bang-wallop’ nature of producer Michael Bay’s films – as in carnage of the metallic kind, …
East Is East (1999) was a breath of British comedy fresh air, a playful and broad-minded but poignantly comical look at the issues of integrating Pakistani culture in 1970s’ Britain, as portrayed through the lives of one Anglo-Pakistani family based in Salford, Greater Manchester. It had tears, laughter and frustrations, triggered through a series of …
How do you review a Justin Bieber film? If you’re a fan, it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference what critics write – you’ve got the screening time, the date and the cinema ticket already. So, this is aimed at the non-fan, the curious, and those yet unaffected by ‘Bieber fever’. Is it worth …
With recent news of 200 RBS bankers possibly getting £1 million pound bonuses each, surely the last thing you’d want to see is a film about these smug fat cats and the global financial meltdown they helped cause. There will be popcorn directed at the screens for sure. But like a taunt fictional thriller – …
You need to pity Martin Lawrence, you really do. Imagine knowing after the second, no, the first film that the franchise you’ve signed up to is a right stinker, and you have to make a third to keep the money men happy. But hey, let’s change the title of the third to fool those who …
If the thought of yet another Pegg–Frost offering turns the stomach, click away now. Paul is the pair’s ultimate geek-worshipping buddy flick, with a little help from fellow US nerd Seth Rogen, voicing Paul. It all sounds distinctly ‘non-Valentine’, the decisive anti-date movie. But if a little bromance, escapism and a good consistency of chuckles …
If there’s a romcom on the horizon, chances are it stars romcom babe Jen Aniston playing her usual tart but loveably dizzy character – not far removed from her Rachel days in fact. So, without knowing much more, the film immediately sparks interest. But Aniston teamed up with manly hunk Gerry Butler in The Bounty …
Alex Garland’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel, Never Let Me Go, is what film festivals and awards ceremonies were made for. Even though the film of the same name gracefully opened the 2010 BFI London Film Festival in October, delivering an example of understated, ethereal British elegance in its style and cinematography, it has …
