Reviews in a nutshell
To be or not to be, that is certainly the subjective question of whether director Roland Emmerich’s new film will excite or disgust. Indeed, with the covering of one of our greatest playwright’s name’s in his hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon in protest of Anonymous, William Shakespeare might be thrilled at the reignited interest in him. In …
George Clooney’s fourth directorial film, The Ides of March, is an enticing ode to yesteryear political thrillers, but it’s also a delightful exercise in intense acting exchanges played out by his stellar main cast of Ryan Gosling, Paul Giamatti and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Although Clooney stars in this, it’s in a supporting capacity. His talent …
Adopting the frantic, hand-held documentary style of other gritty, foreign kitchen-sink offerings, Mexican writer-director Gerardo Naranjo’s explosive look at the dominant drugs culture in his country through the eyes of a young woman, Laura Guerrero (Stephanie Sigman), is a sure-fire festival contender worthy of a look. Laura dreams of being the next Miss Mexico and …
With Indiana Jones getting way past his prime – watching an older Harrison Ford leaping over containers in the opening scenes of the 2008 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull brought tears to the eyes, while the potential of Shia LaBeouf filling his screen father’s boots was silently quash after the same …
Continue reading “The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn”
Influential films featuring an all-female cast are surprisingly few and far between, especially such projects that allow the actors to deliver a career-defining punch. Based on the New York Times best-selling debut novel of the same name from Kathryn Stockett, writer/director Tate Taylor takes its subject matter to heart – he and Stockett are childhood …
Tilda Swinton generally never fails to impress audiences in anything she turns her hand to. Indeed, what can honestly be said about Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s riveting and utterly chilling book, We Need To Talk About Kevin, is that the role was written unquestionably for Swinton – or even the book’s character for …
On face value, Australian author Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty is both a sordid and brave film-making debut that will literally divide opinion. It’s not the nudity that is the main issue for most, rather the treatment of the main character, Lucy, played by Sucker Punch’s Emily Browning that triggers deep feelings of revulsion. At the …
It seems that every film-maker going after the youth market is adding gadgets and robots to films, as if the human interest side of their stories is not enough to keep the younger, video-gaming generation engaged. So it’s great to see a robot film that concentrates on the human relationships for once, and one that …
Author Alexandre Dumas‘s classic novel The Three Musketeers has been done to death, time and time again. None so like this swashbuckling silliness that’s child-friendly and borrows heavily from Gulliver’s Travels and the success of the Pirates franchise. Paul W.S. Anderson’s film centres on young hothead D’Artagnan (Logan Lerman) – as well as lots of …
