Reviews in a nutshell
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 …
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 …
Watching first-time feature director Niall MacCormick’s Albatross reminds you of Emily Lloyd’s confident and unforgettable performance in the 1987 film Wish You Were Here, complete with smart, sexually explorative teen challenging the small-town, small-mindedness and setting a few older hearts a flutter – there are even similarities in the seaside film poster image. Albatross is …
One of the most moving performances sometimes is when a comedic actor plays it straight. Will Ferrell does so in Dan Rush’s Everything Must Go, a thoughtful and realistically crafted and paced piece of touching drama with subtle additions of humour. Ferrell plays Nick Halsey, an executive salesman and alcoholic who loses his job, his …
SPOILER: As a Brit watching Woody Allen’s latest European muse, the first thing that springs to mind is Only Fools’ Nicholas Lyndhurst’s time-travelling sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart about an accidental time traveller who discovers a time portal, allowing him to travel between the London of the 1990s and the same area during the Second World War. …
Paddy Considine’s first feature film’s subject of domestic violence was never going to be an easy film to watch. But what was unexpected is how powerful a debut Tyrannosaur truly is. It’s almost cathartic in nature and raises questions about the writer-director’s own experiences. Self-destructive widower Joseph (Peter Mullan) comes across charity shop worker Hannah …
Imagine losing your senses, one by one – a too terrifying prospect to contemplate. David Mackenzie’s new drama Perfect Sense plunges you into that nightmare, but suggests that the greatest sense of all, the sense of love, will prevail when everything else shuts down. Set in an alternative Glasgow, chef Michael (Ewan McGregor) falls for …
Controversial film-maker Lars von Trier’s time at Cannes this year will be remembered for all the wrong reasons when his work should have got the lion’s share of the attention – especially as Melancholia is by far the better film than Palme d’Or winner, Malick’s The Tree Of Life. Much to von Trier’s distaste, this …
