Reviews in a nutshell
As everyone knows from nature programmes alone, ‘Hell hath no fury like a Mummy scorned’. After creeping out audiences back in 1992 in The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, then-maternal Rebecca De Mornay proves she’s still got the superior chill factor to scare the living daylights out of you in Saw director Darren Lynn Bousman’s …
Methodical in technique, Fred Cavayé‘s astoundingly astute eye for action-thriller writing/directing makes Point Blank one of the most lean, well-paced and credible international films of the genre in recent years. French film-makers have a born flair for this category, mixing heightened emotion with electrifying suspense, and Point Blank is no exception. But it’s far from …
Temptation is the name of the game of The Jacket writer Massy Tadjedin’s quietly profound directorial debut, Last Night. The temptation of such an intriguingly sexy and good-looking cast of Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes and French actor Guillaume Canet is the film’s obvious draw, and what drives a story full of acute observations …
Every girl dreams of Prom and fantasises about the hunk they’ll go with. Who better to deliver the fairy tale than Disney with its credit sheet that includes the mighty Glee and High School Musical? Even though this is another ‘paint-by-numbers’ coming-of-age tale, Prom is sweet natured and likable enough with a band of vanilla …
The wolf pack is back in another pickle, having not learned their lesson last time, it seems. What is it with weddings that it brings out the worst in Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), Alan (Zach Galifianakis) and Doug (Justin Bartha), resorting them to drink themselves into oblivion and make amends afterwards in the …
At the start of the Win Win trailer, the young daughter asks: what’s Daddy running away from? It’s this kind of probing question that many of us have asked from time to time, and this is writer/director Thomas McCarthy‘s great talent: observing reality and picking up on daily human reaction and resilience, without resorting to …
Writer/director director Guillem Morales has a great talent for horror that fantasy-horror maestro and co-producer of this film, Guillermo del Toro has recognised. Morales is certainly welcomed into the del Toro fold, here, as he comes on board to direct del Toro’s The Orphanage leading lady, the mesmerising Belén Rueda, in this richly layered, beautifully-shot, …
Ah, the gritty underbelly of South-East London, where every copper is as mean as Jason Statham, every traditional pub has a man with a dog (or two), and every corner has a loony lurking in its shadows. Nathan Parker’s (Moon) adaptation of Ken Bruen’s novel, Blitz, couldn’t get more clichéd if it was a Guy …
There will inevitably be those weeping into their Sara Gruen novel of the same name after writer Richard LaGravenese’s film adaptation – even though the author swears nothing in the screen version diminishes her best-selling tale. And on the whole, Gruen is right. Water For Elephants recreates the story’s magical, old-fashioned love affair full of …
