Reviews in a nutshell
The British 1971 original by Sam Peckinpah both appalled and enthralled an unsuspecting audience, like an unwanted mirror held up to reflect some of the most primitive and raw human nature ever captured on screen when the chips are down. There was a distinct difference between the act of rape as one of empowerment, as …
Gattaca writer-director Andrew Niccol is normally apt at looking at current social issues in a near-future or parallel sci-fi world context. In Time appears to explore our obsession with youth, the death of urgency and the distribution of wealth – the latter being very topical at present with the global ‘Occupy’ anti-capitalist protests. However, Niccol’s latest …
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 …
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 …
“Establishment is flawed. Down with the establishment!” appears to be Kevin Smith‘s defining and sinister mantra in his Tarantino-esque Red State, done with brutal and twisted irony in a hail of righteous bullets. Its cynicism both cultivates and dissipates the bouts of humour in one of Smith’s most radical yet frank pieces of film-making yet …
The role of retired Mossad secret agent Rachel Singer in John Madden’s new espionage thriller, The Debt, is a highly fitting one for the immense on-screen talent, presence and investigative skills of actress Helen Mirren, no stranger to weeding out corrupt elements of society in her stint as TV’s Supt. Jane Tennison. But those banking …
Lucky McKee’s new horror The Woman is 2011’s very own I Spit on Your Grave for fuelling post-viewing debate and controversy. It is a love-hate piece of film-making designed to revolt, but also to allow us to reflect. To describe it as a “look into the darkness of human nature” gives it a purpose and …
Beginning like an updated version of Gone in Sixty Seconds, Bronson director Nicolas Winding Refn’s new action drama Drive puts its slick wheels in motion for a supposed heist flick, but settles into a dark ride of disturbing but exhilarating control. Driver (Ryan Gosling) is a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman for …
