Reviews in a nutshell
Welsh director Marc Evans (Patagonia, My Little Eye) returns with a nostalgic take on growing up in small-town Wales in 1976 in the midst of the summer heat and raging hormones. Schooldays films are ten-a-penny and ever enticing as we get to reminisce at a safe distance at the thrills and fears of our teenage …
Thankfully, Paul Giamatti won Best Actor Golden Globe for Barney’s Version, considering the shameful overlook at the Oscar nominations. ‘Best Achievement in Makeup’ nod for Adrien Morot perhaps, but Giamatti is pure dramedy gold as impulsive, self-depreciating and sarcastic love saboteur, Barney Panofsky. This film touches all the right notes and offers some highly animated …
It’s hard not to be a tad cynical about this Oscar-paint-by-numbers offering from director Tony Goldwyn and screenwriter Pamela Gray because that’s just what Conviction is: a shamelessly wanton Academy Awards contender with a double-statuette-winning leading lady in Hilary Swank to boot. It is, nevertheless, watchable. Conviction has the melodrama, the struggle, and the real-life …
