Film reviews and more
★★☆☆☆ Messy, disorganised and far from an ideal way to start a film festival – this statement could as easily be applied to the scenes of furious construction currently taking place in London’s Leicester square as it can to the […]
★★★☆☆ This week sees the cinematic rerelease (ahead of its Blu-ray release on 17 Oct) of Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s modern day fairytale Amélie (2001), the film that launched the career of Audrey Tautou in the role of the eponymous Parisian waitress, Amélie […]
★★★☆☆ Niall MacCormick’s British coming of age drama Albatross (2011) eloquently portays the collision between Emelia, a charming wayward teen played by Jessica Brown Findlay and the dysfunctional Fischer family, headed up by Julia Ormond and Sebastian Koch. The film […]
★★☆☆☆ Ami Canaan Mann’s (daughter of Michael Mann) debut film Texas Killing Fields (2011) is a run-of-the-mill police procedural, which really has no place this year’s Venice Film Festival. Detectives Souder (Sam Worthington) and Heigh (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) are investigating […]
★★★★☆ Winner of the Best Debut Feature award at this year’s Raindance Film Festival, Viktor Chouchkov’s Tilt (2011) may well be flawed and occasionally cringe-worthy, but it’s also fantastically fun and formally assured. Set in the late 1980s as Bulgaria’s […]
★★☆☆☆ Firstly, don’t be fooled by the UK quad poster (adorned with biohazard insignia) and casting of Cillian Murphy – for better or worse, Carl Tibbetts’ debut feature Retreat (2011) is in no shape or form a suitable partner piece […]
★★★☆☆ The Greatest Movie Ever Sold (2011) is the latest documentary from Morgan Spurlock, whose previous films include the light-hearted Super Size Me (2004) and Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (2008). Spurlock now focuses on the world […]
★★☆☆☆ This week sees 1984 musical drama Footlose return to the big screen, in a brand new adaptation. Directed by Craig Brewer, this modern remake features the dancing talents of newcomers Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough alongside well-known stars Dennis […]
★★☆☆☆ Like the life of Nick Halsey (Will Ferrell), the central character round whose mid-life crises Everything Must Go (2010) revolves, the directorial debut from Dan Rush ambles about with no real direction. Even solid – all be it brief […]
★★★★☆ Everything about Real Steel (2011) reeks of epic failure. The trailer is horrific, Hugh Jackman hasn’t made a decent film since Christopher Nolan’s supremely underrated The Prestige (2006) and as for director Shawn Levy, his CV is stained by […]
★★★☆☆ Prepare to swash your buckles, or whatever dashing matinee idols do these days. Directed by Paul W. S. Anderson – and starring Orlando Bloom, Milla Jovovich, Luke Evans, Ray Stevenson, Matthew MacFayden and Logan Lerman – The Three Musketeers […]