2011
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Film Review: ‘This Our Still Life’
★★★★☆ Andrew Kötting returns to screens this week with the wonderfully vivid and emotionally provoking documentary This Our Still Life (2011), courtesy of the BFI. This is a work that is not only innovative in its use of footage and cinematography but it is also incredibly thought provoking. Kötting has made use of a wealth…
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Film Review: Justice
★★☆☆☆ After last week’s cinematic flop Trespass (2011), Nicolas Cage returns to screens this Friday to star in Roger Donaldson’s Justice (2011) (AKA Seeking Justice in the US), a film that somehow manages to set the bar even lower for Cage’s career, whilst doing no favours to co-stars Guy Pearce and January Jones. Cage plays…
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Film Review: ‘Magic Trip’
★★★★☆ In 1964, Ken Kesey – author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – set off on a LSD-fuelled road trip to the New York World’s Fair. He was joined by ‘The Merry Band of Pranksters’ a renegade group of counter-culture truth-seekers including Neal Cassady, the American icon immortalised in Jack Kerouac’s On the…
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Film Review: ‘Welcome to the Rileys’
★★☆☆☆ Released over a year after premiering in the US, Jake Scott’s (son of Ridley Scott) Welcome to the Rileys (2010) sees James Gandolfini play Doug Riley, a mild-mannered businessman stuck in a rut. After having lost their daughter eight years previously, Doug and wife Lois (Melissa Leo) share a pale imitation of a marriage.…
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DVD Review: ‘Charlie Chaplin: The Collection’
★★★★★ It’s been a hundred and twenty two years since his birth and the little tramp continues to carve an impact on cinema, or at least the DVD market, as Park Circus’ Charlie Chaplin: The Collection is released this week. Wisely avoiding claims like the ‘ultimate’ or ‘complete’, this latest release brings together eleven films…
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DVD Review: ‘Page One: Inside the New York Times’
★★★★☆ Page One: Inside The New York Times (2011) is a vital, timely, and utterly fascinating documentary. It works as both a profile of the American newspaper of record, and a bleak examination of an industry nosediving into a profitless future. By squaring his focus on the media desk of the Grey Lady, director Andrew…
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DVD Review: ‘Five Minarets in New York’
★★☆☆☆ In its attempt to address the controversial subject of the world’s paranoia towards Islam, Mahsun Kirmizigül’s Five Minarets in New York (2010) somehow manages to hit all the wrong notes with its lack of subtlety and preachy tone.Like so many post 9/11 films, which have set out to tackle the theme of Islam’s relationship…
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DVD Review: ‘Gigola’
★★★☆☆ Laure Charpentier’s Gigola (2010) premiered at last year’s London Gay and Lesbian Film Festival to riotous applause. Starring newcomer Lou Doillon as an immaculately presented tomboy and empowered prostitute, Gigola is a refreshing piece of gay cinema which oozes with Parisian charm and eroticism.Georgina’s (Doillon) burgeoning sexuality is awoken by a passionate affair with…
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DVD Review: ‘Bridesmaids’
★★★★☆ Since it began in the late 1970s, Saturday Night Live has consistently produced some of America’s best comedy writers, several of whom have moved effortlessly into film with great results. The likes of Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, John Belushi and Mike Myers have all graduated from the TV sketch show and are now followed…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Maniac Cop’
★★★☆☆ Some titles say it all, and Maniac Cop (1988) – starring cult movie icon Bruce Campbell – would fall into that category. There’s a maniac cop on the streets of New York, killing people, dressed as a cop…and he’s a maniac. Detective McCrae (Tom Atkins) believes the culprit – as well as being a…