April 2012
-
Film Review: ‘Le Havre’
★★★★☆ It’s been six years since the last cinematic release from Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki (2006’s Lights in the Dusk), and he couldn’t have picked a much better return project than the wonderfully stylish comic drama Le Havre (2011). If Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist (2011) was a part-homage to Hollywood’s silent age, Kaurismäki’s latest functions…
-
Film Review: ‘Titanic 3D’
★★★☆☆ It’s been fifteen years (yes, really) since British actress Kate Winslet and former teen heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio became overnight movie stars thanks to their lead roles in James Cameron’s multi-award winning, box office behemoth Titanic (1997). Now, on the 100-year anniversary of the historic Titanic disaster (10 April, 1912), audiences can revisit Jack and…
-
Film Review: ‘Mirror Mirror’
★★★☆☆ It’s a story almost as old as time itself… no not Snow White, but rather never taking a trailer on face value. Tarsem Singh’s re-imagining, Mirror Mirror (2012) (one of two interpretations of this famous fairy tale due for release this year – the other being Rupert Sanders’ Snow White and the Huntsman), belies…
-
Special Feature: Genesis Cinema launches Studio 5
Earlier this month, the Genesis Cinema opened their brand new luxury screen, Studio 5, and CineVue were lucky enough to be invited to have a sneak peak at this much loved East London cinema’s latest addition. Situated on the run-down Mile End Road in Whitechapel, the Genesis Cinema has a long tradition of providing an…
-
Blu-ray Review: ‘Life is Beautiful’
★★★★☆ Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful (1997) won three Oscars at the 1999 Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Benigni’s performance and Best Original Score for Nicola Piovani’s sumptuous soundtrack, and achieved the kind of commercial success and international visibility that Italian cinema only sporadically enjoys. Benigni himself already had some fame on the world…
-
DVD Review: ‘Murder by Decree’
★★★★☆ This week sees the DVD rerelease of Bob Clark’s hugely enjoyable 1979 Sherlock Holmes crime drama Murder By Decree courtesy of StudioCanal, and starring recent Oscar winner Christopher Plummer and the magnificent James Mason. The film lifts Conan Doyle’s world famous crime fighting duo straight of the page, pitting Holmes (Plummer) and Watson (Mason)…
-
DVD Review: ‘The Paolo Sorrentino Collection’
★★★★☆ With his latest film This Must Be the Place (2011), Italian director Paolo Sorrentino delivers many of his trademark features: scenes of baroque excess, playfully swooping cameras, the pounding energy of rock and roll, and the presence of death in life. His four Italian feature films, gathered together in this Artificial Eye box set,…
-
DVD Review: ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked’
★★★☆☆ Let’s be clear – Mike Mitchell’s Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (2011), which features the vocal talents of Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney, was never going to be a contender for the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Yet the third entry in the now bi-annual film event stormed into cinemas just before…
-
DVD Review: ‘The Adopted’
★★★☆☆ The directorial debut of Mélanie Laurent, star of Beginners (2010) and Quentin Tarantino’s 2009 Nazi romp Inglourious Basterds, The Adopted (Les Adoptés, 2011) sees the alluring French actress adapt her own screenplay for the big screen. Whilst displaying a keen eye for character-based drama and visual direction, Laurent’s film falls foul of the kind…
-
DVD Review: ‘The Deep Blue Sea’
★★★☆☆ Stage-to-screen adaptations represent notoriously treacherous cinematic waters regardless of reputation and critical acclaim, having scuppered the career of many a fine director. 2011 British feature The Deep Blue Sea is the tale of two Terences – Rattigan and Davies – the former being the writer of the original 1952 stage play, the latter the…