April 2012
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Film Review: ‘Blackthorn’
★★★☆☆ There is a great deal of charm to be found in Spanish director Mateo Gil’s Blackthorn (2011), a majestically-shot, well-performed western starring Sam Shepard (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford [2007]) and Eduardo Noriega (Open Your Eyes [1997]) that revisits the legend of Butch Cassidy.Devoid of the camp humour of…
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Film Review: ‘Battleship’
★★☆☆☆ Those who have seen the bombastic trailers for Peter Berg’s Battleship (2012) – the latest big screen adaptation of a Hasbro product, following in the footsteps of the lucrative Transformers franchise – will know exactly what to expect from this Hollywood blockbuster. Based on the popular strategic board game of the same name, this…
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Film Review: ‘The Cabin in the Woods’
★★★★☆ The Cabin in the Woods (2011) is the latest offering from the pen of Joss Whedon, creator of hit TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and director of the forthcoming Avengers Assemble (2012), and also marks the directorial debut of co-writer Drew Goddard. The film worships unashamedly at the altar of horror, whilst simultaneously…
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DVD Review: ‘Jitters’
★★★☆☆ For all intensive purposes, Baldvin Zophoníasson’s Jitters (Órói, 2010) seems like little more than an Icelandic interpretations of Channel 4’s Skins – a coming of age drama full of rambunctious adolescent misbehaviour. However, whilst easy to pigeon-hole as a piece of teenage cultural trash, if you give Zophoníasson’s nuanced film an opportunity you’ll discover a powerfully emotive and…
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DVD Review: ‘Swinging with the Finkels’
★☆☆☆☆ Romantic comedy Swinging with the Finkels (2011) is the latest tedious offering from director Jonathan Newman and features Martin Freeman, future star of Peter Jackson’s twin movie big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit. Ellie (Mandy Moore) and Alvin (Freeman) Finkel are a young couple that have lost the spark in their marriage. Desperate to shake…
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DVD Review: ‘Sensation’
★★★☆☆ If asked to name an Irish comedy from 2011, John Michael McDonagh’s debut feature The Guard, starring Brendan Gleeson, would spring to most people’s minds. Lesser-known Irish offering Sensation (2010) also hit our screens last year, starring Gleeson’s son Domhnall Gleeson in the lead role. Whilst Sensation lacks the punch of The Guard in…
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DVD Review: ‘Switch’
★★☆☆☆ Frédéric Schoendoerffer’s Switch (2011) stars Karine Vanasse as Sophie Malaterre, a 25-year-old suffering from a case of mistaken identity, and Eric Cantona as Damian Forgeat, the detective assigned to investigate the murder she has been accused of. In Canada, Sophie is stuck in rut until an acquaintance recommends a house switching website to liven…
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DVD Review: ‘Las Acacias’
★★★★☆ Following a strong 2011 festival run, picking up the Camera d’Or prize at Cannes and the Sutherland Trophy at the BFI London Film Festival, Argentinian director Pablo Giorgelli’s delicate road movie Las Acacias (2011) comes to DVD this week, losing none of the heartfelt appeal and unspoken warmth of its cinematic incarnation.Effectively a chamber…
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DVD Review: ‘The Portuguese Nun’
★★★★☆ World cinema darling Leonor Baldaque stars in Eugene Green’s The Portuguese Nun (2009), an unconventional adaptation of the 17th century text Letters of a Portuguese Nun – a collection of love notes which begin passionately before slowly filtering through varying conflicts of faith, feelings of despair and eventually tragedy. Rising French actress Julie (Baldaque)…
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Film Review: ‘The Cold Light of Day’
★☆☆☆☆ There were no press screenings for Mabrouk El Mechri’s action thriller The Cold Light of Day (2012), which stars Henry Cavill, Sigourney Weaver and Bruce Willis. This usually means that the film is not especially good, and that the studio is dropping it onto unsuspecting audiences in the hopes of recouping as much money…
