Film reviews and more
★★★☆☆ A dour, yet poetic eulogy for a country still scarred by over a century of war, civil dispute and harsh dictatorship, Alexander Proshkin’s Redemption (Expiation, 2012) examines the seeds of destruction sewn within a populace still struggling to recover form the turbulent chapter of Soviet rule. On the first New Year’s Eve […]
★★★☆☆ It would be easy to dismiss People Like Us (2012), the debut feature from Alex Kurtzman, as yet another mushy family drama that contains more sentimentality than your average Nicholas Sparks novel. Yet beneath the prolonged stares and hammy piano score lies an enjoyable, emotive drama. Sam Harper (in a winning performance […]
★★★☆☆ Reputedly based on a true story and adapted from the 2005 hit stage play, Wayne Blair’s comic drama The Sapphires (2012) sees popular Irish comedian Chris O’Dowd and Australian Idol runner-up Jessica Mauboy combine in this feelgood, yet flawed period effort. Set at the start of 1968, three young, talented aboriginal sisters […]
★★☆☆☆ Starring the American Pie franchise’s Jason Biggs and Joel David Moore, director Stephen Gyllenhaal’s Grassroots (2012) is a politically charged, buddy movie adaptation of Phil Campbell’s semi-biographical novel Zioncheck for Presidents: A True Story of Idealism and Madness in American Politics. In 2001, unemployed music critic and amateur political activist Grant Cogswell […]
★★★★☆ Ben Affleck continues his remarkable rise to prominence as one of America’s brightest young directors with Argo (2012), a nerve-wrenching, exemplary example of the type of engrossing thrillers we should really be expecting more of from Hollywood. Based on the true story of the exfiltration of six US Embassy staff members from […]
★★★★☆ My Brother the Devil (2012), the first feature from director Sally El Hosaini, tells a tale that we have seen before, but with the addition of some controversial and compelling themes she makes a tired genre fresh again. Two teenage brothers, the younger Mo (Fady Elsayed) and the elder Rashid (James Floyd), […]