2014
-
Film Review: ‘Maidan’
★★★★☆ In his fantastic new documentary, Maidan (2014), revered Belarusian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa presents the public protest that eventually led to the toppling of the Ukranian premiere, Viktor Yanukovych, through a number of dichotomies. It is rigorous but unhurried; cool but compelling; faceless but personal; old-fashioned reportage and formally challenging modern cinema. Kiev’s Maidan Nezalezhnosti…
-
Film Review: ‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1’
★★★☆☆ The Hunger Games has become a cultural phenomenon over the past seven years with Suzanne Collins’ alternative visions of gender and class inspiring audiences both young and old. Some fans can even be seen adorned in ‘Down with the Capitol’ t-shirts. However, with the franchise’s penultimate instalment, Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1 (2014), Collins’…
-
Film Review: The Homesman
★★★★☆ Tommy Lee Jones’ second directorial effort following the underrated The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (which played at Cannes in 2005), The Homesman (2014) is something of a reverse western, with homesteader Mary Bee Cuddy (a sterling turn from Hilary Swank) and amoral old-timer George Briggs (Jones) heading from west to east with a…
-
Film Review: ‘Get On Up’
★★★★☆ Chadwick Boseman’s portrayal of James Brown, in Tate Taylor’s candid biopic, Get On Up (2014), is a bold, brash and innovative rendition of a man who was often perceived as all ego. He was a market-machine of tremendous talent at the forefront of music, making you love him with the fury of a hellfire…
-
DVD Review: ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’
★★☆☆☆ One can only hope that the subtitle appended to the latest instalment of Michael Bay’s colossal computer-generated Rock’ Em Sock ‘Em franchise actually heralds its true ending. With Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) Michael Bay has delivered another deafeningly loud and schlocky picture, full of the explosions and glib dialogue that have bonded him…
-
Blu-ray Review: ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’
★★★★★ Four decades after its release, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) still justifies its place in the pantheon of all-time horror greats. Fully ingrained in the psyche of genre fans via the many manifestations of real world-inspired horror directly indebted to it, the film’s influence still ripples through pop culture to this day (see the…
-
DVD Review: ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’
★★★☆☆ After 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon proved to be one of the more entertaining entries in the previous decade’s proliferation of animated features – as well as arguably one of the few genuinely decent DreamWorks Animation products – its inevitable sequel, How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014) sees the company exploring the…
-
DVD Review: ‘Grand Central’
★★★☆☆ Both the romance and the electrons are charged in Rebecca Zlotowski’s Grand Central (2013), a French melodrama about illicit love in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. Tahar Rahim is Gary, a working class nomad who finds a job decontaminating aging cores at a rural power station. It’s better paid than normal, but…
-
Blu-ray Review: ‘The Day the Earth Caught Fire’
★★★☆☆ It’s amazing how in the space of fifty odd years public taste and opinions have changed. Take for instance the classic Science Fiction thriller The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) – newly restored and released on DVD and Blu-ray to coincide with the BFI’s Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder season (running from…
-
DVD Review: ’22 Jump Street’
★★★★☆ That 21 Jump Street (2012) – a cinematic reboot of a vaguely remembered, Johnny Depp-starring eighties TV crime show – was met with the amount of praise that it was is testament to directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. It cannily mixed their particularly madcap sense of humour with a wealth of successful ingredients,…