CineVue
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Film Review: ‘The Man Whose Mind Exploded’
★★★☆☆ Descartes believed that nothing ever existed, that everything his mind told him was a lie, and cinema is of course a standing recourse for memory and the unresolved tensions that plague the unconscious. Film’s representation of loss and the yearning chasm for its fulfilment trumps all other attempts at Socratic discourse within other art…
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Film Review: ‘Leave to Remain’
★★★☆☆ Immigration has been a hot topic of late, with the fluidity of British borders given a great deal of political capital. It’s into this atmosphere that the feature debut of documentary man Bruce Goodison arrives in cinemas, delving into the somewhat unexplored subject of teenage asylum seekers in the UK. Part of an ongoing…
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Film Review: ‘Jersey Boys’
★★☆☆☆ Based on the Tony Award-winning musical, in the racier hands of a David O. Russell or Martin Scorsese, Jersey Boys (2014) could have been a real smash hit. Unfortunately, Clint Eastwood was the mismatched director brought in to adapt the stage play for the big-screen. Or, rather, he doesn’t. This is very much a…
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Film Review: ‘Chinese Puzzle’
★★★★☆ Cédric Klapisch’s lively romantic comedy, starring Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou, is the final chapter in his ‘Spanish Apartment Trilogy’ which began with the titular The Spanish Apartment (2002). As the name suggests, Chinese Puzzle (2013) is a colourful mishmash of different characters’ stories, sub-plots and intersecting timelines. There’s also a clever meta-textual commentary…
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Film Review: ‘Bright Days Ahead’
★★★☆☆ Written and directed by Marion Vernoux, making her return to the big-screen after a decade-long hiatus, Bright Days Ahead (2013) is an observant look at the simultaneous pangs and various liberties of ageing, detailing the story of a retiree who goes on something of a personal and sexual reawakening. The François Truffaut alumni and…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Porky’s’
★★★★☆ The Star Wars of smut-tinged coming-of-age comedies, Bob Clark’s Porky’s finally gets a new high-definition lease of life this week courtesy of cult connoisseurs Arrow Video. Unlike The Last American Virgin, another recent acquisition of theirs which covers similar terrain, the years have been much kinder to this 1982 US-set, Canadian-funded production. It’s a…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Nashville’
★★★★★ “This ain’t Dallas, this is Nashville…sing!” This line, spoken after a key event at the end of Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975) is the moment that the real America comes to bear down on this myopic community of narcissists, losers and naïfs. As a delusional plea for calm, it draws the film’s political and personal…
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DVD Review: ‘Last Vegas’
★★★☆☆ Greeted with more than a few sighs of when it was mooted, it was hardly surprising that many saw Jon Turtletaub’s Last Vegas (2013) as a misfire-in-waiting rather than a breezy comedy. But while many were quick to put it down before its release, the film can be considered a success, with good word-of-mouth…
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DVD Review: ‘The Invisible Woman’
★★☆☆☆ “This is a tale of woe; this is a tale of sorrow. A love denied, a love restored, to live beyond tomorrow.” This melancholic soliloquy is the poetic précis for Ralph Fiennes’ The Invisible Woman (2013). A detailed realisation of Claire Tomalin’s eponymous biography, the film depict the early life of Nelly Ternan (Felicity…
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DVD Review: ‘Downhill’
★★★☆☆ British filmmaker James Rouse (best known for his inventive adverts) makes his directorial debut with the lo-fi mockumentary Downhill (2014), the heart-warming tale of four men going through varying stages of mid-life crises as they embark on a coast to coast walk from St. Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay. Pitched as “a road movie,…
