CineVue
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DVD Review: ‘Avatar’
★★★★☆ For those who caught James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) during the film’s cinematic release, this was most likely the first thought to have entered your warped minds as you left the local multiplex/IMAX. Now released for the small screen on 2D formats DVD and Blu-ray, the world of Pandora is still unlike anything you will have seen before. Pandora’s exotic flora and fauna…
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Special Feature: Dazed and Confused
‘Generation Y’, filled to the brim with jobless university graduates and unemployed professionals are currently facing a very thinly-spread job market. According to the world’s media, what seemed like a very promising generation is now on the verge of becoming ‘lost’. Is it out of our hands? Maybe so, but a dip into the past…
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Udine 2010: ‘Sophie’s Revenge’ review
★★★★☆ Conforming to the usual fun-filled predictability of the romantic-comedy genre, as well as the big budget aesthetics and laugh out loud humour associated with lead actress/director Eva Jin, Sophie’s Revenge (2009) shows us that whatever Hollywood can do Asian Cinema can more than match. Whether you consider this ethos as positive or negative will largely determine…
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Special Feature: South Korean cinema
Much like the Silk Road that twists its ancient path through vast continents and difficult terrains, South Korea’s cinematic trade has battled against harsh adversities since the division of Korea. Born amidst an ongoing political antithesis between the Communist North state and the Capitalist South and in the aftermath of the both the Second World…
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Theatrical Releases: ‘Date Night’
Date Night (2010), starring US comedy heavy weights Tina Fey (30 Rock) and Steve Carell (The American Office), is the latest comic offering from Night at the Museum (2006) director Shawn Levy. Taking a break from the ‘family-fun’ franchise Levy takes the helm on this comedy of errors (or rather of mistaken identity) set in New York…
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Theatrical Releases: ‘Repo Men’
The title Repo Men brings Darren Lynn Bousman’s Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) to mind and indeed the two films share some significant similarities. Both take place in a not too distant future, where organs are sold on credit and repossessed if the patent falls behind on his payments; both boast significantly visceral scenes of gore and grotesque…
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Special Feature: The ‘DreamWorks disease’
Where have all the orphans gone? In the grand tradition of children’s literature (and therefore, children’s films – now more than ever, it is inconceivable that there could be one without the other), the first obstacle any writer needs to vault over, sidestep or obliterate is the matter of the parents. By its very nature,…
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Special Feature: Middle East meets West
There are many things that the United Arab Emirates is famous for. Recent financial meltdown aside, the UAE is home to the world’s tallest building, gargantuan man-made islands and many a finely-tuned supercar. But few have pegged the UAE as the owner of an up-and-coming, burgeoning movie industry. On the few occasions that Dubai, Abu…
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DVD Review: ‘Dorian Gray’
★★★☆☆ Based on the influential novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by visionary writer Oscar Wilde, Oliver Parker’s take on the Gothic classic interestingly focuses on the idea of celebrity rather than the generic horror you would expect. If you anticipate a straight page-for-page adaptation, or an expansion of the Gray we see featured in 2003’s…
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Film Review: Kakera: A Piece of Our Life
★★★★☆ There are films you love, films you hate and films that, quite frankly, leave you more perplexed than George W. Bush with a bumper book of Sudoku. Kakera – A Piece of Our Life (2009) is likely to fall into that latter category for many people, as Momoko Ando’s directorial debut is certainly something…