Jamie Neish
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Film Review: ‘Sunshine on Leith’
★★★☆☆ Inspired by the discography of The Proclaimers and based on Stephen Greenhorn’s stage hit, Dexter Fletcher’s Sunshine on Leith (2013) is a convivial and well-shot musical that forms a narrative and articulates the variable emotions of its characters through upbeat, crowd-pleasing pop songs to varying degrees of success. Fresh from a tour in Afghanistan,…
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Film Review: ‘The Smurfs 2’
★★☆☆☆ Released in the late summer of 2011, Raja Gosnell’s The Smurfs made an astonishing (and not to be snivelled at) $560 million at the worldwide box office, despite a lukewarm critical response. So, in that respect, The Smurfs 2 (2013) seemed inevitable. And, without doubt, a mere two years later and Belgian comics artist…
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Glasgow 2013: John Dies at the End review
★★★☆☆ Don Coscarelli’s 2012 adaptation of David Wong’s cult novel John Dies at the End (the sequel to which, This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It, was released last October) appeared at this year’s Glasgow Film Festival having reportedly run into problems with its UK distribution; a sad turn of events,…
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DVD Review: ‘The Perks of Being a Wallflower’
★★★★☆ Stephen Chbosky makes his directorial debut with an adaptation of self-penned coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012). Knowing the material inside out and with the help of a talented cast, Chbosky is able to craft a realistic, amusing and nostalgic drama that’s not afraid to touch on darker themes. Charlie (Logan…
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Film Review: ‘Warm Bodies’
★★★★☆ Jonathan Levine, writer-director of 50/50 (2011) and The Wackness (2008), turns the zombie movie sub-genre on its head to successful, heartwarming and humorous results with Warm Bodies (2013), an adaptation of Isaac Marion’s bestselling post-apocalyptic novel. In a world ravaged by an unknown plague that’s left most of the population as undead, brainless corpses, R…
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DVD Review: ‘The Joy of Six’
★★★★☆ Short films have never had quite the same attention placed upon them as feature length films. However, with a new scheme launched by New British Cinema Quarterly, in partnership with independent distributors Soda Pictures, it seems that’s set to change in a very positive way. The Joy of Six (2012), a collection of six…
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Film Review: ‘Gangster Squad’
★★☆☆☆ Taking a break from zombies and delivery boys, director Ruben Fleischer fashions a stylised and star-studded, yet vacuous entry into the cops vs. mob genre with Gangster Squad (2013). Disappointingly, the American director tries far too hard to recreate 1987’s The Untouchables for the modern day audience, instead of making an engaging, moody and…
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Film Review: ‘The Impossible’
★★★★☆ Five years after making a powerful impression with terrifying ghost story The Orphanage (2007), Spanish writer and director Juan Antonio Bayona turns his attention to the tsunami that wreaked havoc on thousands of unsuspecting victims on December 26, 2004. Though not an immediate horror, The Impossible (2012) shares several similarities with The Orphanage, most…
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Special Feature: Ken Loach wins big at Scottish Baftas
The Scottish Baftas took place at Glasgow’s upmarket Radisson Blu Hotel last night where host Edith Bowman, an assortment of Scottish film and television personalities and five hundred guests were on hand to honour and celebrate the very best of film, TV and games over the past twelve months. After a red carpet that was…
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DVD Review: ‘Men in Black 3’
★★☆☆☆ Fifteen years after the first instalment and following an extensive and not to mention turbulent development period that spanned numerous years, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones finally find themselves donning their black attire once more as Agents J and K for Men in Black 3 (2012). The film, which finds director Barry Sonnenfeld…