Martyn Conterio
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Film Review: Bad Neighbours 2
★★★☆☆ After the execrable filth that was Dirty Grandpa, Zac Efron – an actor with enough movie star wattage to light up an entire city – needed redemption. Fortunately, for him as much as us, he’s gone and found it in a New Bromantic comedy sequel to the unexpectedly delightful Bad Neighbours. The films are…
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DVD Review: Valentino
★★★★☆ Bold casting, high production values, glitzy cinematography and over-the-top direction. It can only mean one thing: Ken Russell filming the life story of Rudolph Valentino, doomed Latin lover of the silent movie era. His death in 1926, aged 31, was among the most sensational and unexpected events of the Jazz Age. Valentino was arguably…
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Film Review: Dirty Grandpa
★☆☆☆☆ Dan Mazer’s Dirty Grandpa sets up its stall as an irreverent and defiantly non-PC comedy vehicle for Robert De Niro. At least that’s the idea and intention. And we all know what the road to hell is paved with, right? What actually unfolds across a hard slog 102 minutes is a dumb, mean-spirited and…
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Film Review: 13 Hours
★★☆☆☆ Michael Bay dialling it back still leaves plenty of room for bombast, bombs and baloney. 13 Hours isn’t a shrill Fox News version of recent world events exactly, but it makes no bones about the failings of the Obama administration, intelligence gatherings screw-ups and funding cutbacks which led to the kind of minor-calamity-turned-into-a-political- hot-potato…
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DVD Review: We Are Your Friends
★☆☆☆☆ Cole (Zac Efron) keeps a poster of Al Pacino in Scarface on a wall in his San Fernando Valley bungalow, a pad he shares with his bros. Ever since Brian De Palma’s 1983 gangster flick emerged with renewed vigour in the early 21st century, as a figure of cultural inspiration, Tony Montana has become…
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Film Review: Le Mépris
★★★★★ Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 classic Le Mépris deserves to be seen on the big screen. There, it can ravish the senses and connect with the viewer in a way that is utterly lost on a television set. Godard’s film must surely rank as one of the best movie experiences of all time. It is that…
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Film Review: Peggy Guggenheim
★★★☆☆ Scion to one of America’s great families, the Guggenheims, Peggy – daughter of Benjamin, the multimillionaire who famously sank with the Titanic, smoking a stogie and having a nip of brandy has ice-cold Atlantic water deluged the stricken boat – became famous in her own right for a mighty art collection and ‘discovering’ Jackson…
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Film Review: Sunset Song
★★★★★ Terence Davies is our greatest cinematic poet, yet he has very often struggled bringing projects to the screen. As many directors are well aware, critical acclaim and gushing reviews on release day are simply not enough. Other factors come into play. The business of cinema is neither logical nor sound. It’s something close to…
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DVD Review: ‘Mr. Holmes’
★★★★☆ At the heart of Mr. Holmes (2015) lies that old John Ford maxim about printing the legend. Bill Condon’s film is an investigation into the trouble caused by creative licence and bending the truth. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character of course, but even so, but as an examination of facts and falsehoods, logic…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘Hellraiser: Scarlet Box’
★★★★★ Clive Barker’s S&M Gothic fantasia has been poorly served (tainted even) by a string of DTV sequels. The Liverpool-born horror visionary’s Cenobites and Lament Configuration are without a shadow of a doubt among the most compelling creations in all of literature and genre cinema. The Pope of Pain – that’s Pinhead (played by Doug…