Reviews
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Film Review: ‘Horrible Bosses’
★★★★☆ Hot on the heals of gross-out comedy Bridesmaids (2011) comes Seth Gordon’s Horrible Bosses (2011). Friends Nick, Dale and Kurt share a common problem: they all hate their bosses. Nick (Jason Bateman) works for tyrannical Mr Harken (Kevin Spacey), who shamelessly bullies and torments him. Dale (Charlie Day) is a dental nurse and his…
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Film Review: ‘Beginners’
★★★★☆ Mike Mills’ Beginners (2010) is an incredibly intelligent and sensitive film; it is well made, carefully thought out and has bags of quirky humour. The plot focus on a graphic designer Oliver whose world is shaken to its core when he finds out firstly that his father, Hal (played with camp relish by Christopher…
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Film Review: ‘The Lavender Hill Mob’
★★★★☆ In celebration of its 60th anniversary, the truly brilliant British heist film directed by Charles Crichton, The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) has been digitally restored, rendering its image just as sharp as its Oscar-winning screenplay. The story centres upon Henry Holland (Alec Guiness) a timid bank agent with twenty years of low key service…
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Film Review: ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2’
★★★★☆ The Hogwarts Quidditch pitch dwindles in flames. Death Eaters mercilessly attack students with hexes and killing curses in the blazing courtyard. Stone soldiers battle giant trolls whilst fending off a huge army of bloodthirsty wizards. Harry Potter, our haggard hero, watches in horror as his beloved school crumbles around him, coming to the realisation…
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DVD Releases: ‘The Round Up’
Rose Bosch’s The Round Up (2010) retells the story of the infamous Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup during the Second World War where over 13,000 Parisian Jews, including 4000 children, were dragged out of their homes and forced to endure the inhumane conditions of life in the now notorious Vel’ d’Hiv stadium.The atrocities depicted within The Round…
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DVD Review: ‘Bane’
★☆☆☆☆ Fresh off a purportedly successful festival run, James Eaves’ Bane (2009) is an unfocused, inexcusably poor horror movie that fails to raise even a single hair or goosebump throughout its tedious and overextended two hour duration. Centring around four women entrapped in a cell – all having completely lost their memories – our female…
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Blu-ray Review: ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’
★★★★★ It’s a shame to think of a legendary director as a soulless till-ringer, but ever since 2005 Steven Spielberg’s films have been nothing but disappointing moneyspinners. Throughout his entire career there have been peaks and troughs, but he’s never been quite this consistently poor. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)…
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DVD Releases: ‘You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger’
It pains me to give a Woody Allen film a meagre two stars. I thought long and hard about the good aspects of You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) – a host of well respected actors including Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Naomi Watts and Josh Brolin, plus the fact that this was to…
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Film Review: ‘Super’
★★★★☆ First up, James Gunn’s Super (2010) is not a rip off of Kick-Ass (2010). Sure they are both films about somebody without super powers who dresses up in a silly costume and decides to fight crime but that is about all they have in common. Kick-Ass is pure light entertainment and a fun ride…
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Film Review: ‘The Princess of Montpensier’
★★★★☆ Bertrand Tavernier’s The Princess of Montpensier (2010) is one of the finer examples in recent years of a good historical romp, with love affairs and sword-fights aplenty realised in an intelligent and captivating manner. Stylistically, it is reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s The Duellists (1977), and the film possesses that lavish yet gritty feel that…