DVD Review: ‘J. Edgar’
★★★☆☆ At the centre of Clint Eastwood’s biopic of FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover is an underdeveloped examination of his quasi-homosexual relationship with his...
★★☆☆☆ “An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,” Percy Shelley once wrote in his sonnet England in 1819. He was firing his barbs at King George III but the words could just as well be used for any number of English monarchs including Henry VIII.
★★★★★ Turkish master director Nuri Bilge Ceylan returns to the Cannes Croisette with About Dry Grasses, a wonderful wintry meditation on male fragility and the way we often make our own hells and then deceive ourselves that we’re trapped.
★★★★☆ From sub-Saharan Africa to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq and Iran, the climate crisis, drought, war, and oppression has created a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. It is treated as an ethical conundrum, but it isn’t. Either we wish to save those who are in danger of dying, or all our talk of human rights is just so much hot air. This is the core concern of Green Border.
★★★☆☆ At the centre of Clint Eastwood’s biopic of FBI founder J. Edgar Hoover is an underdeveloped examination of his quasi-homosexual relationship with his...
★☆☆☆☆ Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum are both arguably enjoying the primes of their respective careers; McAdams has put in face time for Woody...
★★★☆☆ With a reputation as one of cinema’s pioneering figures in the art of psychological thrillers, David Cronenberg’s latest offering A Dangerous Method (2011),...
★★★★☆ ‘Nordic Noir’, the hugely popular brand of Scandinavian crime fiction, has held a cultural grip on our nation since the sweeping success of...
★★★★☆ Aleksei Fedorchenko bewitches and beguiles with his lyrical meditation on the passage of time, the festival favourite Silent Souls (Ovsyanki, 2010). Lonesome middle-aged...
★★☆☆☆ It wouldn’t be wise to expect too much from Alex Pillai’s crime thriller Victim (2011), given the producer credit of one Danny Donnelly,...
★★★☆☆ What if Abraham Lincoln, esteemed 16th President of the United States, was a vampire hunter? This is the laughable premise on hand in...
★★☆☆☆ Many films are based on books but rarely is it a self-help book – but that is exactly what director Tim Story has...