Soccer Dog: European Cup tells the story of Kimble, a genetically engineered super dog which escapes from a lab and joins a plucky but poor-quality Scottish football club. The Portersburgh Portsmen have won just two games in four years, and their captain Bryan MacGregor “ played by Nick Moran of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels fame “ is down on his luck. As well as leading … [Read more...]
Review: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
The second film in trilogies are always difficult to handle. The setup is done in the first film, while the conclusion is handled in the third, so the second film has to get stuck in straight away and normally end with a cliff-hanger ending, while still trying to have its own 3 act structure to avoid pacing issues. The Empire Strikes Back is the high benchmark of middle films, … [Read more...]
Review: Frozen (2013)
Disney's tradition of taking and adapting famous fables and tales continues with Frozen, their version of The Snow Queen. In the land of Arendelle, young Princess Elsa (Idina Menzel) has the elemental power to make and control snow and ice. While playing with her sister Anna (Kristen Bell), she accidently injures her and in a desperate attempt to protect them both the King and … [Read more...]
Review: Saving Mr. Banks (2013)
The two decade crusade by Walt Disney to bring his daughters favourite book Mary Poppins to the screen forms the dramatic thrust of Saving Mr. Banks. Based on a script that was on the ˜Black List' of Hollywood's best unmade films in 2011, director John Lee Hancock has brought it to the screen in a charming and sometimes heart-breaking fashion. … [Read more...]
Review: Stardust (2007)
It's not often you get to see Robert De Niro playing a cross-dressing pirate, but that's exactly the world you get in Stardust. Based upon the novel by Sandman legend Neil Gaiman, it is directed by Matthew Vaughn from a script penned by Kick-Ass adaptor Jane Goldman. … [Read more...]
Review: In Fear (2013)
Directed by Jeremy Lovering, In Fear revolves around two almost-strangers, Tom (Iain De Caestecker) and Lucy (Alice Englert) who met at a bar and hit it off. A couple of weeks later, Tom invites Lucy to come with him to a music festival with some of his friends. On their way there, he told her that he took the liberty of booking them a hotel for the night, deep in the Cornwall … [Read more...]
Review: Upstream Colour (2013)
After the strange but compelling lo-fi sci-fi of Primer released in 2004, director Shane Carruth went quiet for some time, working on a couple of different projects before resurfacing in 2013 with Upstream Colour, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. … [Read more...]
Review: Dom Hemingway (2013)
Strolling through prison under a cascade of toilet paper, Dom Hemingway is the titular cockney geezer in Richard Shepard's latest film. Played with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer by Jude Law, the character is an amalgam of a number of 1970s British ex-prisoner archetypes. But in a World that has any number of cheeky chappies vying for our attention in low-budget British … [Read more...]
Review: Carrie (2013)
Pig's blood, telekinetic powers, a religious mother and the ultimate Prom-gone-wrong. The reboot of the now classic Carrie hits all the right notes without ever really breaking free of the legacy of the original. Like Brian De Palma's original and the Stephen King novella upon which both are based, Kimberley Pierce's somewhat modernised version only really introduces some … [Read more...]
Review: Primer (2004)
Shane Carruth seems to be a pretty determined kind of individual. The kind of person that, once he decides something should get done, it gets done, regardless of how difficult that may be. He also seems to be the kind of person who gets things done his way, or no way at all. I don't know Shane Carruth, but the fact that Primer ever got made suggests this first aspect of his … [Read more...]