Jeff Nichols debut directorial feature Shotgun Stories proved an independent and critical success. his follow-up, Take Shelter swept through the independent awards season like a tornado. Cruelly avoided by both the BAFTAs and Oscars, Nichols has every right to feel aggrieved as Take Shelter became one of the stand-out films of 2011. It failed to make its budget back at the box … [Read more...]
Review: Moon (2009)
Moon is an engaging and thoroughly compelling science fiction drama which went almost completely unnoticed when released last year. It won a few awards, most notably the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer for Duncan Jones, but even that is hardly likely to attract a great deal of attention. It made very little money at the box office, which is … [Read more...]
Review: Albert Nobbs (2011)
Based on a short story by George Moore, Albert Nobbs is a period drama set in Ireland in the 19th century. The film, which probably would've gone under most peoples' radar on release, found itself in the odd position of having two Oscar nominated performances. Glenn Close for her role as Albert Nobbs and Janet McTeer for her role as Hubert Page. While neither actor won, they … [Read more...]
Review: Speed Racer (2008)
Every once in a while, a film comes along that is so terrible that it makes you wonder, if people are able to make something this bad, was anything ever good to begin with? Speed Racer is one such film. An unmitigated catastrophe on pretty much every level, it has the dubious honour of being one of the only films to make me feel physically unwell. Speed Racer is a horrible, … [Read more...]
Review: The Lucky One (2012)
Its 2012 and Zac Efron is older and wiser. Now trying to leave the horrific High School Musical persona in the past, his eyes are on the future. The Lucky One is the key to showing any doubters, myself included, that he is far more capable of producing a worthy feature film than previously thought. Apologies Mr. Efron I retract all negative comments from the past couple of … [Read more...]
Review: Delicatessen (1991, France)
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is famous, above all, for Amélie. To an extent, the rest of his work has been overshadowed by this one film. And it's easy to see why “ it was after all, a huge popular and critical success, won a bunch of Césars (the French equivalent of the Oscars), launched Audrey Tautou's career, boosted Montmartre's tourist industry and has been endlessly copied, … [Read more...]
Review: Festen (1998, Denmark)
In 1995, two friends and filmmakers Thomas Vinterberg and Lars Von Trier created the Dogme 95 manifesto and associated ˜vow of chastity'. They felt that movies had become far too much about special effects and technology and so, in an attempt to get away from this, gave themselves a set of rules and restrictions to abide by. By doing so they hoped to put the story, acting and … [Read more...]
Review: The Kid with a Bike (2012, Belgium)
The Kid With a Bike is Cyril, a young boy in care home in Seraing, a town in the Wallonian region of Belgium. Actually, at the start of the film he is in fact without a bike and unable to locate it, or of greater concern, his father. The Kid With a Bike opens by leaping straight into the middle of a story “ Cyril is on the phone from the care home, trying to reach his dad, … [Read more...]
Review: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest (2009, Swedish)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest is the finale to the Millennium trilogy, based on Steig Larsson's phenomenally popular novels. As regular readers of these reviews will know, I was less than impressed by the first two instalments. This third film, however, begins confidently, launching straight in from where The Girl Who played With Fire left off. Director Daniel Alfredson … [Read more...]
Review: When the Wind Blows (1986)
The Cold War was a state that the Western world found itself in from the end of the Second World War right up until 1991. Tensions arose between USA, with allies NATO and what is now known as Russia and their satellite states. After the war as they were the remaining two super-powers, and having such profoundly different ideologies and politics caused great tension, which was … [Read more...]