Film Reviews

Shine A Light

Gary Collins — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:10:43 +0100

Martin Scorsese and The Rolling Stones. The former is arguably America’s most famous living director; the latter are arguably Britain’s most famous living musicians. Scorsese’s admiration for The Rolling Stones has long been well documented in his films. Since the release of his breakthrough film Mean Streets in 1973, Scorsese has used the Stones’ music in four of his films including Goodfellas and most recently The Departed.

Hamlet 2

George Booker — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 20:07:45 +0100

Steve Coogan is doubtlessly one of the finest comic actors working today, notably with such British characters as "Alan Partridge", "Tony Wilson", and "Steve Coogan". These characters are subtle and remarkable bundles of vanity, ineptitude, delusion and contempt. What Coogan is not is a chameleon of the Peter Sellers variety, able to slip seamlessly between multiple accents and physicalities. Coogan's best characters are bottomless pits of neuroses that happen to look and move not entirely unlike himself.

Choke

George Smith — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:08:06 +0100

I am a Gigantic Palahniuk Fan: The man sent me a stuffed panda, and a signed two page letter with autographed photo sit hanging above the desk where I write this, so let's get one thing straight from the start: My problem with Choke isn't that Choke Is Not Fight Club.

My problem with Choke is the following:

Barton Fink

George Booker — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 17:54:08 +0100

Legend has it that the script for 1991's Barton Fink emerged nearly whole cloth in an absurdly short period of time as the Coens were blocked constructing the labyrinthine screenplay for their gangster epic Millers Crossing. Despite its surface period setting, Barton Fink has the feel of a work dredged from the subconscious collective mind of the brothers, a caustically self-critical nightmare that resonates on entirely unexpected frequencies. At the time of its release, reaction spanned from rapturous triumph at Cannes to alienated befuddlement. Over

Burn After Reading

Gary Collins — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 19:08:39 +0100

Less than nine months after their adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men collected Best Picture at the 80th Academy Awards, the Coen Brothers return to their usual quirky comedic territory with their latest release, the star-filled comedy Burn After Reading.

Vicky Christina Barcelona

George Booker — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 17:36:45 +0100

Woody Allen has maintained his movie-a-year productivity for so long past his last brilliant streak that any time he makes something that does not suck it feels like cause for celebration. In my initial movie explorations, I didn't care for Woody. His neurotic New York personae seemed less exotic and more self-absorbed than the European giants he aspired to. Of course, Allen's work isn't to the taste of most 14-year-olds who've never had a girlfriend. In the mid-90s, of course, I thought a movie wasn't a movie without bloody crime and glib pop culture referents.

Death Race

George Smith — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:46:50 +0100

First off, I think we can all agree that Death Race is an awesome name for a motion picture. Second, I think we can all agree that Jason Statham is the modern day king of the action genre. To recap, we have Britain’s baddest-of-all-asses in a movie entitled Death Race. I’d end this review here, but editorial guidelines demand more words.

Pineapple Express

George Booker — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:04:52 +0100

Pineapple Express is a good name for many things. For a stoner movie, which this is, suggesting exotic but mundane fruit and action! Or at least frantic motion. Action with a dash of flavor? Yes. This movie will end fast and taste sweet! It does. If Huey Lewis made an unrepentant stoner anthem, he might call it Pineapple Express. With the News, Huey made that song for this film, and it rings as sweetly over the credit scroll as the Huey of the Back to the Future original soundtrack. The theme is at least as funny as

Man On Wire

David Coleman — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 22:46:46 +0100

Man On Wire is the relentlessly engaging story of Philippe Petit's phenomenally ambitious and ultimately successful high-wire walk between New York's Twin Towers on August 7, 1974. It's the kind of story that makes for documentary gold; I can almost visualise British director James Marsh giggling gleefully and clearing his mantelpiece in anticipation after viewing his final edit. Indeed, it's clear from as early as five minutes in that Man On Wire is going to be a winner.

Hancock

George Booker — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 15:01:34 +0100

My twelve-year-old self would kick my ass to find how disengaged I am this summer, the Greatest Superhero Summer Ever (TM). Indeed, Hollywood is dropping well developed gems left and right, from the perfectly timed and conceived emergence of Iron Man to the premature dictate that The Dark Knight is a genre-topping masterpiece. Add to that sequel service the recurrences of Indiana Jones and Hellboy, and it becomes clear that geeks should really be happier.

The Fall

George Booker — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:32:57 +0100

I, like many, am immediately suspicious of movies with a young child occupying a lead role. There's just something so insipid when a mostly uncomprehending actor is exploited for a quality that gets an audience off in some way, that quality with children being cuteness. Tarsem's The Fall is a film centered around a cute kid, but I didn't mind that here. He extracts a performance out of Cantinca Untaru that, while adorable, feels unforced and honest in the way she is allowed to be a curious girl, not a stage trained mouthpiece for vulgarized Hollywood notions of how

The King of Kong

George Booker — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:46:27 +0100

In an information accelerated and nostalgia mad world, trained by the whores at VH1, it is natural to expect a film like The King of Kong, subtitled A Fistful of Quarters, to be a condescending wallow at the expense of a subculture of poor saps who still fixate over high scores on first generation arcade consoles. Like the musicians of the current 8-bit movement, however, the filmmakers and participants here take the apparatus quite seriously (without being humorless) and find something personally meaningful beyond the colorful retro trappings.

Paranoid Park

Lewis Parry — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:53:11 +0100

Persepolis

David Coleman — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:21:15 +0100

Based on Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel of the same name, Persepolis is essentially the coming of age story of a young girl in Iran, before, during and after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The film is told from the point of view of Marjane, who was around ten years old at the time of the revolution, and so reflects on the situation from a child’s perspective, and the child of a reasonably affluent communist family in Tehran at that.

The Ten

George Booker — Sun, 04 May 2008 19:56:25 +0100

The Ten is the second directorial feature from David Wain of the absurd comedy trio Stella. Wain co-wrote this one with Ken Marino, who also appears, as do most of the faces that populated "The State", fondly remembered from their 90s MTV sketch show. Amidst the incestuous cult comedy cast members are sprinkled more "serious" talent such as Winona Ryder, Liev Schreiber and Oliver Platt behaving ridiculously. Its all very fun, and often funny, though it doesn't quite hit the lunatic, giddy rush of Wain's debut, Wet Hot American Summer.