Roman Polanski’s latest film ‘Carnage’ is a tense black comedy, wittily adapted from Yazmina Reza’s stage-play ‘God of Carnage’. The tells the story of two middle class couples who meet to discuss an altercation between their children. Jodie Foster and John C Reilly play Penelope and Michael, a relaxed couple who invite the more business-like Nancy (Kate Winslet) and Alan (Christoph Waltz) over…
Recent films concerning either Wall Street or the current economic situation have been erratic in quality. For every Inside Job we get a Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Thankfully Margin Call is more akin to the former and marks an excellent debut from writer/director J.C. Chandor. Chandor’s film does not look so much at the…
André Øvredal’s fantasy thriller promises so much, and does offer a few moments of genuine excitement, however it ultimately fails where similar films have succeeded. TrollHunter follows a group of students who are investigating some local bear killings and try to find the poacher Hans (Otto Jespersen) supposedly behind the attacks. However, they discover he…
Some atheists find it hard to like or admire C. S. Lewis’s popular fantasy series The Chronicles of Narnia. The biblical allegories, the parallels that swap Jesus for a lion, pieces of silver for Turkish delight, and the general themes of hierarchy, monarchy, betrayal and suffering are, to some non-religious minds, problematic aspects when seen…
A Dangerous Method is a very strange film for David Cronenberg to make. He is known for making strange films with strange stories involving strange things happening, but the strangest thing about this film is that it isn’t very strange. It’s surprisingly boringly directed, with very little happening except people talking in rooms while a…
Considering the stage adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel is one of the longest running West End plays of all time, and there hasn’t been a screen adaptation for nearly 25 years, it’s amazing Hollywood hasn’t got its hands on The Woman in Black before now. Actually, it must be said, Hollywood still hasn’t caught hold…
David Gordon Green, director of Pineapple Express and the disappointing Your Highness brings us yet again another run-of-the-mill, forgettable crude comedy. Loosely based on the far superior 80’s hit Adventures in Babysitting, The Sitter follows the child-hating Jonah Hill as he is given the task of looking after three mischievous (and one homicidal) children, who…
Despite some buzz early last year, and an impressive cast, Spencer Susser’s odd but curiously sweet film Hesher skips a theatrical outing in the UK and heads straight to DVD. It’s not a brilliant film, but it’s miles better than much of the drivel that frequently crowds the screens. Maybe it will pick up a…
Although David Nicholls’s big-screen adaptation of his own bestseller is far from perfect, the very sweet and engaging lead performances make it fairly enjoyable. Director Loan Scherfig, whose previous film An Education made a star of Carey Mulligan, here takes on two rather more established young actors, Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturges, to play Emma…
The Three Musketeers, made into a film? In 3D you say? Christophe Waltz and Orlando Bloom as the baddies? With Matthew Macfadyen and pretty boy Logan Lermen as the Musketeers? Flying ships and swordfights? And James Corden as a hilarious servant? This sounds fantastic! Well you’d be wrong. Unfortunately this film falls rather flat. There…
Who would have thought a film that is silent, monochrome and not widescreen would be a public favourite, as well as a darling for the critics and frontrunner for a batch of Oscars? But regardless, is a revisionist post-modern nostalgia piece going to actually be a decent film, or just a dull art-house bore? Set in in…
Steven Spielberg outdoes himself with the beautiful tale of War Horse on the big screen, in what is sure to gain classic status.
The Hunters is an abysmal horror thriller that starts off poorly and continues to climb ever lower down the ladder of quality. The story involves three separate strands that begin to intertwine. One is the story of an ex-army veteran who enters a town’s police force while clearly suffering from PTSD. He is suspicious about…
When Anna (Milla Jovovich), a primary school teacher (or elementary school teacher, as our friends across the Atlantic call them) is attacked by a serial killer after witnessing him commit a murder, she suffers severe brain damage due to a trauma to the head. As a result, she starts to suffer from prosopagnosia, a disorder…