This must be one of the biggest disappointments of the year. I had such great expectations for this adaptation (sorry, couldn’t resist), but it turns out Mike Newell’s retread of Dickens’s novel is a rather dull, uninspired affair. It isn’t helped by the fact that the BBC (whose film department also backed this film) produced…
This police drama is more than just yet another entry into the found-footage canon. It is a superbly acted character study that focuses on the relationship of two LA cops as they go on their rounds. Jake Gyllenhaal has been one of my favourite actors for a long while, and here he really shows how…
David Fincher’s The Social Network a superb film; a modern masterpiece – an excellent drama of well-drawn real life characters, compelling situations and a key event in recent history. The movie sets out to show how a website that is supposed to unite people ultimately destroyed the friendship of its co-creators. It all begins at…
I wasn’t very complimentary about The Search for Santa Paws, the 2010 straight-to-disc Christmassy family film about Santa’s puppy that gets lost in the big wide world. It was cheap, silly rubbish, and contained some of the most dire musical numbers that I had ever seen. Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups is, at first…
Rambunctious yet lovable Delta House fraternity fight for their college survival against fun-sponge Dean Wormer and his preppy minions here in John Landis’s hysterical frat-comedy. Being one of the films to help launch the gross-out genre, the humour is of the immature sort that you’d expect. Yes, girls are ‘perved’ on, beer bottles are constantly…
Captivity is a vile film directed by none other than Roland Joffé, the man behind The Killing Fields and The Mission. It’s baffling why he decided to take on this nasty, misogynist trash. Those who expect a quality entry into the torture-porn horror sub-genre will be bitterly disappointed. Having said that, there are some members…
This week is pretty action packed. We’re bringing you Nazi invasion from Iron Sky on Tuesday; followed by The Dark Knight Rises reshowing afterwards to catch up with our favourite superhero. Phoenix are showing Turkish drama, Once Upon a Time in Anatolia, on Wednesday. Then we’ve got our Audience Choice: Adventure film Saturday. Rounding off…
The year 1999 was a stand-out year for American cinema, releasing Fight Club, The Matrix, Being John Malkovich, The Green Mile and of course American Pie. However, American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes, is the perfect drama. Following the life mid-life crisis of Lester Burnham, played by the brilliant Kevin Spacey, the film depicts his…
Though far from being a masterpiece – or even just good – this independent British thriller is better than the 1 star reputation it has managed to cultivate. The acting is dodgy and the plotting weak, but a claustrophobia-inducing atmosphere and menacing tension is kept strong throughout. Danny Dyer, who became a bit of a…
Moulin Rouge is every clichéd love story. A penniless writer (Ewan McGregor) falls in love with the beautiful lead courtesan (Nicole Kidman), who tried so hard not to reciprocate these feelings; but in the end realises it’s true love. Oh and it’s set in Paris. And they express themselves through song. As a film concept, it…
When this controversial French film was released earlier this year, many critics condemned it as torture-porn, criticising its relentlessly brutal nature so strongly, you’d think the devil himself was distributing it. I have sympathy with this view – Martyrs is a shockingly violent ordeal, repulsive and visceral in extreme levels. But it is so much more than…
This impressive two-hander, starring Kristen Scott Thomas as a woman who has been abducted, was given a rather lukewarm reception upon its theatrical release earlier this year. In my opinion, it was underrated. In Your Hands is actually an intelligent, superbly acted, quietly intense psychological drama about regret, revenge and desire. Scott Thomas is a…
Creep writer/director Christopher Smith gets to exercise his talent for the bizarre and disturbing on a bigger scale with this smart, twisting tale of maternal guilt, deserted ships and hooded shooters. Echoing similar thrillers such as Memento, Groundhog Day and even Donkey Punch, this sees troubled single-mum Jess joining a group of posh yachters who are capsized in a…
This is a poisonous concoction of dreadful writing, awful acting, vicious violence and horrible characters. Adam Deacon, who seems to have become weirdly popular of late, plays a premiership footballer desperate to start a relationship with a well-spoken showbiz journalist (Nichola Burley). But our unlikable, arrogant leading man gets involved in funding a gang headed…