After a run-in with his nasty brute of a stepfather (Peter Mullan), 19-year-old Adam (Jack O’Connell) is sent to chauffeur a taciturn man called Roy (Tim Roth) up north. Adam doesn’t know what they’re supposed to be doing, but it soon becomes apparent Roy is a hitman who’s keen to give up the game. They’re heading to a rendezvous with a Latvian man who Roy has been hired to kill, while making it look like a local serial killer who’s been chopping off people’s hands did it. [Read more...]
REVIEWS
Cinema, DVD and Blu-ray reviews
The Liability (Cinema)
May 17, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Tim Roth, Jack O'Connell, Peter Mullan, Talulah Riley
Director: Craig Viveiros
Running Time: 82 mins
Certificate: 15
Director: Craig Viveiros
Running Time: 82 mins
Certificate: 15
The Great Gatsby (Cinema)
May 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Running Time: 143 mins
Certificate: 12A
Release Date: May 16th 2013
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Running Time: 143 mins
Certificate: 12A
Release Date: May 16th 2013
It’s been just over 20 years since Baz Luhrmann swished his way into the film industry with the ultra-camp Strictly Ballroom. Since then he has only directed three films – the exciting Romeo and Juliet, the manic and colourful Moulin Rouge, and the very forgettable Australia.
Baz has now returned with his controversial version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American classic, The Great Gatsby. [Read more...]
Quartet (Blu-ray)
May 16, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, Michael Gambon
Director: Dustin Hoffman
Running Time: 97 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 6th 2013
Director: Dustin Hoffman
Running Time: 97 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 6th 2013
A couple of years ago, if you’d put a bet on Dustin Hoffman’s first movie as a director being about a bunch of musicians in a British old folks home, you would have been very rich when Quartet opened. It’s a surprising choice for the veteran actor, especially as it’s such a quintessentially British movie, but he has a steady hand behind the camera, and also ensured he had some pretty powerful acting talent in front of the camera. [Read more...]
Les Miserables (Blu-ray)
May 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Eddie Redmayne, Amanda Seyfried, Russell Crowe
Director: Tom Hooper
Running Time: 164 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 13th 2013
Director: Tom Hooper
Running Time: 164 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 13th 2013
The shortest acting performance ever to win an Oscar is Beatrice Straight in Network, who picked up the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award despite only being on-screen for five minutes and forty seconds. Anne Hathaway can’t beat that, as her Fantine gets a comparatively lengthy 15 minutes of screen time in Les Miserables. However I’d argue she won the Best Supporting Actress gong purely for the 277 seconds she spends singing I Dreamed A Dream. [Read more...]
Suits – Season 2 (DVD)
May 14, 2013 By 1 Comment
Starring: Patrick J. Adams, Gabriel Macht, Rick Hoffman, Gina Torres
Director: Various
Running Time: 720 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 13th 2013
Director: Various
Running Time: 720 mins
Certificate: 12
Release Date: May 13th 2013
I’m finding is difficult to write a review of Suits, because much of what I want to say about it sounds like an insult, but I don’t really mean it like that.
Okay, imagine you’re one of the contestants on The Apprentice. You know, the ones who think they’re god’s gift to business and that they crap genius – and whose favourite activity is telling everyone else how brilliant they are. [Read more...]
Bringing Up Bobby (DVD)
May 14, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Spencer List, Bill Pullman, Marcia Cross
Director: Famke Janssen
Running Time: 91 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 13th 2013
Director: Famke Janssen
Running Time: 91 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 13th 2013
Having found fame in front of the cameras in the likes of X-Men and Goldeneye, Famke Janssen turns writer and director with Bringing Up Bobby. Milla Jovovich gets to take the central role as a Ukrainian immigrant to America Olive, who’s raising a young son called Bobby (Spencer List).
Olive’s idea of parenting isn’t exactly textbook, as she’s a full-on con-woman, happy to say and do whatever she has to in order to get by, whether it’s convincing a salesman to let her go on a test drive so she can steal a car, or pretending she’s raising cash for poor foreigners. [Read more...]
Beat Girl (Cinema)
May 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Louise Dylan, Michael Higgs, Percelle Ascott, Craig Daniel Adams, Heather Jennings
Director: Mairtin de Barra
Running Time: 90 mins
Certificate: PG
Release Date: May 10th 2013
Director: Mairtin de Barra
Running Time: 90 mins
Certificate: PG
Release Date: May 10th 2013
After the death of her mother, Heather (Louise Dylan) is forced to move in with her estranged father (Michael Higgs) and a stepbrother (Percelle Ascott) who doesn’t want anything to do with her. After years of training, she’s on the edge of fulfilling her mother’s wish that she attend Juilliard and study to become a truly great pianist.
Then she meet record store owner Toby (Craig Daniel Adams), who introduces her to the underground world of DJ-ing. It’s something she knows nothing about and involves a type of music that’s never penetrated her rarefied classical world. Initially she’s attracted to the idea of being a DJ in the hope she can get paid and save money for music school, but soon she starts to realise the excitement of this world. [Read more...]
Konga (DVD)
May 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Michael Gough, Margo Johns, Jess Conrad, Claire Gordon
Director: John Lemont
Running Time: 90 mins
Certificate: PG
Release Date: May 13th 2013
Director: John Lemont
Running Time: 90 mins
Certificate: PG
Release Date: May 13th 2013
Sometimes you watch an old movie and it’s difficult not to wonder what the filmmakers thought they were producing when they made it. Konga is now seen as a b-movie cult classic of trampy camp. But when director John Lemont was making it, did he think his man in a monkey suit was good and would terrify audiences? Did he think he was making a sci-fi thriller in the vein of King Kong that would impress people in the same way the 1933 movie did? Or even at the time did he know he was making silly nonsense that would be a guilty pleasure at best (perhaps the fact it’s called Konga suggests he did)? [Read more...]
Deadfall (Cinema)
May 10, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, Charlie Hunnam, Sissy Spacek, Kris Kristofferson
Director: Stefan Ruzowitsky
Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 10th 2013
Director: Stefan Ruzowitsky
Running Time: 95 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 10th 2013
Deadfall comes to us from Best Foreign Language Oscar winner Stefan Ruzowitsky (The Counterfeiters) and has an excellent cast of many well established actors and up and coming stars.
It’s about two siblings, Addison and Liza (played by Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde respectively), who are on the run from a casino heist. The two are then involved in a car accident leaving one officer dead. They end up stranded in the snowy mountainous terrain of North Michigan. Bana, being the protective brother, advises them to split-up, as police only have him as a suspect [Read more...]
Alex Cross (Blu-ray)
May 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment
Starring: Tyler Perry, Matthew Fox, Edward Burns, Jean Reno, Carmen Egojo
Director: Rob Cohen
Running Time: 101 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 6th 2013
Director: Rob Cohen
Running Time: 101 mins
Certificate: 15
Release Date: May 6th 2013
We’ve rather missed out on Tyler Perry here in the UK. While his self-written and directed movies have proved big hits amongst African-American audiences in the US and turned him into a multi-millionaire, many of his films never got cinemas releases in Britain. Some did get belated DVD releases, but a few have never come out here at all. Alex Cross is Perry’s attempt to segue over into the worldwide mainstream cinema success, as well as being the first film to have him in the lead that he didn’t also write and helm himself (he did pop up in a small role in Star Trek though). [Read more...]
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