Film Reviews
Belle
Saturday, May 10th, 2014 Film Reviews,It’s impossible not to view Amma Asante’s Belle in relation to Steve McQueen’s phenomenally successful 12 Years a Slave. Both films are by black British directors, both deal with the theme of slavery. Admirers of 12 Years a Slave might say that one film is an entertainment, the other a work of art. But there […]
Transcendence
Saturday, May 3rd, 2014 Film Reviews,With poor attendences in the United States and disastrous reviews, Wally Pfister’s Transcendence is set to be the biggest hi-tech, mega-budget, sci-fi flop since After Earth, last year’s misbegotten star vehicle for Will Smith and son. It’s not an entirely fair comparison because Transcendence is a much better film. Its failure is not due to […]
Young and Beautiful
Saturday, May 3rd, 2014 Film Reviews,Young and Beautiful is a film about every parent’s nightmare and the French film industry’s abiding obsession. Imagine finding your 17 year-old daughter had taken up prostitution as a way of earning spare cash in the same way that other girls take up baby-sitting. Fans of French cinema may feel a sense of déjà vu […]
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Saturday, April 26th, 2014 Film Reviews,To go from the cultish Only Lovers Left Alive to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, is to leave the would-be sublime for the out-and-out ridiculous. The latest blockbuster is always referred to as “eagerly-awaited”, but at last week’s preview, audiences had to wait more than an hour and a half because of problems with a digital […]
Only Lovers Left Alive
Saturday, April 26th, 2014 Film Reviews,Last time we saw Tilda Swinton on screen, in The Grand Budapest Hotel, she was playing a corpse. In Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive, she is a vampire. This may be considered a form of progress. Since the days of Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) and Dreyer’s Vampyr (1932) there have been thousands of vampire films […]
Like Father, Like Son
Saturday, April 19th, 2014 Film Reviews,This time last year, French director, Lorraine Lévy gave us The Other Son, a film about Jewish and Palestinian boys who had been accidentally switched at birth. It was a story that could easily have degenerated into melodrama or political proselytising but Lévy kept a tight rein on the narrative – or so it seemed […]
The Invisible Woman
Saturday, April 19th, 2014 Film Reviews,Charles Dickens (1812-70) was not only a literary giant, he was a celebrity whose every move was chronicled in the press. As a practising Christian and tenchant social critic Dickens had a reputation to uphold, but his temperament and energy lured him away from the path of convention. The Victorians were no more flawed than […]
Divergent
Saturday, April 12th, 2014 Film Reviews,After spending a couple of hours at The Grand Budapest Hotel any other movie might seem humdrum. Neil Burger’s Divergent has the bigger problem of standing directly in the shadow of The Hunger Games, already an established franchise in the lucrative Young Adult market. I’m beginning to feel I’ve been wasting my life writing film […]
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Saturday, April 12th, 2014 Film Reviews,Walking into a preview of The Grand Budapest Hotel, a colleague wondered aloud if this was the film in which Wes Anderson would overcome his penchant for symmetry. In fact, The Grand Budapest Hotel must be the most maddeningly symmetrical movie ever produced! Frames are composed with a neatness and correctness that feels obsessive-compulsive. The […]
Noah
Saturday, April 5th, 2014 Film Reviews,In Chapter 6 of Genesis, God gives Noah very specific instructions about how to build an ark. It clocks in at a length of 300 cubits, a breadth of 50 cubits, and a height of 30 cubits. 300 cubits is roughly 138 metres in today’s measurements. By comparison the Titanic measured 269 metres from end […]