Tag: comedy
The Great Gatsby & Happiness Never Comes Alone
Saturday, June 1st, 2013 Film Reviews,It has become a cliché to call Baz Luhrmann a director of video clips rather than motion pictures, but like so many clichés this one has the ring of truth. The Great Gatsby – long-awaited, much-talked-about, supremely overhyped – has arrived. It shows Luhrmann demonstrating his gift for lavish spectacle and his lack of almost […]
The Other Son & Haute Cuisine
Saturday, April 27th, 2013 Film Reviews,‘Switched at birth’ was a favourite plot device for Gilbert and Sullivan. It resolved a lot of tricky dilemmas and allowed true love to overcome barriers of class and kinship. By now the theme might seem as corny as a Victorian operetta, but a good device can always be relied upon for new twist. The […]
Hyde Park on Hudson & Silence in the House of God
Saturday, March 30th, 2013 Film Reviews,Hard on the heels of Lincoln comes another movie about a great American President. But if Steven Spielberg seemed to be sending a message to Barack Obama about being steadfast and determined, it’s hard to know what Richard Michell is telling us about Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park on Hudson. Allowing for its Spielbergisms, […]
Django Unchained & The Guilt Trip
Saturday, January 26th, 2013 Film Reviews,A typical Quentin Tarantino film combines relentless bloodshed with a dry humour that releases the tension whenever the tide of gore starts lapping at one’s ankles. This formula has enjoyed such critical and popular success that a new Tarantino flick such as Django Unchained arrives on a tidal wave of anticipation. Like Tim Burton, Tarantino […]
Gangster Squad & You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
Saturday, January 19th, 2013 Film Reviews,Rarely has a film ‘based on a true story’ seemed more like a fairy tale than Gangster Squad. If you go looking for the book behind the movie, as I did last week, then head for the True Crime section. Veteran journalist Paul Lieberman has penned a racy account of the real Gangster Squad – […]
Hitchcock & Sightseers
Saturday, January 12th, 2013 Film Reviews,Last year the film industry reflected on itself in My Week with Marilyn, this week we have Hitchcock. It’s pure Hollywood navel-gazing when directors make movies about other directors, in which the stars of the past are played by the stars of today – but it’s weirdly irresistible. It was a real test of Michelle […]
Paris-Manhattan & Quartet
Saturday, December 22nd, 2012 Film Reviews,“Heartwarming” must be the most overused word in the film critic’s lexicon. It suggests we enter the cinema as cold-hearted types and are transformed by the power of a movie. When the lights go back on we are more sensitive, more optimistic; we believe in the essential goodness of human beings and the necessity of […]
Love is All You Need & Trouble with the Curve
Saturday, December 15th, 2012 Film Reviews,Danish films have come a long way since the days of Dogme 95. Zentropa, the film production company started by Lars Von Trier and Peter Aalbaek Jensen, was known for initiating the controversial movement that banned the use of background music and special effects; refused to credit the director and required the exclusive use of […]
Pitch Perfect & Love Story
Saturday, December 8th, 2012 Film Reviews,There’s nothing more gruesome in the cinema than films that are “just good fun”, and Pitch Perfect is a textbook example. Even as I write this I can imagine readers thinking I’m a terrible old curmudgeon for not responding positively to a movie that aims to be nothing more than light entertainment. “What could be […]
Seven Psychopaths & Robot and Frank
Saturday, November 17th, 2012 Film Reviews,Psychopaths are so commonplace nowadays they almost qualify as normal. Not only does the media serve up one mad gunman after another, glaring at us from page one, we also read about the ‘corporate psychopaths’ who make their way to the top of huge businesses, bring them down in flames, then move on to another […]