Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) an acclaimed concert cellist who, by chance, meets the lead singer of a rock band, Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) at a party in New York City. They spend a night together and the next morning promise to reunite at a nearby square. But, Lyla’s controlling father and manager, Thomas (William […] Read more »
After a highly successful run, as a producer of hit TV Science Fiction shows like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel, Land of the Giants, Irwin Allen returned to the big screen in 1972, producing The Poseidon Adventure, a star-studded, technically innovative, action-disaster film. He followed this up […] Read more »
Jack Black plays the semi talented guitarist Dewey Finn in this light-hearted 2003 comedy. Largely reprising his performance as Barry, the socially dysfunctional rock music obsessive from High Fidelity, Black is at his best as Finn, dumped from his band, fakes being a teacher and leads a group of unsuspecting students (including Miranda Cosgrove from […] Read more »
As the TV comedy Portlandia so eloquently quipped, “the dream of the 1890s is alive,” and not just in Portland it seems. Meat Hooked traces the rise of butchery, or perhaps we might call it neo-butchery, as a hip artisanal industry. After years of declining interest in small, local butcheries, with consumers ever more reliant […] Read more »
I sincerely believe that one day Michael Bay will make a masterpiece. To-date I still believe that The Rock is his best film. I know that Bad Boys 2 has lots of fans, but for me it grows too long and unwieldy for its own good. The Rock works because it has smart script, talented […] Read more »
One of the top tier John Hughes efforts that somehow passed me by until now. Molly Ringwald plays Samantha, and it’s her sixteenth birthday – but her entire family seems to have forgotten. She proceeds to have the worst day imaginable, no thanks to her sister getting married, the weird antics of exchange student Long […] Read more »
What is there left to be said about Stanley Kubrick’s deep-space masterpiece. Not only is it the greatest work of science fiction ever put on screen, it’s one of the greatest films ever made in any genre. More than 50 years after its debut, audiences are still enraptured and perplexed by this profound tale of […] Read more »
A strange little film from US director Antonio Campos that sees Simon, and American uni grad head off to Paris after a messy break-up with his girlfriend. While there he struggles to make any meaningful relationships, and after befriending a prostitute, events spiral into increasingly grim territory. Honestly, the film didn’t make much of an […] Read more »
After a troubling daliance in stoner comedy, David Gordon Green returns to the more independent, thoughtful material on which he made his name. Paul Rudd and Emile Hirsch play maintenance workers in the burnt-out woodlands of Texas. Based on the Icelandic film, Either Way, this comedic drama employs plenty of improvisation from its two leads […] Read more »
One of the finest – and certainly my favourite – non-narrative films ever made, Godfrey Reggio’s beautiful work examines mankind’s relationship with the natural world through a kaleidoscope of juxtaposed images, edited into a grand visual opera and accompanied by a majestic score from minimalist composer, Phillip Glass. From deserted, crumbling cities to exploding rockets, […] Read more »
You never need an excuse to rewatch a James Bond film, even a middling entry like Guy Hamilton’s Live And Let Die, but this time I was attentively revisiting the film in preparation for my appearance on podcast The Auteur Cast. I was a guest on the show a year or so ago when they […] Read more »
Originally marketed under the name Malavita, The Family sees Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer as the parents of the Manzoni family, hiding in France under assumed names (Blake being the latest), under the watchful eye of Tommy Lee Jones and the FBI witness protection programme. One assumes The Family is meant to be a […] Read more »
Having recently seen The Godfather on the big screen I was thankful for the chance to see the extraordinary second part of this story in the cinema as well. It’s often said The Godfather Part II is an example of a film where the sequel was better than the original but, the story is a […] Read more »
The Institute is a surprising, truth is stranger than fiction documentary about what appears to be a new, unknown Californian cult. Told in an elliptical style, with layer after layer of truth and myth revealed through recreations, interviews and real life moments, The Institute is an entertaining and intriguing experience. Read more »
Right in the middle of his golden period, John Carpenter gave us this entertaining ghost story about a small coastal town founded atop a leper colony that is enveloped in a chilling fog that brings with it the malevolent souls of dead pirates. Adrienne Barbeau is the town’s late night radio DJ, while scream queen […] Read more »
Roland Emmerich’s take on the “Die Hard in the White House” action set-up that was visited earlier this year in Antoine Fuqua’s Olympus Has Fallen, is a far bigger, louder and more ludicrous affair. Channing Tatum plays the wannabe Secret Service agent who finds himself – along with his tech-savvy teenage daughter – trapped in […] Read more »
James Wan’s most interesting and artistically successful film since the original Saw goes back to basics, delivering an incredibly effective haunted house tale, with some added ghost hunter fun thrown in for good measure. Perhaps because of the infuriating Insidious films, which Wan directed either side of this similar yet superior period effort, Wan has […] Read more »
Rock Hudson stars as Tony Wilson, the newly rejuvenated version of tired businessman Arthur Hamilton, who enlisted the services of a secret organisation to give him a “second chance” at life. No sooner did he make the decision, however, “the company” becomes increasingly manipulative and controlling, while Tony finds his new life, friends, home and […] Read more »
An undisputed classic of American Silent Cinema and one of the very best examples of physical comedy committed to screen, Safety Last! remains the best-known film of Harold Lloyd, despite the fact he made many more than his contemporaries Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Essentially the story of a simple country boy looking for love […] Read more »
Huge disappointment after the surprisingly witty original. Here, the film seems completely disinterested in its characters, so ripe with nuance and subversion, and is instead content simply to gross out its audience with a parade of low brow humour, casual mysogyny and unimaginative action. Not even the addition of an enthusiastic Jim Carrey – in […] Read more »