culture latest news
The Descendants
Written and directed by Alexander Payne of 'Sideways', 'The Descendants' was winner of both the Best Motion Picture - and George Clooney for Best Actor playing a descendant of Hawaiian royalty - at the recent Golden Globes awards...
read more >>
All the Pretty Horses
Unusually, we have not one movie with the horses, but two to review for you: War Horse, and Buck. And it is not like horses are a usual topic for film making either. So for those of us who love them, it is a real treat this month...
read more >>
Muppet Madness
I for one was worried it would all get too slick. I really needn’t have worried. Director James Bobin (Not the Nine O’clock News, Ali G, Borat and Flight of the Concords) has done a stellar job of the Muppet relaunch...
read more >>
To Close to call
Albert Nobbs (played by Glenn Close) is a woman stuck in a man’s role, living and working in a man’s world as a hotel butler. This is not a feel-good movie. Nor is it terribly though-provoking or moving...
read more >>
What lies beneath
Perhaps best described as a cross between Juno, Napoleon Dynamite and The Inbetweeners, Submarine is both murky and inspired, which helps kept my eyes and ears tuned to the story as it unfolded...
read more >>
Justin Time
In Time, starring Justin Timberlake, is a sci-fi with societal commentary that is fortuitously timed to coincide with the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement where protestors are chanting that they are the 99%...
read more >>
What a steel
Evangeline Lilly and Hugh Jackman star in Real Steel, a boxing film about an underdog, just like Rocky. But in 2020 it is a robot named Atom rather than a club fighter in 1976 called Rocky Balboa...
read more >>
Let It Be
Norwegian Wood - an adaption of Haruki Murakami's bestseller written in 1987 and only now realised on film - completely embodies The Beatles' lyrics by the song of the same title, 'I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me'...
read more >>
A bit of time travel in Paris
You really can't go too far wrong with a rom com set in Paris - even if the idea of Woody Allen directing a film makes me a tad nervous. More com than rom, but so littered with fabulous actors that it would have taken real effort to ruin it...
read more >>
Tell me no lies
In the end, there is only so long that one can sit and watch trendy French folk sit, smoke, quibble, and drink wine in paradise...
read more >>
Italian film festival 2011
It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since I last reviewed the Italian Film Festival but September will see the start of the 16th annual Italian Film Festival, this time backed by iconic Italian brand, Alfa Romeo...
read more >>
Human see, human do
“Rise of Planet of the Apes” is more than a fitting prequel to the 1968 classic “Planet of the Apes”. It is also a cautionary tale of human greed, aggression and ignorance.The dramatic opening scenes of a rampaging chimpanzee in a biotech lab...
read more >>more culture news
quick links
search thread
