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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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%...
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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...
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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'...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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