The sound of the wind. Breathing. A steady heartbeat.
A man on a racing bike waggles his way up a scrubby hillside – his progress is measured, a gradual, steady ascent. Whether or not this is slow motion, it feels like it.…
Irrational Man is the cinematic equivalent of artisanal popcorn
Woody Allen has got it made.
Despite the allegations against him that have come to light in recent years – I bring this up only to say that I don’t have a stance to take – he gets to jet off once a year to wherever takes his fancy and shoot a film there with, it seems, any actor who takes his fancy; though mostly young, attractive ones of late.…
What to say about Roar…
There has never been, and will likely never be, another film like Roar.
It’s a piece of cinema almost as astonishing on the screen as in the behind-the scenes-detail. Shot on location in Africa, it tells the story of Hank (Noel Marshall), a beardy weird-y conservationist with an open-door policy with regards to wildlife, and who just so happens to be away from the lodge when his family turn up; his family who don’t seem to have been apprised of the lion situation.…
How to Change the World takes us behind the Greenpeace legacy
What do you know about Greenpeace?
Apart from the odd leaflet through the letterbox or a random encounter with a chugger, chances are not a lot. How to Change the World takes us behind the scenes of the environmental organization, which began in 1971 amidst a flurry of idealism aboard a run-down Canadian fishing tug, and, through decades of egotism, infighting, and litigation, went on to become a global entity with thousands of employees and a bankroll of millions.…
American Ultra is the stoner-MK Ultra actioner we’ve all been waiting for (maybe)
Jesse Eisenberg, ladies and gentlemen.
He wowed us as the coolly exploitative Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network and seems likely to do the same as a more intense, somewhat less omnivorous Lex Luthor in Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. …
Rosewater is a bit too floral and watery for its own good
As the directorial debut of a man better known for political satire than drama – The Daily Show’s long-time, recently abdicated host Jon Stewart – Rosewater is a suitably timely work of dramatized non-fiction.
It tells the story of Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist imprisoned by the Ahmadinejad regime for 118 days following Iran’s controversial 2009 elections.…
Legend is a monument to Tom Hardy’s acting talents
Looking at the poster for Brian Helgeland’s latest film, Legend, you’d be forgiven you were suffering from (a slightly inexact) double vision.
The names are the same, but the men below them aren’t. Tom Hardy stars along Tom Hardy (himself) as Reginald and Ronald Kray, the notorious twins who held Sixties London in a grip of both fear and awe.…
The Visit makes for a sublime, ridiculous semi-return-to-form for M. Night Shyamalan
On a sliding cinematic scale from Christopher Nolan to Michael Bay, M. Night Shyamalan falls somewhere in the middle.
Equal parts auteur and hack, his output ranges from the sublime — The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable — to the ridiculous — The Happening, The Last Airbender.…
Z For Zachariah gets a B+ in the post-apocalypse stakes
Craig Zobel’s Z For Zachariah may have the same PG-13 age rating as the bloodless Terminator Genisys1, but there’s more to this adaptation of Robert C. O’Brien’s classic junior sci-fi than just The Road for kiddies.
While Cormac McCarthy’s famously grim work of fiction is structured around, well, the road, Z For Zachariah concerns staying put.…
Pressure never quite plumbs the depths
You can tell from its opening moments that Pressure is a film that means business.
Opening with text that warns us about the dangers of deep sea diving – as anyone knows who’s ever seen The Abyss – it manages to strand its crew (read: cast) on the bed of the Somali Basin, almost 700 feet below the surface, within twenty minutes.…