Tag: Oscars

Creed has boxing and cinema in its blood

Few film series have taken the beating in their time that Rocky has.

After a triumphant first bout that launched Sylvester Stallone into the big-time, the series steadily descended into cheesy self-parody. After the judge’s decision of Rocky IV — great villain, hilarious overuse of musical montages — and the knockdown loss of Rocky V — which ended with the Italian Stallion beating some ginger lout in a street brawl — Rocky Balboa allowed the former champ (both the title character and Stallone himself) to make a semi-graceful exit.

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Room is a minor masterpiece in microcosm with two miraculous performances

 

We take a lot for granted out in the world.

It’s full of space and objects, enough so that we can overlook just how much “thingness” there is to our everyday existence. Imagine a world then of only ten feet by ten feet, a world where every item has a sense of permanency to it: Bed, Wardrobe, Skylight.…

Rampling and Courtenay shine in 45 Years

 

What do you do when you discover your life is built on a lie — or, if not a life, a truth half-told?

That is the dilemma that Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling) finds herself in after 45 years of marriage to Geoff (Tom Courtenay); a childless couple comfortably set in their ways after more than half a lifetime together — closer to two-thirds in fact.…

The Big Short goes long on edudrama and it pays off – magnificently

You wouldn’t think the recent global financial crisis would be the stuff of comedy, but The Big Short makes it funny – and educational, and genuinely moving.

Directed and co-written by frequent Will Ferrell collaborator Adam McKay (Anchorman, Talladega Nights) and with an all-star cast, including Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, and Ryan Gosling, The Big Short makes for a highly entertaining (and instructive) study of greed, fraud, and three groups of people who sought to profit from the meltdown before it happened.…

Grandma is an endearing tale of OAP rebellion

 

“Where can you get a reasonably priced abortion in this town?”

Elle Reid is not your run-of-the-mill septugenarian. With her mane of dark hair and her acerbic wit, she’d look more at home at a ‘60s campus demonstration than a retirement community.…

Steve Jobs is a near perfect fusion of functionality and artistry

 

What is the current fascination with technology entrepreneurs?

From The Social Network to AMC’s Halt and Catch Fire, key figures in the PC movement, real or imagined, have grown to legendary status in the public consciousness. Perhaps it’s because they are ambitious dreamers, mavericks who shape the way we interact with the world — by way of example, this review was drafted on an iPhone and written up on a Macbook — or perhaps because they provide an point of entrance into the digital realm, which is otherwise so hard to dramatize.…

The Wave (2015) starts as a tsunami and turns into a washout

 

You may remember Dennis Gansel’s The Wave (Die Welle), a fictionalised take on The Third Wave, which saw a group of high school students established their own fascist dictatorship as part of a social experiment.

A complex study of the evil that can occur as a result of social pressure and groupthink, it missed out on Germany’s 2008 submission for Best Foreign Language to The Baader Meinhof Complex.…

In Listen To Me Marlon a long-dead legend finally opens up

 

Whatever happened to Marlon Brando?

Better known in his later years for his onset antics rather than the quality of his performances, it seemed a far leap from the chiseled passion of his early work — The Wild Ones, A Streetcar Named Desire — to the boredom and bloat that marked his final decade.…

The Martian: by far the best film to maroon Matt Damon in space

 

Are the 2010s the decade that made space travel cool again?

Gravity swept the Academy Awards back in 2013, Interstellar reminded us of the potential wonders of the universe in a way that no one had arguably done since Kubrick – Marvel even got in on the action with Guardians of the Galaxy.…

American Sniper has great performances but lacks vision

 

For an Academy Award Best Picture nominee, American Sniper is not without its problems.

Its 84-year-old director Clint Eastwood is known for being a slightly hawkish libertarian with a penchant for shouting at empty chairs (“penchant” might be overstating, but, as they say, “You f**k one sheep…”).…