Cut Print Review

Edge Of Darkness (Review)

Thomas Craven is a man of impulse and no consequence. Your daughter being shot to death would do that to you. Especially if she was standing beside you on the front porch. So begins Mel Gibson’s first acting appearance since 2002, as a father seeking revenge (or answers) for his daughter’s death. As the second adaptation of a BBC series this summer (following January’s In The Loop), Edge Of Darkness holds a mix of British and American filmmaking, [...]

The Princess and the Frog (Review)

It’s easy to get caught up praising The Princess and the Frog for what it does differently in the biz of children’s animation. First off, it’s the spirited revival — or attempted revival, depending on how well it does at the box office — of the classic hand-drawn 2D animation style that has gone the way of the VCR in the age of Pixar. More importantly, it’s the first Disney animation ever to feature an African-American princess, even [...]

The Road (Review)

Directed by Australia’s own John Hillcoat, The Road is a brutally bleak, borderline misanthropic adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s brutally bleak, borderline misanthropic post-apocalyptic novel of the same name.  Admittedly, the end of the world is quite a depressing scenario, and credit must be given to Hillcoat (The Proposition) and his team for audaciously choosing not to dilute McCarthy’s abject words (which I  haven’t read). But without a glimmer of hope on the (burning) horizon, The Road inadvertently alienates [...]

Bright Star (Review)

Jane Campion’s ninth outing in a directing role conveys all the usual period blend of romance and refinery. Her screenplay for this film remains true to the words of John Keats himself, and ensures her constructed world is a believable portrait of Keats’ life and times.

A sharp chiaroscuro of bright white and dark shadows, Abbie Cornish with persistently tear-stained cheeks and an intense polarisation between the personalities of the Poet John Keats (Ben Wishaw) and [...]

Twilight: New Moon (Review)

Film critics are conceited by definition, but we’re not smug enough to think that the legions of Twilight fans could give two hoots about our opinion on their beloved franchise. That much was clear when last year’s Twilight managed to pull an impressive $380 million at the global box office, despite the fact that a majority of critics (i.e. myself) considered it a droning, ineptly crafted teen-romance. It has therefore been in the best interest of this year’s [...]

Michael Jackson’s This Is It (Review)

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll dance in your seat throughout This Is It…as long as you’re a Michael Jackson fan. If you’re like me – neither a lover nor hater of MJ– then you’ll be bored stiff within the hour.  That’s because This is It is little more than what you’d see in the special features of a concert DVD; there’s MJ rehearsing, then there’s MJ rehearses a little bit more, and for the final climactic act, [...]