Brooklyn’s Finest (Review)

Director Antoine Fuqua exploded on to the Hollywood scene a decade back with the critically acclaimed Training Day, which is often considered one of the quintessential cop/crime dramas but ever since has struggled to follow up that hit, releasing a string of mediocre films that never broke out at the box office (see King Arthur, Shooter).

While his latest offering doesn’t necessarily reverse that trend it does at least return Fuqua to the dirty cop genre that [...]

Cairo Time (Review)

Cairo Time is a nod and a wink to women of middle age. Contesting western attitudes, the gentle and understated film reveals there are escapades, challenges, and dark exotic men to be had by women on the wrong (or let’s say greater) side of fifty. The lead female is aptly named Juliette (Patricia Clarkson), as writer/director Ruba Nadda’s (Sabah: A Love Story) film summons Shakespeare’s theme of impossible love; a romance between ‘a pair of star-crossed lovers’.

Tomorrow, When The War Began (Film Review)

Ask a group of Australian teens to name one home-grown movie they’ve seen at the cinema in the last few years and you’ll likely receive a bunch of blank looks. And that’s hardly the result of ignorance. For reasons likely relating to budgetary constraints, our film industry tends not produce anything for younger action-craving demographics, which is a real shame considering how lucrative that market can be.

While far from perfect, Tomorrow, When the War Began [...]

Step Up 3D (His Review)

In Step Up 3D – the third entry into the successful dance franchise about street gangs who battle to the sound of a boom box rather than a gun shot — a young dancing hopeful nicknamed Moose (Adam G. Sevani)  shares this pearl of absolute wisdom: “People dance ‘cos dancing can change things.”

Remarkable screenwriting, that.  But if dancing does indeed “change things”, there’s not much evidence here.

A Nightmare on Elm Street [2010] (Review)

Yes, I know what you’re thinking; another year, another  Hollywood slasher remake. A trend that started back in 2003 with the generation Y version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it definitely seems that Hollywood has run out of new things to explore in the genre,  instead just needlessly rehashing the classic films that helped to define the genre all those years ago. Really though, why bother?

Going into this remake of Wes Craven’s 1984 hit A [...]

Robin Hood [2010] (Review)

From Errol Flynn to Kevin Costner and Cary Elwes, we’ve seen the story of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest portrayed numerous times; a cinema favourite because of its endearing display of human nature – robbing the rich to feed the poor. The wonderful world of Disney gave us a comical and less morally correct animated version, while the recent BBC series had bounds of wit and charm. With that said, Ridley Scott definitely had a lot to live [...]