Love, Lust and Lies (Review)

Gillian Armstrong probably saw the interesting dynamics of UK TV documentary Seven Up! (1964) and its consequential sequels; she herself then chose to journey with three women over 35 years in her own quest to discover and reveal the differences of human life. It’s interesting that as 14-year-olds, the trio we see in Love, Lust and Lies insisted on being honest about their lives, but in the years to come we see that as life changes so do [...]

Hot Tub Time Machine (Review)

The Eighties; a decade where everyone dressed like a highlighter, Michael Jackson was still black (not to mention alive) and time travel required a souped-up DeLorean. Unsurprisingly, Hot Tub Time Machine doesn’t miss a single opportunity to poke nostalgic fun at all of the above when taking a trip back to the disco decade. Surprisingly, though, it’s actually pretty  funny about it. Like Old School and The Hangover before it, Hot Tub Time Machine is the kind of [...]

Tron [1982] (Review)

With Tron Legacy on the way after 28 years, the original Tron has clearly left a lasting impression. Whether this impression is worth a tight sequel, with a strong story or a glossy, shallow cash-in, remains to be seen. However, an examination of the original 1982 film may indicate whether Tron Legacy will be worth the price of your ticket in the end. This is why I have decided to review Tron on DVD, as any upcoming [...]

How to Train Your Dragon 3D (Review)

The golden rule of film criticism (for me, anyway) is to always consider the target audience. During a family film, for instance, I occasionally glance around the cinema to see how the children are behaving; are they quiet and attentive, or fidgety and disruptive?

In the case of the animated adventure How to Train Your Dragon, the cinema was blissfully silent. There wasn’t a peep beyond gasps of elation and bursts of laughter. And I’m not [...]

The Eclipse (Review)

The Eclipse, written and directed by Conor McPherson, to put it briefly, is a beautiful low key drama of a man dealing with loss and grief. It’s also the scariest movie I’ve seen in some time. And not just scary in some thematic intellectual sense. Quite literally it’s the jump-in-your seat, screaming-in-the-audience kind of scary.

And it has ghosts in it. Really freaking scary ghosts.

Brothers (Review)

Whenever Hollywood remakes an acclaimed foreign film, there’s an inevitable backlash of people who start asking “Why? What’s the point in remaking something that doesn’t need improving?”

The answer is fairly obvious: where there’s a good story left untold to the masses, there’s big money to be made. That answer, however, doesn’t as readily apply to Jim Sheridan’s (In America, The Boxer) remake of the 2004 Danish film Brødre [Brothers]. Sure, it replaces everything foreign with an all-American cast and [...]