Crazy Heart (Review)

For a man who usually pays his bills by acting small parts in various television series and the occasional film, the story of Scott Cooper’s 2009 rise to fame is nothing short of inspiring. As a first time director on the film Crazy Heart, which Cooper also adapted from a Thomas Cobb novel, he has created a film many seasoned directors could only long for. The screenplay is tight, dramatic and emotive but also quite funny. The cinematography [...]

Nine (Review)

Whoever made the Nine trailer deserves an award, what an amazing teaser! Unfortunately most of the film doesn’t live up to any expectations of Rob Marshall or the plethora of high calibre actors within the film. Adapted from the stage musical of the same name which was based on Fellini’s 8 ½.

Some might argue that Rob Marshall in his previous musical Chicago, actually took something big and made it better. However second time around it [...]

Tooth Fairy (Review)

Arnie was a champ for audiences in the nineties, even Vin Diesel didn’t do so bad in The Pacifier, but this year Dwayne Johnson has proved why second rate action stars fall so easily into acting jobs in kids movies…and that is because they truly cannot act seriously, but people will pay to see them make a fool of themselves in family friendly situations.

Like pulling teeth, there is no easy way around saying that Dwayne [...]

Did You Hear About The Morgans? (Review)

Romantic comedies, especially those aimed at the lonely-gooey-hearts out there, rarely find a warm reception from me.  Although I must profess that those starring Hugh Grant (Notting Hill, About a Boy, Bridget Jones) do set my steel-reinforced heart just a wee bit aflutter.   So, I shuffled into Did You Hear About the Morgans? clutching an embarrassingly large bag of confectionary and shreds of hopeful expectation.  Alas, if was not to be – the film was absolutely dismal. And [...]

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 [...]

Broken Embraces (Review)

Beautifully vivid in cinematography and eerily noir in theme, pace and score, Los Abrazos Rotos a.k.a Broken Embraces, is an emotive dissection of heart wrenching circumstances. Love, trust and family cycle the stories of present day and fourteen years before, bridged by one writer/director’s sudden need to recount his own story before he can move on to writing another. Through opening himself up to a much younger man who is his producer’s son, a blind Harry Caine – [...]