Gnomeo and Juliet might very well be the first big screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic love story made for children – it’s certainly the first to feature feuding garden gnomes – but that doesn’t disguise just how generic, how kitschy, much of it feels. It’s the kind of film I imagine was accidentally conceived during a studio pitch meeting over at Disney, where someone from Creative jokingly suggests the title [...]

All too often it seems as if audiences will choose to see one film over another not because of an intriguing premise or festival buzz, but because of the star power attached to the project. I’ll be the the first to admit that it’s difficult to be immune to that particular thought process, as it was the banner that read “From Writer/Director James L. Brooks” that drew me to the [...]

Children will happily join Gulliver on his misadventure in Rob Letterman’s retelling of the classic Gulliver’s Travels. Unfortunately, anyone old enough to fly alone will likely wish they had stayed at home.

A long term employee as the mail man of a Manhattan Newspaper, Lemuel Gulliver (Jack Black), lazily performs his duties with little drive to climb the corporate ladder. This is until he is challenged to [...]

The restless spirit of the Wild West flows through the veins of Red Hill, a grisly revenge thriller that rides into town with uneven footing. Is it trying to be serious or silly? Funny or frightening? If it  could just make up its mind, this superbly shot and performed film might have overcome its various genre contrivances and emerged as a competent feature debut from Australian Patrick Hughes. [...]

I have never seen a Merchant-Ivory film. Or a Merchant film, or an Ivory film, or even a film on ivory merchants. The City of Your Final Destination, adapted by screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from a novel by Peter Cameron, is directed by the surviving half of the famed Merchant-Ivory duo, James Ivory (A Room with a View). I have, however, heard from numerous wiser and more cultured [...]

The original 1960’s series The Prisoner co-created by and starring the late Patrick McGoohan is long considered one of the great cult television series. Far ahead of it’s time and long reaching in its influence, the show combined elements of sci-fi and espionage with allegorical drama.

Long in development this “re-imagining” finally arrives on DVD with Jim Caviezel (Passion of the Christ) in the role of Number [...]

When the next Australian film to hit cinemas is a French co-production that features beautiful scenery, impressive performances and paranormal themes, it would be reasonable to expect something exciting is heading our way. But don’t hold your breath; Julie Bertuccelli’s The Tree is yet another ponderous Aussie film structured around well-trodden themes of death and family dysfunction.