Category: Films

Gone Baby Gone is the directorial debut of Ben Affleck and stars his brother Casey. When you learn that, you’re probably thinking that things don’t bode well for this film. Well in fact that’s not the case. Based on novel by Denis Lehane, and set in a very realistic feeling working class Boston, it involves…

Michael Clayton is another film I saw a while ago, but didn’t note at the time. George Clooney is a bit of a fixer for a law firm who ends up in a convoluted story involving a major class action lawsuit. It’s another one of those films that’s constructed in a non-linear fashion as we…

I saw this on a recent trip to New York, and I’ve been meaning to write about it for a while (I saw a few other films there that’ll I try to note in the next week or so). The Coen brothers are always worth watching, although recently their run of form has gone off…

In my review of Juno the other day, I mentioned that I hadn’t seen the film that I understood to be Ellen Page’s breakthrough film, Hard Candy. Well now I have, having picked up a copy of the DVD. Wow – what a film. In essence, it’s about a paedophile played by Patrick Wilson, who…

You’ve got to love Ang Lee don’t you? He consistently makes some fabulous films. The first of his that I saw was The Wedding Banquet, but before you knew it, he’d turned his hand to Jane Austen and made Sense and Sensibility (now re-appearing in a new “sexed up” Andrew Davies TV production). Then there…

Like books, I’m behind in writing about which films I’ve seen recently. So lets try to catch up in reverse order, starting with the film I saw last night – Juno. I know quite a few bloggers saw it at a special screening that I couldn’t make before Christmas and the reaction to it was…

I must admit that I’m a bit behind on my film reviews. There are as many as half a dozen that I’ve still to write about. Anyway, without further ado, here’s the latest – Beowulf. There are currently three versions of this film available to see: the bog standard 2D version; a traditional red/blue glasses…

Ridley Scott is back with a new film which stars Russell Crowe. Now, those with long memories may recall that these two have made films before. First there was the enormously successful, and very good, Gladiator. And then there was A Good Year. That’s 90 minutes of my life I won’t get back. Well this…

This evening I saw Stardust, the film based on Neil Gaiman’s novel. The film has already had its US release, and it’s fair to say that it didn’t perform outstandingly there. But is that a fair reflection of the film? I’d say not. The problem is that it’s a really hard film to market. The…

Well here’s a film that’s not likely to get shown in Saudi Arabia – The Kingdom of the title. The Kingdom is the first of a series of films set in a post 9/11 world with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan fairly bogged down. It begins with a skilfully edited credit sequence that uses…

The Bourne Ultimatum is the final* part of the Bourne trilogy which bears little to no resemblance to the Robert Ludlum books. Incidentally, Ludlum is one of those masterful authors who manages to publish new titles despite being long dead. Anyway, back to the film which is once again directed by Paul Greengrass. What can…

I had a bit of a hangover, and despite being one of the few sunny days, I thought I’d go and see one of this week’s big movies. I don’t normally talk about films as movies, but I think these two count. So it was either The Simpsons Movie or Transformers. My local multiplex was…

Taking Liberties is that rarest of things – a low budget British documentary released in the cinema. It covers a subject that’s very close to my heart, the reduction of civil liberties we’ve seen under the premiership of Tony Blair over the last ten years. It tells its tale using a combination of archive clips,…