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The Amazing Spiderman 2 – second rate computer game without the interactivity

Tweet      The Amazing Spiderman 2 – Marc Webb   Dramatic tension, suspense depends on imperilment, uncertainty of outcomes. The flaw in the super-hero genre which this Spiderman suffers from more than most, is that because the impossible can be convincingly depicted, outcomes are either certain, therefore predictable; or unconvincingly plotted to tidy up […]

Philomena – Stephen Frears – Touching, moving – but where’s the anger?

Tweet    Philomena – Stephen Frears The real Philomena Lee was in the audience with her family when I saw this at the wonderful Rex Cinema in Berkhamsted. She took part in a question and answer session after the showing. She revealed herself to be intelligent, articulate, perceptive and wise. These qualities perhaps developed by […]

Captain Phillips – Paul Greengrass: Might is right….but…..

Tweet      Captain Phillips – Paul Greengrass Claustrophobic, tense, exciting, edge-of-the seat suspense. As you would expect of the Director of United 93 and the best two films in the Bourne franchise, Captain Phillips is brilliantly edited to give a sense of movement and pace one wouldn’t have thought possible confined on board a […]

Disappointing Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen. Woody was, is and always will be more a Lubitsch than a Bergman

Tweet          Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen Woody Allen is blessed. He has a God-given gift. That gift is to make us laugh: with an articulate wit, incisive irony, and a delicious sense of the personal and metaphysical absurdity of life. Camus in drag. His gift as an artist, is not to […]

The Bling Ring – Sofia Coppola A waste of space movie about a waste of space lifestyle

Tweet     The Bling Ring – Sofia Coppola A rarity: a movie without a single genuine emotion throughout its full 90 minutes. The unspeakable ersatz world of celebrity slavishly but pathetically emulated by a bunch of young people descending like a plague of designer-brand locusts to strip celebrity homes of every famous named product […]

Shun Li and the Poet – Andrea Segre – Simply a delight

Tweet   Shun Li and The Poet – Andrea Segre Like a glass of pure, fresh, home-made lemonade: with a hint of sweetness and a satisfying tang of fresh lemon on a sweltering hot, oppressive day – this delightful little gem refreshes one’s aesthetic palate, touches the soul and lifts the spirit. It is simply […]

Before Midnight – Linklater, Delpy and Hawke – an exploration of Love for grown-ups

Tweet        Before Midnight – Richard Linklater Simone Weil – “Perhaps love is an attempt to make permanent that which by its very nature is transient” Celine in Before Sunrise: “You know I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us; not you or me, just this […]

Man Of Steel – Zack Snyder Fascist, Fairy Tail Fantasy, Fetishised weaponry – but no FUN

Tweet    Man of Steel – Zack snyder All the ‘Fs’ but one: this is a Fascist Fairy tale Fantasy with Fabulous graphics, Fantastic editing and as usual with modern Hollywood, Fetishised technology, especially the multiplicity of devices to kill people with. The sadly and critically missing ‘F’ is Fun. In those long gone innocent […]

A Late Quartet – Yaron Zilberman A Fugue: Musically, emotionally and literally

Tweet        A Late Quartet – Yaron Zilberman Do women marry for passion? Do men? Any simplistic, generalised answer will of course be wrong and do a disservice to the complexity of our emotional relationships with one another: will fail to recognise the uniqueness of each marriage and the bond at its heart. […]

Star Trek – Into Darkness: Eyebrows going where no eyebrows have been before

Tweet    Star Trek  Into Darkness – J J Abrams Eyebrows boldly going where no eyebrows have been before. Deliciously the Latin for eyebrows is supercilia: and there is much superciliasness in STID. Chris Pine’s young Jimbo Kirk sports Healeyesque bushy beetle brackets in an archly arcing style of bifurcated unibrow. Spock’s (Zachary Quinto) perfectly […]