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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 […]

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 […]

Silver Linings Playbook – phoney, patronising but with great Lawrentian moments

Tweet      Silver Linings Playbook – David O Russell The mesmeric Jennifer Lawrence almost makes this phoney movie work – but not quite. For me at least. Claudia Winkleman on BBC’s now equally unwatchable Twittery Film 2012 loved it; while her mate on the show, Danny ‘Boy’ Leigh hated it. Reluctantly, I’m with Danny […]

To Rome With Love – Woody Allen

Tweet      To Rome With L0ve – Woody Allen Domestic disagreement on this one: my wife, who liked Midnight In Paris much more than I did was lukewarm about Woody Allen’s latest comedy of manners, mores and the absurdity of love and life. I am the opposite. To Rome With Love for me is […]

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – John Madden. A masterclass in film-acting

Tweet      The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – JohnMadden If I were an artist I would want to paint her; I wish I were a better poet that she might read one of my poems; and if my life-long ambition, which will not now be fulfilled, to Direct a movie came true – I […]

Carnage: Roman Polanski – comedy of bourgeois manners and sensibilities

Tweet   Carnage – Roman Polanski Why? – must be the first question that comes to mind when adapting a work from another medium to film. The most obvious answer is the commercial hedge it represents to take a work with a proven track record of success. French dramatist Yasmina Reza’s play Le Dieu du Carnage was […]

Tintin Movie – 5 Star Technical: 2 Star Entertainment

Tweet      Technical   Entertainment   The Adventures of Tintin – Steven Spielberg and the use of 3D and Performance Capture – Essay/Review Spielberg: at last the Directorial penny drops on the use of 3D. What David Yates made innovative use of in the final Harry Potter film, Spielberg exploits rigorously throughout his Tintin movie to make it the […]

Definitely Maybe – A RomCom both funny and romantic

Tweet        Definetely Maybe – Adam Brooks I love feel-good movies: if they don’t insult my intelligence – and this one doesn’t. If they persuade me to believe in the characters and the emotions they have for each other – and this one does. If the feeling good has a little bit of […]

Sex And The Single (English)man – Fear And Loving in Greece

Tweet    The Inbetweeners – Ben Palmer Tragedy takes many forms but there can few things more acutely tragic than the sight of four basically decent English lads adrift on a sea of hormones, desperately trying to get laid.  The odds they face are truly frightening: their chronological equals of the fairer sex are light-years […]

Horrible Bosses – witty, stylish, silly and satisfying. Fun

Tweet    Horrible Bosses – Seth Gordon The best comedy I’ve seen this year. And judging by the queues, a word-of- mouth hit. The sheer pace and minimal gag gaps in Horrible Bosses means our interest never flags and the next laugh is never far away. Lots of very solid TV comedy experience is all there on […]