Posted on January 7th, 2011 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Stars Hankies My Afternoons With Margueritte – Jean Becker Rumpelstiltskinian: Director Becker has taken a few random narrative straws and spun them into a fragment of gold. Sentimental? Yes: but touching, truthful and with that rare quality in modern movies, heart. Semi-literate Germain Chazes (a superb Depardieu) was the unwanted result of a post-prandial […]
Filed under: 5 stars, Drama, General, Jean Becker, Philosophical, philosophy | No Comments »
Posted on November 2nd, 2010 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Embarrasssment defines and divides Americans and Brits. Movies reveal this. For Americans embarrassment is funny: for Brits embarrassment is, well, embarrassing. Films like Meet The Fokkers or any comedy with Robert de Niro in it demonstrate this perfectly. Ben Stiller is the patron saint of embarrassment humour. There is an instinct for schadenfreude in […]
Filed under: 2 star, Comedy, Director, Drama, General, Hollywood, Humorous, Lisa Choldenko | No Comments »
Posted on February 4th, 2010 by Zettel Film Reviewer
TweetFilm, performance, screenplay, art Technical, Effects, Art direction Avatar – James Cameron Avatar sucks: the bambification of an aboriginal narrative. A sentimentalised pastiche of a Native American stereotype. The Na’vi sound like Hollywindians and worship an Earth-mother who looks like a fibre-optic willow tree spiritually reified by tinsellated dandelion-seed-like Christmas tree baubles that slo-mo around […]
Filed under: 1 star, Action, Drama, Fantasy, General, Hollywood, Humorous, Sci-Fi | No Comments »
Posted on October 4th, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet The Soloist – Joe Wright Why do we go to the movies? I guess for as many different reasons as there are different kinds of films: to be entertained, informed, moved; to be made to laugh or cry, or exceptionally, both at the same time; or more rarely to be challenged, stimulated, provoked into […]
Filed under: 4 stars, Drama, Extended essay, Hollywood, Joe Wright, Philosophical | No Comments »
Posted on September 25th, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Fish Tank – Andrea Arnold I’m bemused, bewildered and to be honest, bloody angry. What is the widespread acclaim and exaggerated praise for this movie all about? OK, I’m sorry that feisty, attractive 15 year-old Mia’s mother is a dysfunctional, feckless waste of space. I understand that makes Mia conflicted and angry enough to […]
Filed under: 2 star, Andrea Arnold, Drama, General | No Comments »
Posted on August 17th, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Inglourious Basterds – Quentin Tarantino The penny finally dropped: Quentin Tarantino simply has no imagination. He can’t create characters so he borrows bits from characters in films he’s seen. He can’t create a believable setting or narrative, so he echoes, parodies, de-constructs those of others. He is either passive or unaffected by reality or […]
Filed under: 2 star, Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, General, Historical, Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino, War | No Comments »
Posted on August 2nd, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Antichrist – Lars von Trier Wittgenstein said he always found Freud worth reading – for thought-provoking psychological ideas. He expressed no interest in Freud’s work as the basis for a therapeutic regime. As ever, this is both clear thinking and wise. In Antichrist, Lars von Trier tempts us to become as entangled in Freudian […]
Filed under: 4 stars, Drama, Europe/World cinema, Extended essay, Fantasy, Lars von Trier, Philosophical | No Comments »
Posted on May 24th, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Il Divo – Paolo Sorrentino (2008) Shakespearean in content, operatic in tone, writer director Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo (the extraordinary life of Giulio Andreotti) is a masterly work. Richly textured and at times demanding, Sorrentino’s film is a profound study of power, and its irresistible affects on men who possess it and those drawn […]
Filed under: 5 stars, Action, Drama, Europe/World cinema, Extended essay, Film Essay, Historical, Humorous, Paolo Sorrentino, Philosophical, Political, Thriller | No Comments »
Posted on May 7th, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Is Anybody There? – John Cowley Is there a nation on earth more contemptuous or contemptible about the old than the British? Politically and socially we under-resource shamefully large numbers of the elderly literally to the point of starvation; or we freeze them to death. Politicians with a toxic self-serving sentimentality exploit them. We […]
Filed under: 1 star, Comedy, Drama, John Cowley, Philosophical | No Comments »
Posted on February 26th, 2009 by Zettel Film Reviewer
Tweet Gran Torino – Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry got to be old. And mean. I guess we expected that. Curmudgeonly, cranky, rollie-smoking, beer-drinking – a can and by-the-neck man, nary a glass in sight – ex-Korean War vet Walt Kowalski isn’t actually cop Harry Callaghan, just a kind of alter ego ‘with-no-name’ grown old, prejudices […]
Filed under: 3 star, Clint Eastwood, Drama, General, Hollywood, Philosophical, Political | No Comments »
