Tweet Ruby and Calvin     Ruby Sparks – Jonathon Dayton, Valerie Faris Thoughtful, imaginative, perceptive and different. Not common epithets for Hollywood romantic comedies nowadays so don’t let this quirky, charming little gem disappear before you catch up with it. Playwright turned screenwriter Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of Elia, holds the movie together as the […]

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Tweet     Searching for Sugarman (an Existential life*) – Malik Bendjelloulan (*my addition) This year’s film not to miss. It has been gathering momentum since winning best documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. This is a story you can’ t believe – but want to. A story that then delights you by being true. […]

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Tweet        Killing Them Softly – Andrew Dominik One of the deepest and most interesting issues in Philosophy is that of knowledge of other minds. How is it that we can come to know, understand, care, hate, love another person? Indeed the idea of what it is to be a person is an […]

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Tweet     Jackpot **** Magnus Martens I’m stumped. I may need your help dear reader. If I described some of the unspeakably violent things that happen in this movie, most of you, I hope, wouldn’t go anywhere near it. But you’d be wrong. And why you would be wrong is my dilemma. To lay it […]

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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 […]

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Tweet    Lawless – John Hillcoat Stupid men, doing stupid things, in very stupid ways, for pretty stupid reasons. Hillcoat and screenplay writer Nick Cave re-unite after the gratuitously violent The Proposition to delight us with the gratuitously violent Lawless. I wrote this of that first film, much admired by some. “A new genre – […]

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Tweet      The Bourne Legacy – Tony Gilroy Fast, furious and slick. Gilroy’s extends the Bourne franchise neatly with enough narrative linkage to the absent Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) and the ending of The Bourne Ultimatum to carry credibility and engage us in the exploits of Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) number 5 operative in […]

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Tweet    The Dark Knight Rises – Christopher Nolan Christopher Nolan’s brilliant exploration of the moral conflicts at the heart of the Batman myth made The Dark Knight easily the best of the comic book-based movie genre. Heath Ledger’s superb Joker was a truly Satanic figure, driven by a belief in the essential imperfectability of a mankind […]

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Tweet    Seeking A Friend For The end Of The World – Lorene Scafaria The camera always catches you acting. The most common fault in movie acting performances is doing too much. Keira Knightley is a case in point. A naturally animated personality, she has not yet learned, or so far been well-enough directed, to […]

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Tweet          Think Like A Man – Tim Story About an hour in, my usually gently-spoken wife said: “ I don’t give a sh*t about any of these people – I’m off.” With relief, first time for a very long time, I left a movie half way through. Excruciatingly unfunny, even the narrator in […]

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