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Essex girl struggles to make good

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 […]

Tarantino – enfant – terrible: but no longer both.

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 […]

The Apprentice Week 8 – Margate Mission Muffed

TweetThe Apprentice Week 8 – Margate Mission Muffed Sugar’s increasingly capricious firing decisions and inconsistent rationale for them invites analysis. The promising Rocky Andrews was fired in week 2, partly on the argument that he was ‘too young’; yet the strikingly immature Ben, just 22 remains after some of the crassest remarks and dumbest behaviour […]

The Apprentice Week 4 – ‘Sh*t of the Show’ winner

Tweet The Apprentice Week 4 – ‘Sh*t of the Show’ winner – with still 8 shows to go. Yale Psychologist Stanley Milgram July 1961: “I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental […]

The Day The Earth Stood Still – you say Klaatu, I say Keanu, let’s call the whole thing off

Tweet The Day The Earth Stood Still – Scott Derrickson Keanu Reeves is an Alien: it’s not often you get to write a sentence with three different meanings that is true whichever of them you apply. As a description of Keanu’s role in this re-make of the 50’s Sci-Fi classic it is factually true; as […]

Nights In Rodanthe – the love story – toughest genre in movies

Tweet Nights In Rodanthe – George C Wolfe Women aren’t romantic. That’s why they love romantic men. Women are far too sensible to believe either that love ‘conquers all’, or is “all you need.” It’s genetic and evolutionary: being responsible for bearing, giving birth, protecting, nurturing and raising the children of the next generation, gives […]

Layer Cake – an “‘ere guv sling us the swag” kinda movie

Tweet Layer Cake – Matthew Vaughan Layer Cake has all the warmth and depth of characterisation of the Tarantino films it emulates, but without their visual flair, imagination, style and wicked irony. Like Quentin, director Matthew Vaughn is irreducibly referential – Seven, Lock Stock of course and the quintessential British Gangster movie – Get Carter. […]

The Kingdom – Desert Foxx: but Jamie ain’t no Rommel

Tweet The Kingdom – Peter Berg It’s the sub-text that sucks. On a superficial level this is just an averagely competent action movie with performances better than it deserves. The only difference is the Saudi Arabian setting of the title. The film opens with a well choreographed, strongly edited, only-too-real atrocity committed in one of […]

Syriana – straw men burn too easily, lets the bad guys go free

Tweet Syriana – Stephen Gaghan Pascal’s wager: we can’t know whether God exists so we should weigh the benefits of belief. If we assume He does exist and act virtuously, then even if He doesn’t we have lost nothing. However if we assume He doesn’t and act badly then eternal punishment is the penalty. For […]

Birth – Kidman, ice-maiden – all ice, no maiden

Tweet Birth – Jonathan Glazer A.W Kaufman. Remember the name: a Casting Director who has managed to miscast a whole movie, with the inevitable exception of Lauren Bacall of whom one must say you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse. For me there is not a credible performance in this odd […]