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Ruby Sparks – Jonathon Dayton, Valerie Faris: Thoughtful, imaginative, perceptive and different

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 […]

Jackpot – Magnus Martens Knockout Nutty Norwegian Noir

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 […]

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 […]

Larry Crowne – Rom-Com with too little ROM and not enough COM

Tweet    Larry Crowne – Tom Hanks For my money Julia Roberts is the best romantic comedy actress working today. Unfortunately this can be a 2-edged sword as she can flatter to deceive by adding a touch of class to relatively modest material and make it play.  She rarely gets the quality of writing in […]

Funny people are funny people

Tweet Funny People – Judd Apatow Funny people are funny people: ha ha and peculiar respectively – like “war is war”, this is no tautology. Not even the ‘great artists must starve in a garret’ myth has more universal currency than the received wisdom in the public mind that ‘comics are depressives’, and ‘making people […]