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The Amazing Spiderman 2 – second rate computer game without the interactivity

Tweet      The Amazing Spiderman 2 – Marc Webb   Dramatic tension, suspense depends on imperilment, uncertainty of outcomes. The flaw in the super-hero genre which this Spiderman suffers from more than most, is that because the impossible can be convincingly depicted, outcomes are either certain, therefore predictable; or unconvincingly plotted to tidy up […]

Blue Is The Warmest Colour – Over-hyped, over-long and under-sexed

Tweet  Blue Is The Warmest Colour – Abdellatif Kechiche Filming fictional sex is very much like filming fictional sport. It doesn’t work – because it is a contradiction in spirit. Nothing planned and scripted can ever, by definition, capture the immediacy of the drama of sport in which the unpredictability of outcome is the very […]

Disappointing Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen. Woody was, is and always will be more a Lubitsch than a Bergman

Tweet          Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen Woody Allen is blessed. He has a God-given gift. That gift is to make us laugh: with an articulate wit, incisive irony, and a delicious sense of the personal and metaphysical absurdity of life. Camus in drag. His gift as an artist, is not to […]

The Place Behind The Pines – David Cianfrance. Tatty Tats and dumb drama

Tweet    The Place Behind The Pines – David Cianfrance The paradoxes of cool. If you think you are – you aren’t. If you try to be – you won’t be. Worst of all: if everyone tells you are and you believe them – you never could or will be. Cool is impossible to define: […]

Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino

Tweet    Django Unchained – Quentin Tarantino Django contains the many strengths and several weaknesses of Quentin Tarantino. As with all his best movies, he takes a well-established generic form, here the Western, and develops its elements to farce; to absurdity; even finally to destruction. With scabrous dialogue, scandalous amorality and an almost childish determination […]

A Good Day To Die Hard – John Moore – a franchise as dead as Python’s parrot

Tweet      A Good Day To Die Hard –  John Moore Don’t. No, seriously – don’t. At last I can shed my secret shame – I’ve always enjoyed most of the Die Hard series. But this latest crass, meritless, ear-splitting drivel finally emancipates me from this affliction. I like trashy films; good trashy films: […]

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Jackson Technical triumph Dismal Drama

Tweet    Technical Quality Dramatic Quality    The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Jackson This visual realisation of a fantasy world of endlessly warring kingdoms is a technical tour-de-force: graphically state of the art with special effects to match. Simon Bright’s Art Direction aided by Andy McLaren and Ben Milson, together with Dan Hennah’s […]

End Of Watch – David Ayer: Dumb Derring Duo lose a war.

Tweet      End Of Watch  – David Ayer End of Watch is David Ayer’s much praised follow-up to his equally critically approved Training Day. It is action-packed, often tensely exciting, rattles along at a furious pace and looks like being a massive box-office hit. It is also in my view a thoroughly bad movie […]

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 […]

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 […]