“Don’t you see, the complexity is what makes it all so brilliant!” For those who found Inception simply annoying and convoluted, those jokers at CollegeHumor.com have recently produced the instructional video Inception Characters Don’t Understand Inception. In it, an increasingly exasperated actress who looks nothing like Ellen Page attempts to get her head round the [...]
She could have been Mrs Robinson in The Graduate; she did play (once) the all-American mama Olivia Walton; and for 30 years she was the real-life Mrs Roald Dahl. For me, though, Patricia Neal will always be plain old Alma Brown, the world-weary housekeeper who refused to become another notch on the bedpost of Paul [...]
If ever a mother was designed to drive her offspring to crime, depravity and therapy, it was Livia Soprano. The star of David Chase’s acclaimed HBO drama was mob boss Tony (James Gandolfini) — an antihero for our times. But the early years of the show were dominated by the supremely malevolent matriarch Livia Soprano [...]
“Like the protagonist, it tries hard to punch above its weight but has difficulty landing the killer blow.” ………………………………………………… The Killer Inside Me Director: Michael Winterbottom “Out here you’re a man and a gentleman or you aren’t anything at all.” Or you could be a smooth-talking lawman by day and a psychopath with a penchant [...]
I Am Love / Io Sono L’amore Directed by Luca Guadagnino The poster for Luca Guadagnino’s film shows a regal Tilda Swinton in an eye-catching red dress surrounded by her sober-looking family. In another version, the frock has undergone a cheeky digital makeover to a shocking pink that matches the movie’s bold, declaratory title. The [...]
Don’t Worry About Me Directed by David Morrissey British actor David Morrissey has had his share of highs and lows. With starring roles in acclaimed TV series like Holding On, State of Play and Blackpool, he had Doctor Who fans talking up his chances of replacing David Tennant in the iconic role that eventually went [...]
I recently sat through the clumsily titled “Version You’ve Never Seen” cut of The Exorcist, only to conclude that it should have remained unseen. Another 10 minutes of footage, including the laughable spider-walk scene and a feeble new ending have done nothing to improve William Friedkin’s horror classic. But, as the DVD market is flooded [...]
There’s no Al Gore-style proselytizing here, just two 30-something Brits who are determined to become the first carbon neutral, vegetarian, organic team to reach the North Pole “unsupported”. Beyond The Pole Directed by David L Williams “Don’t be impotent. Be important!” Tackling climate change might not seem like an obvious subject for a comedy – [...]
What really impresses is the way the script, co-written by Ford and David Scearce, sidesteps the maudlin and the pretentious to show us how ridiculous we can be, even in our darkest moments. – A Single Man Directed by Tom Ford With fashion supremo Tom Ford at the helm, the very least you’d expect from [...]
Hulks, high-flyers and web-slingers – it was a decade dominated by superheroes of all shapes, sizes and hues. And in the unlikely event that Batman, Superman or Iron Man failed to wow you at the box office, there were brooding, muscle-bound guys with cool gadgets (Bourne and Bond); a precocious young wizard (Harry Potter); and [...]
A delirious cocktail of satire, sex, music, murder and cod-Shakespearean dialogue, Russ Meyer’s cult classic is a blast from its pistol-in-the-mouth start to its tongue-in-cheek finish. Even if you’ve never seen a Meyer film and don’t share his predilection for buxom ladies with limited acting skills, the story of an all-girl rock group in Hollywood [...]
Opening credits: are they witty, colourful, innovative, or just the cinematic equivalent of wallpaper? A barrage of production company logos is all very well, but there’s something about a clever combination of words, images – animated or photographic – and music, all condensed into a few minutes of screen time, that heightens your sense of [...]
Exploding vehicles (and heads), decapitations, a whole lot of nudity and an overexcited Quentin Tarantino are just the starting point for Not Quite Hollywood: the wild, untold story of Ozploitation!, Mark Hartley’s jaw-dropping history of Australian genre cinema. Forget Picnic at Hanging Rock: it’s more a case of let’s blow up Ayers Rock and set [...]
A Single Man Directed by Tom Ford With fashion supremo Tom Ford at the helm, the very least you’d expect from this adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s novel is a parade of gorgeous men in well-cut suits. There’s certainly enough Kennedy-era period detail here to satisfy the most ardent fan of Mad Men (along with an [...]
In March 2006 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sprung one of its annual surprises by awarding the best picture Oscar to Crash, rather than Ang Lee’s acclaimed gay cowboy drama, Brokeback Mountain. At the time it looked as though racism and multiple vehicular pile-ups had trumped homosexuality in the battle of the [...]
The American: Visions of damnation
A look back at “Wings Of Desire”
Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)
8: The Mormon Proposition
This Movie is Broken
The Last Exorcism: A surprisingly invigorating horror film
A Look Back At Spielberg’s Masterpiece “Jaws”
Fausta: The Milk of Sorrow
MIFF2010: The Illusionist
Piranha 3d
The Switch
Afterschool
Rampage
Stonewall Uprising
Toronto After Dark 2010: Doghouse (Review #1)
The Expendables
Toronto After Dark 2010: Last Lovecraft (Review #1)
