Sometimes a real life story is so incredible that the urge to translate an epic against-the-odds tale into a film is impossible to resist. Unfortunately, not every such story lends itself to a big screen rendering, lacking the necessary ingredients to deliver a cinematic vision that is as captivating as the premise. Such is the […]
The Edge of Seventeen
If you grew up in the 1980s, John Hughes probably played a significant role in both your film viewing experiences and in the development of your personal sense of self. Like nobody else before him, Hughes created teenage characters that seemed real and with whom the target audience could relate. His films (Sixteen Candles, Ferris […]
Passengers
A holiday release schedule makes perfect sense for Passengers because this is a foray into science fiction that, whilst lacking logic, doesn’t seem to expect to be taken too seriously. It is a film that is visually impressive and entertaining enough while you are watching it, but pretty appalling in its message even with the […]
Jackie
If Natalie Portman doesn’t win the Best Actress gong at the Academy Awards this year for her performance as former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, then the system by which such awards are decided is very clearly broken. It is Portman’s performance that makes this film such a spellbinding work of art. Yes, the costumes are […]
Allied
Despite its WW2 setting, Allied is first and foremost a romance in which two beautiful people in beautiful costumes kill some Nazis and fall in love. Directed by Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump), this old-fashioned spy caper is well made and looks lovely, yet it somehow fails to resonate. The problem is that the romantic […]
Paterson
With a title that is both the name of the central character and the New Jersey city in which he lives, this latest offering from indie darling Jim Jarmusch is about a man who wakes at the same time every morning, walks to work, spends his day driving a bus, returns home to his wife before […]
Top Ten Time Again
Now that 2016 is over, it is time to look back at the movies of the last 12 months and identify the most memorable big screen releases. Of course, lists such as this flood the internet, newspapers and magazines, although many of these cannot be taken seriously because they are published well before the end of the […]
