Tag Archives: USA

Burnt (2015)

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burnt_finalBradley Cooper is a CHEF. He’s had a TROUBLED PAST. He wants to prove that he’s the BEST. But he can’t do it ALONE. And I can tell all of this just from the poster. I laughed when I saw the poster at the cinema a few months ago. It seems like such a formulaic premise for a movie, something that movie execs cook up thinking that it can’t possibly fail because it has all the right ingredients. And it’s not a terrible movie, but it’s like dining at McDonald’s, you know exactly what you’re going to get when you walk in and no amount of artisan presentation will change the fact that it’s the same burger you’ve eaten many times before. Continue reading →

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

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eternalsunshine_finalI’d forgotten this film from 2004. Joel (Jim Carrey) wakes to find that his girlfriend Clementine (Kate Winslet) has had all memory of him erased so that she can move on. In anger, he chooses to do the same and we follow him back through their relationship as the fragments of his memory of her disappear. Directed by Michel Gondry with inventive camerawork and very few post-production special effects, you are kept off-kilter as you navigate your way through the real and the surreal that is Joel’s mind. Continue reading →

Carol (2015)

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carol_therese_finalOr cigarettes and sombre faces. Carol is directed by Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven), based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr Ripley) and stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara. Good credentials as far as I’m concerned. It is set in early 50s New York, a post-war world where women are beginning to emerge from the constraints of the past and it explores a lesbian relationship, highlighting the challenges and inequities for women who don’t conform. It is based on an experience of Highsmith’s and her story existed many years under a pseudonym with Highsmith denying authorship until the late 80s, a telling fact as to how long these inequities existed (and still exist). Continue reading →

Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (2015)

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I have mixed feelings about this documentary. I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about an interesting and non-conformist woman who had an impact on the development and understanding of modern art, something that seemed to be the domain of men in the mid-20th century. The documentary itself, though, is rather pedestrian and does not match its subject’s love of challenging and expressive art.  Continue reading →

The Big Short (2015)

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Or how the housing crisis was pretty tough for a bunch of rich, white guys. I’ve been musing on this film quite a bit since I watched it a couple of nights ago. Not because it’s a great film but because I can see two ways to review it – for its craft and within the context of mainstream contemporary Hollywood film making.  It’s about the US housing crisis of 2007 and chooses to try to explain why it was allowed to happen rather than explore the effects. We follow several men, all misfits in some way, who saw the signs of the housing mortgage bond collapse and used it, and the blindness and perhaps deliberate fraudulence of the banks and regulatory bodies, for their own financial gain. Continue reading →

Deadpool (2016)

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I’m not the biggest fan of superhero movies. I’ve seen a few – Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Ironman, X-Men, Avengers – and some are more watchable than others but there is a certain sameness to them. For a start, the superhero is nearly always a man (looking forward to next year’s Wonder Woman), female characters are there for sex or saving (or both) and the plot rarely varies – ordinary guy, painful process, super powers, denial and rage, girlfriend captured by villains, saves her and saves the world. Deadpool doesn’t really depart from these archetypes but it is unlike any superhero movie I’ve seen before. Continue reading →

Zoolander 2 (2016)

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Is there any point in reviewing this movie? If you liked Zoolander, you’re going to watch it eventually and you’re going to know that, as a sequel, it’s never going to be as good as the original. If you didn’t like Zoolander, then you’d probably choose to undergo a tax audit rather than sit through another one. I have to admit it was seeing Benedict Cumberbatch in the trailer as an eyebrowless, gender non-specific fashion model that got me there. And in that respect, I was not disappointed. Continue reading →

Valentine’s Day (2010)

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Today we watched one of my favourite romantic comedies just because it was Valentine’s Day. It’s not up there with Love Actually but it has a similar sensibility, it shows us that love has many forms and doesn’t always work out as we planned, it just does it in a slightly cheesy Hollywood style. It still makes me feel good though when I watch it. Continue reading →

Spotlight (2015)

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Spotlight is based on true events, when the Boston Globe uncovered evidence that the Catholic church had known of child sexual assault by priests and covered it up by shifting priests from parish to parish. Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), a new editor at the Globe around 2001, insisted that a small story about a lawsuit pertaining to a priest accused of sexual assault be further investigated after the court documents were ordered to be sealed. What becomes apparent is the extent of the cover up and the reticence of a community that is staunchly Catholic to acknowledge the problem. Continue reading →