Film :: Review :: DVD Review 28 Nov 2008
Gavin Sturgeon: The Spiderman films taught us that “with great power comes great responsibility”, but what if you chose to spurn your super powers in favour of cheap liquor and even cheaper girls? Smith is Hancock, an anti-hero who has fallen by the waysid...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 25 Nov 2008
Michael Gillespie: Almost every American film made since September 2001 has been probed and prodded for a post-9/11 subtext. Directed by James Marsh, The King (2005) explored the rise of the Christian right in the Bush era, with a family drama of Old Testament proportion...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 23 Nov 2008
Michael Gillespie: With Obama soon to be in the White House and a renewed sense of hope amongst the American left, Jamie Babbit’s follow up to But I’m A Cheerleader may be the last of its kind. A punk romance, the film follows buttoned down receptionist Anna ...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 10 Nov 2008
Michael Gillespie: Alfred Hitchcock once said that the problem with so many movies was that they were essentially “filmed plays”. Sordid Lives is one such beast, not least because it is based upon writer-director Del Shores’ stage production, but also b...
Kevin McHugh: Jack Black in a funny movie? No it’s not School Of Rock 2. Kung Fu Panda is about Po, a portly panda who works in a noodle shop with dreams of becoming a Kung Fu master. Improbably, he’s chosen to fulfil an ancient prophecy that will see hi...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 03 Nov 2008
Kevin McHugh: Legendary director Martin Scorsese has picked the Rolling Stones for his next music documentary after the success of 2005’s Dylan documentary, No Direction Home. Seamlessly cutting new and old footage with a newly recorded concert, shot by no les...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 27 Oct 2008
Jonathan Melville: While an eco-friendly sci-fi film starring a handful of robots trying to preserve the remnants of the Earth’s plant population may sound familiar to viewers of 2008’s WALL-E, this particular plotline comes from a film 36 years its senior, 1...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 20 Oct 2008
Michael Gillespie: Best known to British audiences for her Comedy Central sitcom and “f***ing Matt Damon (youtube it)”, Sarah Silverman specialises in the kind of subversive, misanthropic and very un-PC brand of humour associated with South Park or Larry Davi...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 02 Oct 2008
Cara McGuigan: If Wayne and Garth got the budget to make a film, they'd probably make Chemical Wedding. It's dire beyond belief, but... cripplingly, cringingly funny in parts. Infamous British occultist Aleister Crowley is reincarnated in the body of a Cambridge don...
Film :: Music :: Feature :: DVD Review 01 Oct 2008
Ewen Millar: The mandate for Burn to Shine is simple: find a house that is due to be demolished; recruit a number of local bands to play there; film the demolition of the house and release the DVD. Produced by Fugazi's Brendan Canty, each DVD is rigidly formulaic ...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 29 Sep 2008
Alastair Roy: Fresh faced Elijah Wood and craggy chops John Hurt come head-to-head in this murder mystery set against Oxford's academic world. Wood plays Martin, a keen-eyed American student who crosses the Atlantic for the tutorage of philosophy lecturer Arthur Sel...
Jack McFarlane: This is by and for the gore-hungry and genre-savvy demographic so dedicated to these straight to video zombie movies, but is unlikely to satisfy the more seasoned of the brood as blood and guts only feature as prominently as its zero budget will allow ...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 24 Sep 2008
Alastair Roy: University professor and widower Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) ekes out a self-centred existence, blind to his children's problems and students' questions. Work on his academic book 'You Can't Read' is put on hold when step-brother slacker Chuck (...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 17 Sep 2008
Jack McFarlane: A consequence-free environment with a disposable android population, Westworld is the theme park of the future where the most illicit and amoral of wild-west fantasies are fully indulged. But the days full of rigged shoot-outs, hard boozing, and robo-f...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 15 Sep 2008
Jack McFarlane: In this post-apocalyptic society, every aspect of life is cared for by the computer that controls the hermetically sealed cities. There is no work, just play. But there is one serious snag: at the age of 30 you must take part in a mass suicide to maint...
Deviance :: Film :: Review :: DVD Review 11 Sep 2008
Cara McGuigan: The tense confusion of something unspoken is thick from the opening credits of XXY. Lack of understanding is at the heart of every single frame of the film: nobody really knows what they’re doing, or what the consequences of their actions might ...
Film :: Comedy :: Review :: DVD Review 01 Sep 2008
Lindsay West: Following on from 2002's The Other Side of the Bed (El Otro Lado de la Cama), Emilio Martinez Lazaro's sequel of sorts is exactly the sort of plush, Spanish comedy of errors that begs for comparisons to early Almodovar. Viewing its predecessor is worth...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 25 Aug 2008
Lindsay West: Adapted from Malcolm Lowry's 'unadaptable' 1947 novel, Under the Volcano gave Albert Finney one of the five Oscar nominations of his career, and brought director John Huston back to Mexico for the first time since The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. In t...
Film :: Review :: DVD Review 22 Aug 2008
Kevin McHugh: After 84 minutes, chances are you won’t be awake watching this debut but instead drooling on the person next to you. Millionaire Clayton (Christensen) suffers from a rare heart condition meaning he’ll die if he doesn’t receive a trans...
Fashion :: Deviance :: Film :: Comedy :: Review :: DVD Review 22 Aug 2008
Lindsay West: Despite its vague billing as a risque German 'gay interest' comedy, Fashion Victims is in truth a far straighter affair than the rainbow titles and sartorial subtext might first imply. Looking more like a mortgage advisor than a fashion rep, Wolfgang (...
