Every now and again, I watch the first half of Side Effects and somewhat wistfully pretend it was a good movie. All the potential for it is there. Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) descends into a suicidal depression following her husband’s return from prison for insider trading. When she attempts suicide – twice – her psychiatrist…
Tag: film review
Warm Bodies (Film Review)
What am I doing with my life? I’m so pale. I should get out more. I should eat better. My posture is terrible. I should stand up straighter. People would respect me more if I stood up straighter. What’s wrong with me? I just want to connect. Why can’t I connect with people? Oh, right,…
Stoker (Film Review)
‘My ears hear what others cannot hear. Small faraway things people cannot normally see are visible to me. These senses are the fruits of a lifetime of longing. Longing to be rescued; to be completed. Just as the skirt needs the wind to billow, I’m not formed by things that are of myself alone. I…
The Great Gatsby (Film Review)
Fearless, sexy, creative, and yet more to be admired than loved, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby is a well-written, well-acted and gorgeous experience for the eyes that almost perfectly juxtaposes respect for a well-loved classic with the willingness to do new and interesting things with it. Sadly, it does lack that X-factor spark of the…
Underrated and misunderstood: The Village (Film Review)
Filmed back in the good old days when M. Night Shyamalan still knew how to make movies, The Village is probably one of the most underrated and most misunderstood films out there, boasting a captivating heroine, an ageless story and a mastery of the subtle, psychological terror that typifies its unfortunate director’s earlier films. In…
Music/life: ‘Quartet’ (Film Review)
Quartet is a rare thing. While it does leave you smiling in contentment like a Cheshire cat, the light is shaded by such sadness and nostalgia that the scales are tipped from comedy to drama fairly often. Nevertheless, the film is uproariously funny, deeply intelligent and blows any other ensemble cast this year completely out…
Unearthly: Daniel Day-Lewis mesmerises in ‘Lincoln’.
Lincoln is an incomprehensibly fast three hours to sit through. Often more like a play than a film, much of the action takes place in a freezing indoor world of murky grey and black hues; the outside world, and history, constantly threatening to come bursting in through the windows. This darkness makes the film’s more…
Taking a torch to Anna Karenina
Hollywood has never been kind to Anna Karenina. Producers sex it up and dumb it down, chuck in lots of money, some pretty costumes and even prettier (usually bad) actors, then sit back and congratulate themselves. So, despite a very original artistic concept from director Joe Wright, a serviceable performance by Jude Law as Karenin…
The People’s Musical: A Review of Les Misérables
In a recent red carpet interview, Anne Hathaway referred to Les Misérables as ‘the people’s musical’, and nothing proves the sensitivity and truth of that insight more than the landscape of this extraordinary film, in which crowds of the poor and the desperate, reduced to a sea of colour and clawing hands, push ever closer…
LADYGILRAEN 