First Time Watches - February 2012
Megan Is Missing (2011)
As a kid I was an absolute gorehound but the older I've gotten the more my tolerance for onscreen violence has waned. What disturbs me most now is any kind of violence towards children so this found footage effort was particularly hard to watch.
New Release Review - Sleeping Beauty
Directed by: Julia Leigh
Starring: Emily Browning, Rachael Blake, Ewen Leslie
Leigh's highly impressive debut tells the story of Browning, a young student who takes a job where rich elderly men pay to share a bed with her naked sleeping body.
New Release Review - Rampart
Directed by: Oren Moverman
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Ben Foster, Sigourney Weaver, Steve Buscemi, Ned Beatty, Ice Cube, Anne Heche, Cynthia Nixon, Robin Wright
Considering the impressive cast and a James Ellroy penned screenplay, this movie seems to have disappeared under the radar. There's a reason for this, it's simply not very good.
New Release Review - Safe House
Directed by: Daniel Espinosa
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Sam Shepard
If a wedding video was put together in as shoddy a fashion as this turkey the newlyweds wouldn't accept it.
New Release Review - The Woman In The Fifth
Directed by: Pawel Pawlikowski
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig, Samir Guesmi
I'm always suspicious of a work of fiction which features a writer as it's protagonist, there's always the danger of self-aggrandizing and wish-fulfillment. Pawlikowski takes it a step further by actually casting a writer, Hawke, as his lead.
New Release Review - The Wicker Tree
Directed by: Robin Hardy
Starring: Brittania Nicol, Henry Garett, Honeysuckle Weeks, Graham McTavish
Ask most horror fans for their ten favorite movies of the genre and chances are Hardy's 1972 masterpiece "The Wicker Man" will be on the list somewhere. The Nic Cage starring 2006 remake is frequently cited as possibly the worst remake ever. Hardy's follow up has a lot more in common with the remake than his own original, not least in terms of quality.
Pre-Code Retrospective - Thirteen Women (1932)
Directed by: George Archainbaud
Starring: Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy, Ricardo Cortez
Thirteen former sorority sisters start to receive, one by one, a horoscope prophesizing their doom from a renowned swami. When the prophecies begin to play out, the remaining few gather to fight their destiny.
New Release Review - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Directed by: Stephen Daldry
Starring: Thomas Horn, Tom Hanks, Sandra Bullock, Max Von Sydow
The voiceover is a controversial weapon in a film-maker's armoury. I'm not a fan of it but so long as it merely supplements the visuals rather than describing them I'm fine with it. For a good example see "Sunset Boulevard", for a bad example watch this (no actually don't, take my word for it).
New Release Review - Transit
Starring: Jim Caviezel, Diora Baird, James Frain, Harold Perrineau, Elisabeth Rohm
Caviezel and Frain should be doing a lot better than straight to DVD fodder like this tale of a family stalked by criminals who stashed stolen money in their camping gear.
New Release Review - A Dangerous Method
Directed by: David Cronenberg
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen, Vincent Cassell, Sarah Gadon
Cronenberg is that brand of film-maker I struggle to appreciate, an intellectual.
New Release Review - Star Wars: The Phantom Menace 3D
Directed by: George Lucas
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman, Jake Lloyd
Yesterday "The Muppets" reminded me what a fun place a cinema auditorium can be, today this showed me it can also be depressing and soul destroying.
New Release Review - The Muppets
Directed by: James Bobin
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones, The Muppets
I think it was David Lynch who once said that as long as Jimmy Stewart is still around, the world can't be a bad place. Sadly Stewart is no longer with us but I think you could substitute his name with the Muppets and the quote would work just as well.
New Release Review - Carnage
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Starring: Jodie Foster, John C Reilly, Christoph Waltz, Kate Winslet
Strained is the best way to describe this adaptation of the successful stage play.
New Release Review - The Woman In Black
Directed by: James Watkins
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds, Janet McTeer
Though they now have a few movies under their belt since their reincarnation, this is really the first Hammer production that recalls the gothic tradition we associate the iconic studio with.
New Release Review - Intruders
Directed by: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Starring: Clive Owen, Daniel Bruhl, Carice Van Houten, Kerry Fox, Ella Purnell
Back in the VHS boom of the eighties I spent way too much time watching horror movies.
New Release Review - Young Adult
Directed by: Jason Reitman
Starring: Charlize Theron, Patrick Wilson, Patton Oswalt
Screenwriter Diablo Cody is often criticised for writing teenage characters who talk like they're middle aged. Fitting then that her latest script is about middle-aged people who behave like teenagers.
New Release Review - Martha Marcy May Marlene
Directed by: Sean Durkin
Starring: John Hawkes, Elizabeth Olsen, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy
Two exciting new talents explode onto the screen in what could be the best American movie of the twenty-first century.
New Release Review - Two Headed Shark Attack
Directed by: Christopher Ray
Starring: Brooke Hogan, Carmen Electra, Charlie O'Connell
Two heads are better than one is the thinking behind this latest effort from The Asylum Studios.
New Release Review - Beneath The Darkness
Directed by: Martin Guigui
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Tony Oller, Aimee Teegarden
This attempts to do for "Psycho" what "Disturbia" did for "Rear Window", update it for a teen audience, but where the latter film succeeded this fails miserably.