How do you make an onscreen relationship between a middle-aged spinster and a 20-something mentally handicapped man sympathetic and believable? That’s the question writer/director Michael Pate no doubt asked himself a million times during the scripting process for “Tim.” Pate ultimately took the minimalist route in this 1979 Australian feature starring Mel Gibson as the […]
Moore himself says it is the culmination of 20 years of work. All his previous documentaries were all building up towards this latest assault, upon aspects of American society, which he sees as morally wrong, reprehensible and dangerous to the health of the country. Whatever you personally think of Moore, in the light of what
This film has more than a few thrilling moments. It caused my friend to throw her hands over her eyes and gasp, numerous times. I kept looking, but will admit to a few gasps too. Academy Award winning René Zellweger, who plays Emily Jenkins, a caring and devoted social worker, is determined to prove that
What does a doting, yet also distraught mother do, when she sees her only son hell-bent on a dissolute and debilitating life of debauchery? Arising from slumbers late, hung over and surly, Chéri, (played by Rupert Friend) behaves like a lot of 19 year olds who are spoiled rotten and maternally (financially) dependant he is
James Cameron’s name is plastered all over the advertising material for Sanctum (he acted as executive producer) but precious few of the filmmaker’s signature touches have made it into this Australian adventure thriller. There’s no sci-fi, no strong female characters, and little in the way of dependable dialogue. Even the script could have done with
There’s been a fair bit of discussion as to whether or not True Grit is a remake. It might seem a question of semantics, but you can understand the confusion: technically speaking, True Grit is the second literary adaptation of Charles Portis’s novel of the same name and bears no relation to the original 1969
You’ll lose your lunch about a half hour into The Killing of Angel Street. The film is stamped in its opening credits as a work of fiction, with any resemblance to real characters being purely coincidental, so when someone mentions the disappearance of an anti-development campaigner named Juanita Nielsen, the film suddenly feels laughably disingenuous.
Black Swan is like a conjurer’s trick. It dances in front of you, it moves and shakes, offers distractions and throws up red herrings. And it’s so effective that when all is said and done you’re not really sure what happened. All you know is that, at some point, you’ve been deceived. Not that Black
Vaughn plays Ronny, the co-owner of an engine design firm, who can’t bring himself to tell best friend and business partner, Nick (Kevin James), that his wife, Geneva (Wyona Ryder), has been cheating on him. The two friends are shaping to sell an electric engine system to Dodge Motors that mimics the sounds and vibrations
Rachel McAdams plays Becky, a workaholic producer who as a child idolised the hard-hitting style of journalist Mike Pomeroy (Harrison Ford, who seems to have been asked to do a parody of his infamously grumpy public persona), so when she grew up she naturally dreamed of running the Today Show! Unexpectedly sacked from her present
