The Woman in Black

The British do the ghost story ever so well, especially if set in olden times in a remote village where locals eye you as a threat. Almost like a Daphne du Maurier of the present day, Susan Hill's 1983 novel The Woman In Black has had remarkable success. From it's inclusion in the national syllabus to an adaptation by the late Stephen Mallatratt which has run at London's' Fortune Theatre since 1989 to this very day and is almost set to [more]

Drive

Ryan Gosling plays a stuntman and getaway driver who falls for his neighbour Irene (played by Brit Actress Carey Mulligan), whose husband is in prison. On his release, the husband has a hangover of trouble and debt, which Goslings character (who is only ever known as "The Driver") attempts to help him out of, by being a getaway driver at a raid on a pawn shop. The trouble kicks off from there and the Driver is the only one savvy [more]

The Help

The movie is set in the early 1960's at the zenith of the American Civil Rights Movement and in one of the hotbeds of racial segregation at that time, Jackson Mississippi. Skeeter Philan (Emma Stone) is a young female writer, disenchanted and saddened by the racist company she keeps, she pitches an idea to write a book from the perspective of the black help workers in her community. The pitch earns her a trial commission and she sets about writing [more]

The Ides of March

With another year-long presidential race taking up space in daily news reports, fascination about who will land "the worlds top job" remains disproportionally high especially amongst Americans. Increasingly, other countries media devote more and more time to the issue and foreigners, such as myself, get roped in to listening about various congressional caucuses, committees and sub-committees, campaigns and primary voting, whatever the hell any of that means! Since The West Wing American political dramas have become very popular. The focus is not [more]

The Descendants

"Everything has it's time" and this is very much the theme in this movie set in Hawaii.  A successful lawyer, Matt King (George Clooney) finds himself having to reconnect with his family after his wife suffers a boating accident that leaves her in a coma. The prognosis is not good and King not only has to deal with the reaction of his two daughters to the news, but also unearth some skeletons in his wifes cupboard that he has no [more]

The Artist

Film was born in France, but it found its feet in Hollywood. So it's almost poetic that The Artist is a French film that pays homage to the golden years of Tinseltown. George Valentin is the star of silent comedy and helps nurture the talent of up and coming heart-throb Peppy Miller. But the advent of the "talkie" chimes the death of his career whilst the young, but not ungrateful Miller sails into stardom. What follows..... I'm not saying. You'll [more]

We Need To Talk About Kevin

As I write, the award season is hoving into view. We've Golden Globes in a fortnight (the highlight no doubt will be host Ricky Gervais), then BAFTAs and finally the Academy Awards. Forget the fame, forget the fortune, forget getting your handprint on the Walk of Fame or having your name in billboard letters larger than the Hollywood sign. For some artists that's not enough. International recognition is the order of the day where they get to stand on their podium and [more]

Midnight in Paris

A writer and his fiancee are having a strained holiday in Paris. Frustrated by the lack of romance that his partner has for a city he adores, he wanders off on a walk only to end up at a party with Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Yes that's right, he's gone back in time to the 1920's! It's not long till he strikes up a romance with someone in the 20's and this leads to the old "double life" scenario [more]

50/50

There comes a time occasionally in life when you're given a sober reminder of your own mortality. When this happens to me, I quickly realise how naive I am to some of life's realities. There are 7 billion people on this planet and about 2 billion have died in my lifetime. That's about 150,000 die every day and yet I've never seen a dead body in real life. Ever. Cos that part of life is shielded away from your everyday [more]

Welcome to the Rileys

Sometimes stuff happens in life that jolts us out of our comfort zone. It removes us from our daily routines and leaves us lagging in the pace of our own life. It can affect our relationships with others and can make our otherwise familiar environment seem alien. This is precisely what happens to Doug and Lois Riley when their 15 year old daughter dies in a car crash. The couple's 30 year marriage suffers. Lois is on medication and is [more]

Four

Love, sex, jealousy, control and revenge are the order of the day in John Langridge's new movie "Four". The movie sells itself with the tagline "There is no such thing as a simple plan". Once you've watched it, you'd be forgiven for thinking that there is no such thing as a simple storyline. It starts with a straightforward, slightly Brit-gangster premise. Man hires detective to kidnap and rough up his wife's lover, putting the fear of god into him. Thanks [more]

Melancholia

Depression is a bit like sex. Ok, stay with me. It's something we know is there, but few of us rarely want to discuss it openly, let alone admit we require help with it. It is the elephant in the room, that thing that we know Uncle so and so suffered with - still he's in a better place now. It can bubble up feelings of frustration for the bystander who wishes those affected would just snap out of it. [more]

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A SPOILER ALERT Most cold war spy films have ubiquitous elements about them. There is a drained lack of colour in establishing shots. Everyone chain-smokes and the amount of alcohol consumed makes one wonder how any spy managed to stay focused let alone alert! A good spy must have a house with squeaky wooden floorboards and there must be the sound of an old scratched gramophone record nearby playing a love song from years back which, once complete, [more]

Final Destination 5

Since cinemas earliest day, the world of movie franchise has been responsible for classics from James Bond to Carry On, Star Wars to Jurassic Park, Pirates to Shrek, Potter to Rings. Thanks to my FilmFridays co-founder, I have dabbled in the slightly more commerical franchises including all 7 Saw films (in the space of a fortnight) and the Final Destination series. In what looks like the final destination of the Final Destination films, number 5 has hit the cinema screens this [more]

The Inbetweeners

Despite paying £11 at the Odeon Camden to watch a film this afternoon, it still infuriated me that the programme billed to start at 2pm ran adverts and trailers for almost half and hour. I've paid good money and for what? Why should I pay to watch advertisements? Someone's getting money for something here and at £11 per ticket it certainly isn't the cinema goer. But more importantly the film companies themselves should be concerned as this long charade at [more]