Some People (Clive Donner, 1962) Some People was Clive Donner’s third film as a director. Partly funded by the Duke of Edinburgh’s award scheme, Some People was a success for Donner, and he returned to similar thematic territory in his 1968 film Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush. Evan Maloney notes that the film was intended to be both ‘entertaining and instructive’ and was constructed ‘to harness the wayward energy of British youth and direct it towards socially productive rather than destructive behaviour’ (2001: 79). Maloney also suggests that Donner’s film was in some way ahead of its time in predicting the thematic concerns of late-1960s youth films: ‘[t]he sense of a youth isolated by its own culture and desperate to find new forms of expression prefigured the whole swinging era of the 1960s’ (ibid.). Andrew Spicer has argued that in the late 1950s and early 1960s, British films focused less and less on ‘the middle-class Everyman’ chara...

***This is a technical review ONLY.*** The exploits of great spies were one of the most popular inspirations for books and films throughout the 20th century. The truth is that real spies exist in a murky world of espionage that is often nasty, brutal and short. The great clashes of nationalism, imperialism, communism and fascism provided the backdrop for the 20th century spy. We will probably never know the names of some of the greatest spies. It they did their work will enough, their exploits will remain forever unknown. But the stories of some that are known are extraordinary enough. The lives of Mata Hari, Sidney Reilly and Lawrence of Arabia are just a few of the colourful characters in our survey of the most daring and outrageous individual spy cases to have been publicised in the 20th Century....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Off the coast of Maine an Afica cargo vessle mysteriously explodes and crashes into the harbour. What no one knows is that the crew had already been dead for days... Meanwhile, Dr. Ben Cahill (Thomas Calabro) arrives on Orrs Island to resolve some personal problems and receives a hostile reception. The locals do not like outsiders and in particular, Jack Wald (John Savage), the town's electrician, does his best to make Ben feel unwelcome. Soon bizarre and frightening deaths start to occur on the island. Each victim appears to have died by natural causes, yet each has red insect bite marks on their flesh. When Wald's dead body is discovered all fingers point to Ben. To clear his name, Ben forms an autopsy to establish the true cause of Wald's death. He is horrified to discover insect cocoon's filling the man's chest cavity. A rare breed of African cockroaches has invaded the island and they are using the insides of human beings as breeding grounds. When a new hybrid of flying coackroaches are born and begin to engulf...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** A top secret nuclear guidance system is stolen from a government facility. CIA Agent Mark Graver (LORENZO LAMAS, Final Impact, CIA Codename: Alexa, Renegade) and former terrorist Alexa (KATHLEEN KINMONT, CIA Codename: Alexa, The Art of the Dying, Renegade), now living a quiet life with her daughter must re-team. They plan to retrieve the system from Alexa’s former lover and father of her child, international terrorist Franz Klug (JOHN SAVAGE, The Deer Hunter, Inside Moves). A competing ex-CIA operative Ralph Straker (JOHN RYAN, American Cyborg, Delta Force III), and now the head of a private commando army, intends to sell the stolen system to the highest bidder which would become a major threat to world stability. With ALEXA and the nuclear guidance system in Straker’s control, Graver and his bitter rival, Klug, team together in a game of mutual mistrust to assault the armed base, rescue Alexa and stop Straker....

Sixteen-year-old Miranda (Evan Rachel Wood) lives by herself in a big house in the rolling green hills of southern California. Her mother split many years ago, and her father is in an institution. As she struggles for cash in a fast food restaurant job to keep the bills paid, the verdant landscape is slowly overrun with cheap subdivisions and endless generic chain stores. When her father Charlie (Michael Douglas) comes home from the looney bin, his head is no less filled with wacky delusions than it had been before. He believes that he has unraveled clues to finding a lost horde of doubloons once belonging to the Spanish explorer Torres. Miranda is skeptical of course, and is also engaged in her ongoing struggle to get through to her nutty and self-absorbed father. She reluctantly tags along with Charlie as he follows the path that Torres explored in 1624. It begins to look like he is actually not so crazy after all, as pointers and clues do in fact show up exactly where expected. As they follow the steps Torres took in the past, the inevitability of the present and the future become ever more clearly underlined. The rocks, v...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** In this 1930s screwball comedy, lacksadaisical lawyer Henry MacMorrow attempts to get the kooky Pemberton family to agree on a large property deal involving part of their estate. Frustrated by the family's scatty entourage which includes a Dali lookalike, an exceedingly precocious child and their whimsical parents, he turns to the beautiful Toni Pemberton, the independently minded daughter of the family, with a fake sob story. The two of them join forces in a bid to gather the signatures from her decidedly odd family - but will it be love or trouble? Danger - Love At Work was Otto Preminger's second film for the Hollywood studios and offers great insight into the working methods of the Austrian director who went on to create classic masterpices such as Laura (1944) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959)....

Handgun (Tony Garnett, 1984) Tony Garnett began his career in film and television as an actor, he soon moved behind the camera, working as a story editor and producing Ken Loach’s groundbreaking social realist drama ‘Cathy Come Home’ (1966), as part of the BBC’s Wednesday Play strand (1964-70). For the most part, Garnett’s work as a producer is closely allied with the social realist trend: K J Shepherdson asserts that Garnett’s ‘body of work, despite divergence in aesthetic construction, presents a realist and polemical stance maintained over four decades’ (2001: 109). The two feature films Garnett directed, Prostitute (1980) and Handgun, continue this naturalistic, issue-led approach. As Shepherdson notes, Prostitute ‘demonstrated his [Garnett’s] belief in the need to unmask and challenge accepted wisdom, this time confronting assumptions about the role of the prostitute’ (op cit.: 110). The film challenges ‘[e]xpectations o...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** The son of a famous lawman, young Tom Destry (James Stewart) is considered something of a joke when he takes up the position of deputy in the lawless town of Bottle Neck. Destry refuses to carry a gun, and prefers a glass of milk to alcohol, which hardly makes him a match for gunslinging saloon owner Kent (Brian Donlevy), the real power behind the town. However, with the aid of drunken sheriff 'Wash' Dimmsdale (Charles Winninger), the soft-spoken Destry sets about cleaning up Bottle Neck in his own inimitable manner, winning the admiration of Kent's blowsy, bar-room singer girlfriend, Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich), along the way....

Luna Schlosser: You don't believe in science, and you also don't believe that political systems work, and you don't believe in God, huh? Miles Monroe: Right. Luna Schlosser: So then, what do you believe in? Miles Monroe: Sex and death - two things that come once in a lifetime... but at least after death, you're not nauseous. “Sleeper” is an absurdist sci-fi comedy directed by Woody Allen, and co-written by Allen and Marshall Brickman (who also co-authored “Annie Hall” (1977), “Manhattan” (1979) and “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993)). It is perhaps the most fondly remembered of what the filmmaker later called, in the pseudo-autobiographical “Stardust Memories” (1982), his, “earlier, funnier movies.” Funnier is up to debate; a lot of Allen’s later films are still very funny, even some of his works with a decidedly serious edge have humorous bits. And what Allen himself is implying in the line from “Stardust Memories”— are viewed, at least in the eyes of the general movie-going public and some critics, his earlier works were somehow better—is less debatable. It’s true that a vocal minority pref...

This movie was so incredibly stupid. I just needed to get that out there now, in case someone is just skimming reviews to find out if this is worth a sh*t. It really isn’t. “Nature Calls” (2012) is just another waste of talent on numerous levels. I’m not saying that there weren’t more than a few moments were I was chuckling at the attempted comedy on screen, but the sheer stupidity of the story and the directionless script had me wondering how anyone got the funding to make this. Patton Oswald is a talented guy. I think he’s incredibly funny. Unfortunately, he also seems to suffer from the same condition many other very funny comedians do: when he gets a film vehicle, he suddenly sucks. I don’t get it either. He writes reviews about films online – hilarity ensues at the start of each sentence. He tweets – comedic brevity working perfectly. You put him in the lead role of a film – flatline. Maybe I missed the point and he wasn’t actually supposed to be funny here. His character, Randy, does seem to be slightly deranged. His obsessive need to be the scout leader he saw his father as has clearly affected his perception of reality in some way. As I think about it now, maybe this ...

One of the true joys of cinema is sitting down to watch a movie starring an actor you’ve always known to play one type of role, but in this instance you find them playing against type and absolutely crushing it. Regardless of what your feelings for that actor were before, watching someone quite literally transform from what you’ve known them to be can be a highly rewarding experience… when they nail it. AnnaLynne McCord is an actress who has traditionally been known to play a man eating, sexually voracious nymph with looks that could bring any man to his knees. She’s mostly known to viewers of “Nip/Tuck” (2003-2010) as Eden Lord, the constant foil via her sexual prowess to just about everyone on that show. Most recently, she appeared on the rebooted “90210” (2008-2013), which I’ve never seen but the promos make it fairly clear that she’s the hot, conniving chick that everyone wants. A real stretch, I know. So, although I’d heard some rumblings about how good she was here I still expected more of the same. I was so very wrong. Pauline (AnnaLynne McCord) is an awkward, unpopular high school student who often appears unkempt, with ...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** John Ritter, Amy Yasbeck and Jack Warden star in this hilarious comedy with an offbeat sense of humour. Good natured Ben Healy (Ritter) and his social-climbing Wife Flo (Yasbeck) adopt seven year old Junior (Michael Oliver) to help brighten their lives. But Junior soon turns an ordinary camping trip an innocent birthday party and even a little league baseball game into a full scale comic nightmares. But is he really just a little angel trying to get out? Find out in this hilarious satire on modern-day family life....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** As an icy comet races across outer space, USA technicians become frantic as the comet makes an unexpected turn. Destination? Earth. Sudden Panic sets in as the after effects leave radiation and debris lingering, thus the potential to destroy an entire city, or even the entire planet. Mayor, Ben Marshall (Randy Mulkey), is struggling to balance his health issues, career and family life. Now he has far bigger problems to deal with as he notices the sky getting strangely, frighteningly dark. When bizarre formations start appearing there is nothing to do but panic and start figuring out a plan of action. Terry, (Rhett Giles), Ben s autistic brother believes he can help the masters of the scientific world, while son Leo (Stuart Lafferty), seems more interested in charming his new crush Lindsay (Kristen Quintrall). Ben s wife, Lynne (Stephanie Jacobsen) finds their daughter Samantha (Jenna Craig) has not made it to school. Is fear taking over? As Chaos sets in, activities get stranger and scarier. The world begins to see a pattern of n...

DISC ONE: Midshipman Easy (Carol Reed, 1935) Made in 1935, Midshipman Easy was Carol Reed’s first solo directorial film. Peter William Evans suggests that it established some of the key themes in Reed’s work: ‘the maturing process of the male, and the difficulties of measuring up to a masculine ideal’ (2005: 4). In Midshipman Easy, along with The Young Mr Pitt and The Way Ahead, Reed explored heroism; in The Third Man and Odd Man Out, Reed ‘reviews its underside’ (ibid.: 119). Evans argues that Midshipman Easy, set during the Napoleonic War, is driven by ‘the pace of the boys’ adventure yarn’ (ibid.: 80). This is certainly the case: the film offers an episodic, almost picaresque, account of the experiences of Easy (the then-16 year old Hughie Green), who joins the Royal Navy as a midshipman on the ship HMS Harpy, under the tutelage of Captain Wilson (Roger Livesey). (Interestingly, the film also features future director J Lee Thompson i...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** DALEKS INVASION EARTH 2150 A.D. directed by Gordon Flemyng, now fully restored and starring Peter Cushing in his return to the big screen as British TV's most iconic sci-fi hero, Doctor Who. The earth of 2150 A.D. is a desolate and hostile ruin of a planet, crumbling at the edge of civilisation, slowly disappearing into the darkness of space. For the future of planet earth now belongs The Daleks, a destructive army of alien invaders who have turned the human race into cowering slaves. Meanwhile deep within the London Underground a group of resistance freedom fighters are planning an attack. But there's only one man who could possibly help them succeed in destroying their extra terrestrial enemies and take back control of planet earth. A man of mystery, a man of time and space, a man known only as... The Doctor!...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the show from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Winner of two Silver Bears at the Berlin Film festival for its actors and photography, and of the Best Film award in the 2010 London Film Festival, the film is set on a remote weather station in the Arctic manned by old hand Sergei and the novice Pavel. When Pavel receives an important radio message, his fear of the older man prevents him telling Sergei the shocking news. From this decption, lies and suspicions poison relations between the two to such an extent that Pavel is in fear of his life, not just from the polar bears that roam the island, but from Sergei. Filmed entirely on location in one of the remotest places in the world, HOW I ENDED THIS SUMMER becomes a stunning existential drama of survival....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the show from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** A hot morning in July and the Dorset town of Broadchurch, is bracing itself for the tourist season, when Danny Latimer, an 11 year old schoolboy, goes missing. His mother, Beth, frantically starts to search for him while her best friend, Ellie Miller, a local police officer, arrives at work to discover that the promotion she thought was hers has gone to D.I Alec Hardy an outsider with a reputation for failure. When Danny’s body is found beneath the picturesque cliffs that dominate the town opposites collide. Both Miller and Hardy are determined to solve the mystery of Danny's murder, Ellie perhaps too sensitive to the people in her community; Alec as efficient as he is blunt. When news of the crime spreads through the town, a chain reaction begins which will put Broadchurch under a national spotlight, pulling the town, its residents and its secrets, apart. Episodes 1-3 are found on disc one, 4-6 on disc two and 7-8 on disc three....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** A cop on the track of a criminal finds himself in the midst of an unfinished subway tunnel, when his flashlight reveals a startling discovery: a three metre long scorpion-like BUG. With one slice of its massive tail the bug fells the man and devours him. FBI agent Matt Pollack is brought in to investigate, and when forensics reveal the source of the problem, he turns to his friend and entomologist Emily Foster for help. Her studies have chilling results. Matt and a team of crack SWAT commandos must go down and rid the underground of its evil predators. Once in the tunnel, the team is attacked by an army of the creatures. They retaliate with massive firepower, causing the collapse of the tunnel entrance. Their only way out is ten miles ahead through an emergency exit. Matt and his team must get there and exterminate the bugs before they escape into the city causing chaos and destruction....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** A must for all "Howling" fans, the latest in one of the biggest horror franchises in history. Shortly after an Australian journalist, Ted, arrives in a small peaceful town in California the town is rocked by a series of vicious murders. The town folk are keen to lay blame at the feet of the stranger and he has to battle to show not only his own innocence, but to prove his suspicions that a malevolent force is at work. When each of the murders coincides with a full moon Ted realises that this could only be the work of a werewolf, and with each new moon another victim is doomed to become a werewolf...suddenly survival has become a race against time!...

Konga (John Lemont, 1961) Herman Cohen has asserted that Konga (directed by John Lemont) came about because ‘Nat [Cohen] and Stuart Levy were so excited about the business that [Horrors of the] Black Museum did in England and Europe […], they said, “Herm, can you do another exploitation type of picture?” Well, I had always flipped over King Kong and Mighty Joe Young and all that, so I came up with Konga and Aben and I started writing the script’ (quoted in Weaver, 2003: 69). The effects on Konga took eighteen months to complete, and during this time AIP were ‘after me [Cohen] constantly’ because ‘[t]hey didn’t realize how much fucking work was involved, ‘cause they never used [such] special effects at that time’: AIP had produced effects-heavy films before (for example, Bert I Gordon’s monster films) but, as Cohen notes, ‘Konga was in color’ (ibid.). The film...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Based on the critically acclaimed, best-selling book, Ang Lee brings one boy’s spectacular journey to the big screen in the book that was considered un-filmable. A young man who survives a disaster at sea is hurtled into an epic journey of adventure and discovery. While cast away, he forms an unexpected connection with another survivor--a fearsome Bengal tiger....

It is traditional for a review to start by leading you in gently, giving you some points of interest or a nice metaphor, and leading you through what will be discussed. Personally, I'm very partial to an abstract metaphor that eventually ties up in a (hopefully) humorous fashion. However, it is usual to connect these metaphors to the subject matter or themes undertaken in the film. And so, with respect to M. Night Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water", which certainly doesn't hide what type of film it is, I will start the review the way I mean to continue, and the way I intend to end. This movie blows chunks. Big-ass frickin' chunks. I hated it. From start to finish. Worst movie I've seen all year, leaving me with a strong sense of bitter disappointment. It's a self-important masturbatory experience for the writer/director and it sucks because of it. Here we go: I'd heard bad reviews of "Lady in the Water", but I ignored them. Why, you ask? It was because each of M. Night's films had received more negative press than the last. And in nearly every case, I disagreed with the critics. I've been a huge fan of all his previous works. "Unbreakable" (2000) was my first. ...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** WARNING! The population of a small town in Colorado seems to have been infected by a virus with unknown origin. The flu like symptoms usually consist of lethargy, cold sweats, nausea, discomfort, intense headaches and a slight discolouring to their complexion. Unfortunately this is usually followed by a sudden urge to savagely rip the limbs from any living creature that might stand in their way whilst chewing on their bones, sucking out their brains and chewing on their flesh. An elite, cold bloodied and tenacious military force has been sent in to clean up the mess. But where as some residents are more than willing to spend the rest of their short lives in quarantine a small group of survivors escape and head towards an uncertain demise unaware of the eyeball chomping, gut splurting nightmare that awaits them. Directed by Steve Miner (Friday The 13th Part 2, House, Soul Man, Warlock), written by Jefffrey Reddick (Final Destination) and starring the irresistible Mena Suvari (American Pie, American Beauty), this re–imagining of...

This is one of those all too rare films I had never heard of until it was released. I'll clarify: I read a lot of film news and reviews, across a number of different websites and blogs, and not once, come across any mention of "The Whistleblower". It's odd enough I felt moved to mention it here. And to also ponder the confusing nature (from an outsider perspective) of international distribution. Why is it "The Whistleblower" was afforded a theatrical release while other small-medium films - are released straight to DVD, months after they've played internationally? Perhaps a question to be explored in a longer post. "The Whistleblower" is the true-story of Nebraskan cop Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) who takes a job as a peacekeeper/supervisor in post-war Bosnia and comes to find herself involved in investigating prevalent trafficking of female sex slaves. She's a tough but caring character, an honest cop apparently taking the job for the big pay-day which will allow her to move closer to her daughter. Her expectations and sense of Western morality are challenged once she's actually got boots on ground - the majority of her fellow peacekeepers seem to have no experience...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Directed by Gordon Flemyng and now fully restored, Dr. Who & The Daleks (1965) was the first big screen film adaptation of British TV's most iconic sci-fi hero, and was the first time Doctor Who was ever seen in colour! British film legend Peter Cushing plays everyone's favourite Timelord, and having invented the TARDIS, a strange machine capable of travelling into other dimensions, the Doctor and his three young accomplices set forth on a quest through time and space. Their journey takes them into the dark, undiscovered depths of the universe and to the planet of Skaro. A primitive world devastated by nuclear war and populated by two warring species, a peaceful tribe known as Thals and a life form heavily mutated by radiation, encased in protective machines. A merciless force of destruction known as The Daleks!...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh ('Ocean's Eleven', 'Sex, Lies and Videotape') invites you into the world of a high class New York call girl in the thrilling and sexy The Girlfriend Experience, starring adult film star Sasha Grey in her mainstream breakthrough. Chelsea (Grey) is an ultra high-end Manhattan call girl who thinks she has her life totally under control. She runs her own business her own way, makes $2000 an hour, and has a devoted boyfriend who accepts her lifestyle. But when she meets a new client from LA, she discovers that not everything is perfect and that some rules are meant to be broken....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Star Trek) stars in action adventure Colombiana, produced & written by Luc Besson (The Transporter 1-3, Taken and Leon) and directed by Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3). 1992. Colombia. Nine-year-old Cataleya witnesses her parents' murder. Barely escaping the massacre herself, she takes refuge in the United States with Emilio, her gangster uncle... Fifteen years later, Cataleya works for him as a hit woman. Her calling card – an orchid drawn on the chests of her victims – is a message to her parents' assassins. For Cataleya is determined to see her vengeance through to the bitter end... even if it means loosing everything she loves....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Originally shot in 3D and newly remastered and restored for Blu-ray 3D™, Alfred Hitchcock's screen version of Frederick Knott's stage hit Dial M for Murder is a tasty blend of elegance and suspense casting Grace Kelly, Ray Milland and Robert Cummings as the points of a romantic triangle. Kelly won the New York Film Critics and National Board of Review Best Actress Awards for this and two other acclaimed 1954 performances (Hitchcock's Rear Window and her Oscar®-honored work in The Country Girl). She loves Cummings; her husband Milland plots her murder. But when he dials a Mayfair exchange to set the plot in motion, his right number gets the wrong answer – and gleaming scissors become a deadly weapon. Dial "M" for the Master of Suspense at his most stylish....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Cliff and Cydney (Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich) are an adventurous young couple celebrating their honeymoon by backpacking to one of the most beautiful and remote beaches in Hawaii. Hiking the wild, secluded trails, they believe they've found paradise. But when the pair come across a group of frightened hikers discussing the horrifying murder of another newlywed couple on the islands, they begin to question whether they should turn back. When they decide to join up with two other couples, things begin to go terrifyingly wrong. Far from civilization or rescue, everyone begins to look like a threat and nobody knows who to trust. Paradise becomes hell on earth as a brutal battle for survival begins......

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** City couple Jenny (Kelly Reilly - Mrs Henderson Presents, Pride and Prejudice, The Libertine) and Steve (Michael Fassbender - 300, Hunger) are eager to get away from it all. The idyllic, picturesque surroundings of Eden Lake seem like the perfect spot for a secluded, romantic weekend in the country until they realise the remote woodland enclosure isn't as deserted as they'd originally hoped. After being attacked by a local gang of rural delinquents (including Jack O'Connoll - TV's Skins and Thomas Turgoose - This is England, Somers Town), Steve and Jenny's car is stolen and Steve is brutally tortured. Suddenly the weekend begins to evolve into a sadistic game of survival and escalating violence, with a surprising and shocking climax. Directed by the writer of My Little Eye - James Watkins - Eden Lake is an intense and provocative horror/thriller that relentlessly feeds on modern fears and crosses over into territory that most contemporary films wouldn't dare to tread. Visit at your own risk....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Gerard Depardieu (GREEN CARD) stars as an overprotective father who lands in hot water when his overactive teenage daughter (Katherine Heigl) gets in over her head at a tropical vacation resort! Soon, the mischievous teen is getting dad in big, big trouble -- hurling him into one madcap misadventure after another. Combining uproarious comedy and a beautiful island setting, MY FATHER,THE HERO, simply overflows with nonstop fun in the sun. Discover for yourself the comedy hit that left critics and audiences alike drowning with laughter....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** George "Ice Man" Chambers (Rhames) is a top ranked heavyweight boxer. However Chambers has his world turned upside down when he is accused of rape and sent to prison. Upon his arrival he hears talk about Monroe Hutchen (Snipes) who is the top ranked prison boxing champ 10 years running. Immediately there is bad blood with Chambers not wanting to be second to no one which leads to a lunch room fight between the men. Figuring it will be a good way to make money fellow convict Emmanuel 'Mendy' Ripstein (Peter Falk) sets up a prison boxing match between the two men to decide who is the real UNDISPUTED champ....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** On the rooftop of a city skyscraper, Detective Hollis (Terrence Howard - Iron Man) pleads with Gavin (Charlie Hunnam - Sons of Anarchy) not to jump. What he does not know is that Gavin, an atheist, is involved in a deadly feud with Joe (Patrick Wilson - Watchmen), a Christian extremist. Joe's gorgeous wife, Shona, (Liv Tyler - The Incredible Hulk) is caught in the middle as Joe seeks to test Gavin's faith... or lack of it. Cutting between the present and the past, tension escalates as verbal shots give way to deadly threats in a race against time that no-one can stop....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** A nation divided by Civil War, families are destroyed whilst waiting for the return of their brave soldiers. Left alone, Sarabeth (Christina Ricci) must fight if she and her daughter are to survive; having to learn quickly who can and cannot be trusted in the war-torn country as survival of the fittest becomes paramount. Faced by the destruction of conflict, Sarabeth has to forge a new life in the battlefield, desperate for the return of the man she loves but fearing the death and destruction that surrounds her....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Every year, millions of single women move apartment. They don't know who lived in the apartment before them and they don't bother to change the locks - they should. After separating from her adulterous husband (Lee Pace) the beautiful Dr. Juliet Devereau (Hilary Swank) is one such woman starting a new life in a stunning loft apartment that seems too good to be true....

With movies like "The Lord of the Rings" Trilogy (2001-2003) and the "Harry Potter" series (2001-2007), more and more studios are willing to spend mucho money to have their own fantasy series under their belt. Disney had their go with "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" (2005) and its sequel "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" (2008), and so New Line tried their hand again with the first part of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, "The Golden Compass". In this world – one of many universes – everybody lives with their own daemon, an animal spirit that represents the person's personality. Lord Asriel () has a leopard, Marisa Coulter (Nicole Kidman) has a golden monkey, and so on. The main character, Lyra Belacqua (first-timer Dakota Blue Richards) is young, and so her daemon hasn't chosen a particular animal, though often wavers between a ferret, a cat and a bird. The humans and their daemons are connected in a very special way that isn't quite explained fully in ...

When was the last time you saw a truly good movie from either Sandra Bullock, Matthew McConaughey or Samuel L. Jackson... and for that matter director Joel Schumacher? Seems like a long time huh? While "A Time to Kill" might not be a great film, it's still a pretty good one. Bullock had earned a massive following after her star-making turn in "Speed" (1994) two years before and was anxious to prove she wasn't a fluke... McConaughey was relatively new and unknown, and although Jackson has been around for a while this was one of the many projects he picked up after he broke out as the cool Jules Winnfield in "Pulp Fiction" (1994). The film manages to capitalize on relatively young star power as opposed to casting high-profile A-listers of the time... It seems obvious after reading into the film's production history to cast such a 'green' leading cast as author John Grisham took an active role as producer and wanted some level of control as it was his first and favorite books in his...

When I was a kid, I had a total and near-irrational love for the first three films in the “Star Wars” (1977-2005) saga. A love that had persisted—perhaps too strongly, until relatively recently—through most of the countless changes George Lucas has made to the film with each subsequent CG-laden revision of the so-called “Original Trilogy”. Despite those changes, I still generally like “A New Hope”, even if I no longer really respect it as the darning work of groundbreaking 70's cinema it once was. And “The Empire Strikes Back”—which has had the least amount of revisions—remains essentially the perfect sequel, and a near-perfect film. (It should be noted: those same changes have taken my initial toleration of “Return of the Jedi” and turned it into something resembling full-blown hate, especially with the recent “NOOOOO!” controversy). The prequels can (and always will) be defined by one word: disappointment. Mine was a dumbfounding disappointment, which began with an extremely rare, and hope-filled, school trip to the movie theater when I was 10 to see “The Phantom Menace” (1999). And it was a disappointment that festered inside me for half a decade, and finally ending with a half-h...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Kate is a shark expert whose business has been failing since a shark attack killed a fellow diver under her command. Once dubbed "the shark whisperer," Kate is haunted by the memory of the attack and unable to get back into the water. With bills piling up and the bank about to foreclose on Kate's boat, Kate's ex-boyfriend Jeff presents her with a lucrative opportunity to lead a thrill-seeking millionaire businessman on a dangerous shark dive - outside the cage. Battling her self-doubts and fear, Kate accepts the proposal and sets a course for the world's deadliest feeding ground - Shark Alley....

Known for his stature as well as his talent, 5ft3 Andy Hamilton is one of the best comedy writers to come from the United Kingdom in recent years. He originally joined the BBC in 1976 after being spotted performing with his University comedy troupe at the Edinburgh Film Festival and started writing for several BBC Radio 4 shows including, "Week Ending" and "The News Huddlines". He first made the move to television writing in 1979 with the famed political satire sketch show, "Not the Nine O'Clock News" and went on to write for shows such as "Scotch and Wry", "Who Dares Wins" and "The Kit Curran Show" before coming into his own with "Drop the Dead Donkey" in 1990 for Channel 4. "Bedtime" was the first television show he wrote and directed for the Beeb, lasting for fifteen episodes over three series, all of which are included in this DVD set from Acorn Media. The synopsis from Acorn Media reads: Bedtime from writer Andy Hamilton (Outnumbered/Trevor’s World of Sport) is a unique and hugely rewarding comedy series set in the bedrooms of various adjoining houses during the last half-hour of the day. Andrew and Alice Oldfield (Timothy West and Sheila Hancock) are the couple to whom – and around whom - so much is ...

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** From acclaimed director Jessica Hausner (Lovely Rita, Hotel) Lourdes centres on Christine (Sylvie Testud - La Vie en Rose), a young woman whos been confined to a wheelchair for most of her life. In order to escape her isolation, she joins a party to Lourdes - the iconic site of pilgrimage in the Pyrenees mountains, where they undertake a journey in hope of finding spiritual comfort or bodily cure. But as the trip develops, Christine's faith is put to the test whilst, around her, the affectations and jealousies of the assorted entourage of religious officials and fellow sufferers are being exposed....

***This is a technical review only. For reviews on the movie from various critics, we recommend visiting HERE.*** Bruce Willis plays Korben Dallas, a New York cabbie who picks up the type of fare that only comes along once every 5,000 years. Leeloo (Milla Jovavich) isn't just the perfect beauty; she's also a perfect weapon. As planet Earth is about to be wiped out, the pair set off on a deadly mission to find a set of stones that represent the four elements and unite them with the fifth. But what is the fifth? From Luc Besson, the acclaimed director of 'Leon' and 'Nikita' comes a film that reinvents the sci-fi genre. The Fifth Element takes you on an adrenaline-filled journey to a new dimension of sumptuous visuals and spectacular explosions....

Andy Hamilton is one of the leading comedy writers in the United Kingdom, becoming most prominent after he wrote 66 episodes of the famed Channel 4 show "Drop the Dead Donkey", winning BAFTAs and British Comedy Awards in the process. Afterwards, he wrote three series of "Bedtime" for the BBC, a continuation of what should have been a great relationship between the BBC and Hamilton (he wrote for many BBC comedians in the late 70's and 80's). In 2003, things were to change however. "Trevor's World of Sport" opened to slightly disappointing numbers considering it was given a prime Friday night spot, but those numbers would've likely been higher if the abysmal Paul O'Grady bingo comedy "Eyes Down" didn't precede it before the watershed. After three episodes, Lorraine Heggessey pulled the show from its primetime spot, moving it to late Monday nights, a move which disrupted the viewing figures and angered Andy Hamilton. He was so annoyed at this mistreatment of his show, he actually vowed he would never work for BBC TV again - and he kept his promise until 2007 when the BBC management was changed. Going back with the hugely successful "Outnumbered", I would guess that the BBC were happy of his return, and in 2009, Hamilt...

Walter Hill is one of those iconic Hollywood auteurs from the 70's who is responsible for writing & directing some of the greatest cult classics and mainstream hits of all-time. I’d rattle off a few titles, but ardent cinephiles should be well-versed in the man’s work. I’ll just say that if he were only responsible for “The Warriors” (1979) alone, that would be enough to make him a man-god in my book. Suffice it to say, the man makes what he wants – how he wants – and the end result is typically something worth seeking out. Anyone who has read an interview or biography of Hill, or had to pleasure to hear him speak (I did once at a screening of “Hard Times” (1975), one of his best films), you’d know that he writes and directs all of his films as though they were a Western. They might not always look it, but that’s just his modernization of the classic Western storyline. After spending much of his time in the 70's making his own interpretations of the model Western, Hill finally set out to make one proper with “The Long Riders” (1980), a fictionalized account of the James-Younger gang. The film, playing almost like a series of vignettes, follows the gang – the Youngers consist of...

Man at the Top (Mike Vardy, 1973) Continuing the saga of Joe Lampton, introduced in John Braine’s ‘Northern realist’ novel Room at the Top (written in 1953 but published in 1957) and continued in its sequel Life at the Top (1962), Mike Vardy’s film Man at the Top (1973) followed immediately in the wake of Thames’ series of the same title (1970-2). (See our reviews of series one and series two here and here.) Like the series, the film features Kenneth Haigh as Braine’s anti-hero Joe Lampton. On the screen, Lampton had first been played by Laurence Harvey in Jack Clayton’s 1958 screen adaptation of Room at the Top, a film which is often claimed to have spearheaded the British New Wave (see Taylor, 2006: 70; Sinyard, 2000: 37); Harvey played the character again, in Life at the Top (Ted Kotcheff, 1965). A mercurial character, Lampto...

When you think of romantic comedies, you generally think of younger to middle age actors or actresses. People like Katherine Heigl, Kate Hudson, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jennifer Lopez. Generally, the genre is rather formulaic. Boy meets girl, they find something they hate about each other, they eventually realise how much they love each other and then they live happily ever after. It's a safe structure, one that Hollywood overuses knowing that women will happily flock to see these movies because of the cast members attached, and that men can't be bothered getting into an argument about what they are going to watch. Every now and again, you do get a romantic comedy that sits slightly differently, and Nancy Meyers' "It's Complicated" is one such movie, focusing on an older divorced couple and an architect. The synopsis from Universal reads: Romantic comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. Jane (Streep) is the mother of three grown-up children, owns a thriving catering business and, after ten years of divorce, enjoys an easy relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son's college graduation, an innocent meal together take...

Bill Emmott is a world-renowned journalist, famed for his work as the editor of The Economist from 1993-2006 and regular columnist for The Times. Over the years he has also released several books, mainly about the economies of Japan and Italy, but in 2001, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi sued The Economist for libel after they printed an article titled "An Italian Story", with the issue boldly stating on its front page "Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy". A judge in Milan eventually threw the case out and ordered Berlusconi to pay all costs raised by The Economist, and although the documentary "Girlfriend in a Coma" looks a lot at events in more recent years, it is obvious that the aforementioned article was the starting point. The synopsis from Springshot Productions reads: Italy is a country tottering towards dramatic decline, with a kleptocratic and incompetent political class, a financially bankrupt State, raging corruption, organized crime, a sclerotic and anti-feminist Church, a shambling economy, oh, and of course a few decades of horrible government by a “Bunga-Bunga” Prime-Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, all combining to knock one of Europe’s most vibrant societies on the head. Those intervi...

When you put the words 'animation' and 'Asia' into somebody's head, the likelihood of them mentioning South Korea is rather unlikely. Although South Korea has long been used by Western studios to animate big shows such as "The Simpsons", the country has struggled to make its own unique stamp on the popular animation industry. However, this has started to change slightly over the last couple of years, starting with the reasonable success of "Porroro" and "Origami Warriors" in early 2011, followed quickly by the box office success of "Leafie" later on in 2011 - a success that has helped push financing for other domestic South Korean animated features. 2011 also saw the arrival of Yeon Sang-ho's "The King of Pigs", which like "Leafie" made a significant impact in its home country. The difference between "Leafie" and "The King of Pigs" however, was the success on the festival circuit of the latter throughout 2012. It became the first Korean animated movie to feature in the Director's Fortnight of the Festival de Cannes and also featured at the Edinburgh Film Festival as well as several dedicated Eastern festivals around the world. The synopsis from Terracotta reads: After murdering his wife, Hwang Kyung-m...

Vulgaria (Pang Ho-cheung, 2012) Pang Ho-cheung’s comedy Vulgaria (2012) is the director’s eleventh film. (In the same year as Pang became a filmmaker, his novel Fulltime Killer had been adapted for the screen by Johnnie To in 2001.) Pang’s first feature as director, You Shoot, I Shoot (2001) established his taste for black comedy and his absurd take on life, both of which are evident throughout his films, including Vulgaria. Pang’s first film has been labelled as ‘a declaration of a young, hip independent voice’ that, although ‘it does have some of Hong Kong’s characteristic broad comedy […] You Shoot, I Shoot has more in common with juvenile comedy from the West, with its pot humour and Tarantino-esque indulgence in zany violence’ (Hu, 2012: 212). Likewise, the raunchy Vulgaria has invited comparisons between Pang’s brand of humour and Hollywood’s recent focus on films featuring crude ‘laddish’ humour, such as Todd Philli...

Penny Paradise (Carol Reed, 1938) Citing Penny Paradise, a film Carol Reed directed whilst under contract to Ealing, Charles Drazin has suggested that ‘Reed could animate the most pedestrian of stories’ (2007: 63). The film itself, set in Liverpool at the behest of producer Basil Dean (a native Liverpudlian), tells the story of Joe Higgins (Edmund Gwenn), the skipper of a small tugboat. Rachael Low has suggested the film is ‘strikingly realistic in its atmosphere’, and there is definitely a sense of naturalism in the film’s depiction of the lives of the tugboat crews – the café to which the crews retire after their work brings to mind the café in which the drivers socialise in Cy Endfield’s gritty Hell Drivers (1957) (Low, 2005: 252). However, despite the accurate colloquialisms that pepper the script (‘You meant what you said last night about chucking your job, didn’t you?’, Higgins is asked at one point), t...