Film Reviews

By Michael McNulty Whether you like Quentin Tarantino or not, the director has championed films that have often flown under the radar.  Don Siegel’s 1973 action crime caper film, Charley Varrick, being one of them.  The line, “they’ll go to work on you with a pair of pliers and blowtorch,” was lifted almost verbatim and uttered by Marsellus Wallace with such frightening malice in Pulp Fiction.  Siegel’s film is a taut, economical action flick based on the book, The Looters,...

By Jim Mackney A Caribbean Dream is a romantic comedy drama adapted from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The film was written and directed by Shakirah Bourne. The adaptation is set in modern Barbados with the island’s natural beauty expertly captured by cinematographer, Robin Whenary, the lush beaches along with the dense and vibrantly green forest popping on screen. Is there a need for another adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Perhaps not but this adaptation won Best Film at...

By Anna Power Following 2014’s much loved cinematic triumph Paddington, can the sequel maintain the film's authenticity, charisma and sheer joie de vivre? The simple answer is yes and with bells on. Bringing to life such a beloved and enduring character from Michael Bond’s timeless books is a weighty responsibility and one that director Paul King has achieved, making the Paddington we know and love larger than life and giving him a storyline to match. Full of action and adventure...

The Walt Disney World Resort in Florida may promise its patrons a fairy tale dreamscape filled with beautiful princesses, handsome princes, and shining stars to wish upon. But for many of those who live in the shadow of “the most magical place on Earth” on Route 192, life is instead a relentless struggle to make ends meet – an endless story of heartache and insecurity. In the eyes of Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) though, a wild-hearted six-year-old living with her mum...

With the recent success of Wonder Woman still fresh in our minds, director Angela Robinson brings us the real life story behind 2017’s most memorable superhero. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women is told in flashbacks and switches between scenes where William Marston (Luke Evans) is having to justify the Wonder Woman comics he created to the censors and the previous experiences that influenced and inspired them. The flashbacks start in 1928 at Radcliffe College, a women’s only university that partnered the then all male Harvard,...

By Michael McNulty Slap a GoPro tag on Base, Richard Parry’s film about base jumping and upload it in full HD to YouTube and you have an 80 minute sponsored video.  But, like the content uploaded by thrill seeking jumpers, this film holds an odd fascination that’s not entirely dissatisfying. A docu-fiction film, Base manages to captures some truly astonishing vistas and some heart stopping, stomach churning free-falling.  The parachute that catches this film and slows it down is its plot....

By Michael McNulty Rupert Jones introduces an interesting film into the psychodrama genre that sits somewhere between Hitchcock’s Psycho and Polanski’s Repulsion.  Kaleidoscope is a gruellingly suspenseful chamber piece that delves deep into the cracked psychosis of its central character. Existing high up in the tight, confines of his bare council flat, ex-convict, Carl (Toby Jones) lives a life of relative urban isolation.  He is saving money to buy a van, works as a landscaper and does the shopping for...

L’ecole Buissonniere is a slow moving French period drama, one that is perfect for a cold, drizzly Sunday afternoon. This is not intended as a criticism and the film acts in the same way dunking a freshly ripped piece of bread into a steaming bowl of stew is often the most comforting thing you can do of an evening. Directed Nicolas Vanier along with his directors of photography, Eric Guichard and Laurent Charbonnier, Vanier guides the camera contemplatively across the...

Eric Judor brings us a slight, satirical comedy in his third feature, Problemos. Urbanite couple, Victor (Eric Judor) and Jeanne (Celia Rosich), with their young daughter Margaux travel to a commune to visit ex yoga instructor and old friend of Jeanne’s, Jean-Paul (Michel Nabokoff), for a weekend.  The camp is full of born again hippies sporting dodgy haircuts, djembes, and flimsy new age, socially conscious beliefs.  We quickly learn that they are a collective who have rejected city living and...