In the animated comedy The Angry Birds Movie 2, three flightless angry birds and the scheming green piggies take their beef to the next level as both Bird Island and Piggy Island are in danger. So, Red (Jason Sudeikis), Chuck (Josh Gad), Bomb (Danny McBride) and Mighty Eagle (Peter Dinklage) recruit Chuck’s sister Silver (Rachel…
A classic crime thriller, this is the story of Britain’s most notorious gangsters, Reggie and Ronnie Kray (both played by Tom Hardy), as they have the time of their lives, ruling over London in the midst of the Swinging Sixties. With Ronnie fresh out of prison, the brothers set about consolidating their power in the…
Although a story about Vikings making friends with dragons seems very “high concept”, the How to Train Your Dragon franchise has been a big success. I mean, not MCU-style success, but it’s more than held its own in the world of animated movie franchises. The films have raked in more than $1 billion – nothing…
In 1962 French filmmaker and auteur Francois Truffaut flew to Hollywood and sat down with legendary director Alfred Hitchcock, the “master of suspense”, for a series of extensive interviews. A former film critic for the influential French journal Cahiers du Cinema, Truffaut had just begun to make his mark as a director himself with his…
I wish I could say great things about the sequel to the bump and grind we got in 2012 with Magic Mike. Three years after Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) bowed out of the male stripper life at the top of his game, “Magic Mike” finds the remaining Kings of Tampa, likewise, ready to throw in…
Taking on important historical figures in cinema can be fraught. Too much detail, and the film gets bogged down; too little and it’s dismissed as superficial. In recent years, a new vehicle has emerged – the snapshot biopic. Darkest Hour used it with Churchill, as did Hitchcock (2012) with, well, Hitchcock. These films take a…
Patricia Font’s Spanish/Catalan-language film The Teacher Who Promised the Sea is based on fact, and shines a light on the horrors of the murderous Franco regime. The film uses a highly personal 2010 search to tell its story. Ariadna (Laia Costa) is a single mother whose grandfather is dying man. She begins desperately looking for…
Superb staging is a hallmark of Mozart’s dramatic opera Idomeneo, set on the island of Crete shortly after the Trojan War. Ilia, daughter of the defeated Trojan King Priam, expresses conflicting emotions. She has love for her rescuer, Idamante, son of Cretan King Idomeneo, and hatred for her father’s Greek enemies, who killed both her dad and…
Two by Two Overboard follows mischievous animal best friends Finny and Leah as they navigate living on Noah’s Ark, with their misadventures implicating every other species during the flood. This family-friendly sequel to the 2015 predecessor Ooops! Noah is Gone…, is a left-field approach to the biblical tale as it illustrates how the animal kingdom…
Hugh Grant was once the affable if slightly awkward star of romantic comedies like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill. But since Guy Ritchie cast him against type in a couple of his gritty thrillers, Grant has carved out a niche for himself in playing villainous types. He was great as the main…
