The low budget crowd pleasing underdog story Rocky won the Oscar for Best Film in 1977, made a star out of Sylvester Stallone, and spawned a number of sequels of varying quality. This seventh film in the long running franchise is the first to be written by someone other than Stallone himself. He felt that…
War may still be hell, but it’s changed remarkably as illustrated by Gavin Hood’s tense drama, Eye in the Sky. If your idea of warfare comes from Saving Private Ryan, Platoon or even Three Kings, this film will open your mind to some new – and quite frightening – ways in which nations project military…
Director Eric Lavaine reunites most of the cast of his 2014 ensemble comedy Barbecue and brings them back to reprise their characters for this sequel, which was one of the hits of the recent French Film Festival. Happy 50 is also known as Plancha (“griddle”) in its original French. Eight years after the events of…
There is excess, and then there is The Fate of the Furious, the eighth incarnation of one of the world’s most successful movie franchises. In short, this is stunt heaven, with a surfeit of fast cars in exotic locales (all of which are beautiful to behold) and fiery explosions. As we keep getting told from…
A brilliant, if complex, script and a series of magnificent voices are the hallmarks of this wickedly funny celebration of 1940s film noir and dark detective fiction, which is two musicals in one. City of Angels focuses upon an ambitious Hollywood screenwriter, Stine (Anton Berezin), who struggles with a demanding studio boss (Troy Sussman) as…
Melodrama is amped up in Wonder Wheel, a period piece set in the hustle and bustle of Coney Island amusement park. Woody Allen has always had a special fondness for Coney Island. He set the childhood home of Annie Hall’s Alvy Singer under the clattering Cyclone roller coaster. Set in the 1950s, like so many of Allen’s…
In Violent Night, the wealthy Lightstone family gather at their secure remote family compound to celebrate Christmas. But this is a dysfunctional family as everyone tries to suck up to Gertrude (Beverly D’Angelo), the family matriarch to curry favour and remain in her good graces. Jason (Alex Hassell) is separated from his wife Linda (Alex…
With overtones of the George Clooney action adventure drama The Perfect Storm, The Finest Hours is a slow moving story of courage and endeavour based upon fact. It starts out as a 1950s romance between a shy, respectful member of the US Coast Guard and the “say it as it is” love of his life,…
An Easter Saturday night opening at the Old Fitz. And what an opening. Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, by Rajiv Joseph, presented by a young independent company, Mad March Hare Theatre, directed by Claudia Barrie, was an unexpected pleasure. One of the highest order. On the eve of the celebration of the Resurrection of…
The 2024 HSBC Spanish Film Festival, presented by Palace, brings a fiesta of the finest new and classic films from Spain and Latin America this June. The festival’s largest line-up to date opens nationally from 11 June at Palace Cinemas, Palace Nova Eastend Cinemas and Luna Palace Cinemas. This year’s star-studded Opening Night film is…
