Magic, mayhem and mirth combine for a delightful family offering in Clifford The Big Red Dog. Emily (Darby Camp) is a smart 12-year-old who lives with her paralegal single British mother Maggie (Sienna Guillory) in a small New York apartment. They have just moved there from upstate and Emily is friendless. More than that, she…
A heartfelt coming of age tale in 1950s Ireland and America, Brooklyn is a story of promise and choices. Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) plays Eilis, a shy, respectful, even taciturn young woman on the verge of full-blown adulthood who sets sail from small town Ireland to Brooklyn, New York. You see, opportunities are scarce in rural…
Set during the last great Ice Age in Europe some 20,000 years ago, Alpha is an epic adventure. This brutal tale of survival in a harsh wilderness is a bit like a prehistoric version of The Revenant. It’s also something of a coming of age tale as it follows a teen’s journey to manhood. There…
Imagine a well-spoken woman of a certain age describing the sex life of slugs, before transitioning to elaborate upon a swap and trade social media platform. That is what you get at Theatre Works’ Explosives Factory with Rough Trade, which happens to be the moniker for a quirky, private Facebook group. Unlike Marketplace, the exchange of money…
Darwin is sweltering and it’s raining cats and dogs. Ruben’s (Dion Williams) life is in the toilet. A court has sentenced him to attend counselling after he hit a cop, but he isn’t willing to play ball and he makes his situation worse. He’s full of resentment, struggling to cope with his brother Joe’s death, for which…
The name Dalton Trumbo is little known outside of those with an interest in Hollywood history, but this hugely successful (as in Oscar winning) writer is the subject of Jay Roach’s detailled and compelling biopic, Trumbo. For a little background, Trumbo was a prolific and celebrated screenwriter during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood. His many…
Eoin Colfer is best known as the author of the highly successful children’s fantasy series Artemis Fowl. This series, pitched squarely at the older child market, features a ten-year-old super rich, hyper-intelligent, criminal mastermind who finds and takes on a technologically advanced fairy world. But the first Artemis Fowl book came out in 2001, putting…
A deeply distressing reality piece, Capharnaum pulls at the heart strings. The title translates to chaos and that’s what this film is about – surviving amid chaos. Zain (Zain Al Raffa) is a mistreated 12-year-old Lebanese boy. After being jailed for committing a violent crime, Zain sues his parents – mother Souad (Kawthar Al Bankole)…
Nicolas Cage movies broadly fall into three categories – the good, the bad and the bizarre. His latest film, Color Out of Space – a hybrid of sci-fi, alien invasion and horror, based on a 1927 short story written by H P Lovecraft (who is considered the father of the modern horror story) – falls…
For those contemplating jumping in head first into Season Two of Flack, don’t. This is really one of those shows where you can’t come in cold. Best to do your homework, binge on the exciting madness that is Season One and then all of Season Two will make good sense. Robyn (Anna Paquin, being another…
