Hindsight, they say, is 20-20. But the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia can distort the lens. In Belfast, director Kenneth Branagh delivers a love letter to his childhood hometown. But I couldn’t shake the feeling his memory might have taken the hard edges off a tumultuous time in Northern Ireland. That’s understandable – after all, the…
Time and tide wait for no man, they say. In the sci-fi drama Synchronic, a chemist invents a time travel drug that sends people back. It has greatest impact on those with young minds. They’re the most inclined to be high … and what a trip it sends them on. Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis…
Irish lyricism, bluster and blarney combine in Wild Mountain Thyme. This romantic drama has the sole purpose of joining a lovelorn woman and her timid neighbour. Rosemary Muldoon (Emily Blunt) grew up initially doubting her purpose until her father told her she was the white swan, like in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake (which is a recurring…
Navigating a romantic entanglement can be difficult enough. But when it comes to two – at the same time – it is in a league of its own, especially when the blokes attracted to the “catch” are best mates. Daphne (Shailene Woodley) opts out of a long-term relationship, quits her job and moves in with…
Sitting there watching Fifty Shades Freed, the final instalment in the Shades of Grey trilogy, I could only think, “Lame, tame and who to blame?” So very little happens … for so much of the film. Yes, the characters have sex – most of it conventional and a few turns in the red room – but that,…
The best way to get anything other than disappointment out of Fifty Shades Darker is to enter the cinema with extremely low expectations. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson return as the young couple Christian Grey and Anastasia (Ana) Steele in this, the second chapter of the bestselling Fifty Shades erotic romance trilogy by EL James….
