Ben-Hur
This review was actually posted up a few days before the release date. What you say! Posting film reviews during the actual month of release? Yes, it was indeed. A rare and hopefully to be repeated occurance. The review was written for Vulturehound, a pretty awesome culture magazine. Have a read of it
HERE. 2/5
Cafe Society
Woody Allen's latest offering is lavish, beautiful, bitter but not as sweet as I hoped. With my mixed feelings about An Irrational Man, I had hoped that Cafe Society would follow in tradition, one bad one good pattern but the story about a New Yorker guy moving to LA to start a life and falls in love with the first woman he meets is predictable. The woman he adores is seeing a married man, someone close to home, so he ends up moving back to New York to help his gangster brother run a nightclub. The voice over throughout the film interrupts the story and takes away dialogue from secondary characters which is a shame. But it's the predictable story love triangle that grated on me and the fact certain people knew they had made mistakes almost straight away. Hope Woody Allen hasn't lost his touch already. 3/5
The Program
The Lance Armstrong scandal was something I remember hearing about but never really looked into it. America's prized athlete and massive liar. This is less about Armstrong's live as shown by the weird scene where he meets and marries his wife only for her not appear in the film ever again, its more about his rise, illness, unrealistic rise then massive fall. The fact that he claims many times that all the cyclists were doping is just sad that it got that deep. It was good see Chris O'Dowd is a serious role and Ben Foster was pretty menacing. What was good about this story was that it didn't make me want to watch the documentary instead. 3/5
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
it has been too long since I gave a high rating to a film, but I have been going on about Taika Waititi's amazing hilarious film since June when I saw it at Edinburgh Film Festival. I wrote briefly about how much I loved the film
HERE. The film also won the audience award for best film at the festival, well deserved. What's not to love about buddy journey comedy through the New Zeland bush. Excellent dialogue, brilliant cast and beyond beautiful views. 5/5
Jane Got A Gun
After a long and difficult journey to the screen which lasted all of 5 minutes, Jane makes it to DVD success. A small cast do well to build the tension and a good story. Unfortunately, the story is nothing new or spectacular. That aside, the checklist of Western traits, flashbacks, revenge, lost love, civil war gets in the way, homes built in the middle of nowhere and the classic shoot out. Natalie Portman and Joel Edgerton make a great duo. Most of the film is made up of them talking and looking at each longing to sau something that they don't need to say. Glad I watched it and DVD too, this was a wait for the home video situation. 3/5
War on Everyone
I was lucky enough to snab a ticket to see pretty damn good film at Empire Live and I'm so glad I did. Two cops, both bad, one with a family who breaks his son's xbox and the other single who own a huge empty house to himself and love Glen Campbell. Both cops are pretty awful. They accept bribes, do coke with criminals, run over mime artists and occasionally follow up on leads if it's in their interest. The script is razor sharp genius from the mind of John Michael McDonagh who gave us Calvary. He was funny but to the point in the Q&a after the film which made him even greater. The characters in the film are terrible but they have weird moments where they prove they're humans. Michael Pena and Alexander Skarsgard are brilliant at the centre and are supported by a great creepy cast too. Cannot love this movie enough. 4/5
I have also included TV this month as I wrote a post about it for Vulturehound. Full post can be read
HERE.
