Despite writer, director, producer and star Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect, Love & Mercy) proving there is a bit more mileage in a franchise that’s been around since the 70’s; Charlie’s Angels newest revival is still an unnecessary commodity. Nearly a decade since Barrymore, Diaz and Lui first rebooted the original TV show, Banks version is […]
Acclaimed director Jennifer Kent has followed up international hit horror film “The Babadook” with something even more unsettling. “The Nightingale” takes the viewer deep into the Tasmanian Bush, in Colonial Australia. The controversial film premiered to accolades at the Venice Film Festival in 2018 but prompted walkouts during its Sydney, Australia premiere. “The Nightingale” depicts brutal scenes of
There are lots of survival films, many of them taking place in open water. “Adrift” is both similar to those before it, and strikingly different. Based on an incredible true story of a sailboat wrecked in the Pacific, Shailene Woodley (“The Descendants”) re-dons her bathing suit to give what’s easily her most ambitious and demanding
Sam Claflin forgoes his usual romantic-leading-man role for a muddy cerebral one in the trenches of this World War I drama. Journey’s End opens at an almost stagnant pace, with no score, only uniformed men talking and moving around. When Paul Bettany (The Avengers) finally gets on screen, the story livens up a bit. To
Director Roger Michell’s films can be quite good or forgettable depending on what he is working with. His latest was very anticipated on my part, the adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier’s novel. Maurier is the nearly forgotten author behind two of Hitchcock’s best adaptations The Birds and Rebecca. The first trailer for My Cousin Rachel
An Education (2009) was a great film, nominated for best picture and solidifying the career of Carey Mulligan. However, that’s no reason to use that movies structure in a different plot like director Lone Scherfig does here. Their Finest has a solid starting point, focusing on women’s increased role during WWII, specifically at London’s major
The problem with Thea Sharrock’s directorial debut, isn’t the simplicity or by the numbers storytelling. It’s that the entire movie is easily summed up in the two-minute trailer. Me Before You might as well be a sequel to both the American teenage love story The Fault in Our Stars or the international French hit The
What began as an exciting and gripping film series back in 2012 has slowly lost its “fire” as the three-part book series / four-part film spectacles come to an anticlimactic close in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2. “Glad it’s over,” was the general response, as the series that helped launch Oscar winner Jennifer
This might just be the timeliest film of 2015, with weekly reports of college fraternity embarrassments or just college students doing deplorable actions. Director Lone Scherfig (An Education) and screenwriter Laura Wade (based on her play) adapt this story about the behavior of the spoiled, rich, 1% as we say in the states. While the
In an attempt to stay relevant between filming the next installments of their individual franchises, Lilly Collins (The Mortal Instruments) and Claflin (The Hunger Games) remind us all why most people despise romantic comedies. If American rom-coms have cooled or backed off for the meantime, the UK didn’t get the memo. Love, Rosie (although I