Film review: Trial Of The Chicago 7

Films Reviews Tue, Oct 06, 2020

THIS WAS originally a Steven Spielberg project a decade ago. He had a personal interest in the story and asked writer Aaron Sorkin for a screenplay.

Rocks - a realistic look at adolescence and poverty, that's also fun

Films Reviews Tue, Sep 29, 2020

SOMETHING A bit different this week - a movie in the cinemas that is not available via streaming. If you want to see this, and you should, you are going to have to go to a cinema.

The Devil All The Time - too much misery and too much dirt for 2020

Films Reviews Tue, Sep 22, 2020

THE DEVIL All The Time is adapted from a 2011 best seller which Netflix bought last year for distribution. It has released it for streaming but apparently has a big campaign ready to go when awards season kicks off.

Savage; journey far more interesting than destination

Films Reviews Mon, Sep 21, 2020

My two previous experiences of New Zealand independent cinema, the excellent, hard-hitting, Once Were Warriors and the fun Hunt for the Wilderpeople, were ones I thoroughly enjoyed so when I saw the trailer for Sam Kelly's directorial debut, Savage, I had high hopes.

Bill & Ted Face The Music

Films Reviews Tue, Sep 15, 2020

THIS MOVIE has been rumoured for the past 10 years and kept falling apart in preproduction. However, given that Keanu Reeves has had a pretty stellar decade in the box office, it means he has enough pull to get this passion project made.

I’m Thinking Of Ending Things - the ideal film for 2020?

Films Reviews Mon, Sep 07, 2020

CHARLIE KAUFMAN, the man who brought us Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, has written some of the finest films of this century - and he does not release films often.

Tenet; lots of action, lots of special effects, lots of confusion

Films Reviews Mon, Sep 07, 2020

First of all, how good is it to be back in the cinema, watching movies on the big screen? In my humble opinion, so good.

Tenet - a feast of unparalleled stunt work and action scenes

Films Reviews Mon, Aug 31, 2020

FOR THE first time since March there is a big new Hollywood blockbuster in the cinemas. Christopher Nolan's Tenet is charged with saving the global cinema industry and, after quite a successful opening weekend, might actually do it.

Inception - convoluted, overrated, but worth another look

Films Reviews Thu, Aug 20, 2020

NEXT WEEK sees Tenent - the first proper international blockbuster released since March and the eleventh film from director Christopher Nolan.

Greyhound - Tom Hanks leadership qualities shine in no frills movie

Films Reviews Thu, Jul 23, 2020

In terms of victims of the pandemic, big budget Hollywood movies are quite low down on most people's sympathy lists. Only a year ago Avengers: Endgame broke the record for box office takings with $2.7 billion, so limited sympathy is appropriate.

Arracht - life amid the harshness and beauty in Connemara

Films Reviews Thu, Jul 16, 2020

THE 2020 Galway Film Fleadh should be considered a monumental success. To put on anything this year is an achievement, especially as the easy option would have been to postpone and pick it up in

Stand in awe of all Mná

Films Reviews Wed, Jul 08, 2020

LIKE EVERYTHING this year, the Galway Film Fleadh is a bit different. Usually the opening night is in a packed out Town Hall Theatre, but in 2020 we are all tuning in from home.

Da 5 Bloods - a wake up call and great entertainment

Films Reviews Thu, Jun 18, 2020

WELL THIS is a treat. A new Spike Lee movie on Netflix. The titular five bloods are a group of Black GIs who return to Vietnam to take back the remains of their commanding officer, Stormin' Norman, and the gold they buried with him years ago.

Dark Waters; entertaining, rage inducing drama

Films Reviews Mon, Mar 09, 2020

As a fan of previous little guy versus behemoth law films such as Erin Brockovich or anger filling plots like In the Name of the Father, I just had to go and see Dark Waters in the cinema and I was not disappointed. Dark Waters tell us the story behind Cincinnati corporate lawyer Rob Bilott's (Mark Ruffalo) 20 year crusade against chemical company DuPont's unregulated misuse of a chemical compound known as 'C8' which causes illness, cancer, and death in creatures which consume it.

Portrait Of A Lady On Fire - an equal love story

Films Reviews Thu, Mar 05, 2020

THE LAST two months has seen an unprecedented run of unique and interesting films, from war movie 1917, to a new twist on the Agatha Christie 'whodunnit' in Knives Out, biting social commentary in Parasite, surreal Lovecraftian horror in The Lighthouse, and maybe my favourite of all - a tense thriller from, of all people, Adam Sandler in Uncut Gems.

The Lighthouse - brilliant, difficult, funny, and unnerving

Films Reviews Thu, Feb 27, 2020

ROBERT PATTINSON is Ephraim Winslow, a new lighthouse keeper starting his first day of work on the coast of New England in the late 1880s. He is partnered with Thomas, played by Willem Defoe, a veteran wickie, as he calls himself.

Birds of Prey: enjoyable chaos and mayhem

Films Reviews Mon, Feb 17, 2020

OK to start off, I am not a massive fan of DC movies or Marvel movies, or any kind of superhero movie, so it is safe to say I wasn't holding out for much when I rocked up to Omniplex Salthill to view Birds of Prey, Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, or Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey or whatever title DC has decided to place upon their newest release. However, I have to say it wasn't that bad and I rather enjoyed a huge chunks of the movie.

Parasite - horror and comedy combine in a Korean masterpiece

Films Reviews Thu, Feb 13, 2020

THIS IS the fifth year in a row the bookies favourite did not win best picture at the Oscars. This is not always a good thing, Green Book was one of the worst ever winners of the award.

Bad Boys For Life - does what it says on the tin

Films Reviews Mon, Feb 10, 2020

It has been 17 years since Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) were last seen causing unmitigated chaos on the streets of Miami in the name of justice but the two decade wait for the third installment of the Bad Boys franchise has been worth it with plenty of jokes, explosions, and high speed chases.

A strange biopic of a man you never heard of

Films Reviews Thu, Feb 06, 2020

THIS FILM - loosely based on a profile for Esquire in 1998 by Tom Junod, entitled Can You Say… Hero? - follows a fictional journalist called Lloyd, who has a lousy reputation for writing hit pieces on the people he profiles.

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