Film Review: Bruno
Camp fashion reporter, Brüno, Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ego, is much like his previous role as Borat, dealing with similar topics and in analogous style to his Kazakhstani counterpart. If anything, Brüno is even more outrageous and controversial than Baron Cohen's previous effort.
Film Review: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
It's been almost eight years since the first of the Harry Potter tales was consigned to celluloid. Over those eight years, the quality of the films has remained pretty much steady. This is the sixth and penultimate iteration in the series, and as such serves as a prelude to what is sure to be a climactic final instalment.
Film Review: The Proposal
Sandra Bullock almost seems too sweet to play the hard-nosed Editor-in-chief, Margaret Tate, but The Proposal is clearly a movie made for the meaner side of her personality. Playing a character akin to The Devil Wears Prada's Miranda Priestley, Bullock's Tate is one of the most detestable bosses you'll ever see.
Film Review: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Coming from something of a smothered childhood, the fifty-year-old Pippa Lee finds herself in an idyllic position in life, albeit on a merely superfluous level. Her husband, one of the last great publishers, and thirty years her senior, has cast a long shadow in the twilight of her life, but Pippa is happy to live her life in the shade, holding dinner parties, aiding her powerful husband and playing the part someone else has carved for her in her life.
Film review: State of Play
From the director, Kevin Macdonald, State of Play features the rise and fall of American congressman Stephen Collins (Ben Affleck) – who is handsome, unflappable, and ascending the ladder of power with unprecedented speed.
Film review: Star Trek
JJ Abrams' new Star Trek is driven forwards by a time travel loop – allowing destiny to be altered and a new edge to the original continuity.
Film Review: Not Easily Broken
Dave Johnson (Morris Chestnut) has always dreamed of becoming Major League Baseball player, but, after getting injured, he settles for being a little league baseball coach.
Film Review: I Love You Man
Many films have relied on the relationship between a couple of male friends and their various farting and vomiting jokes – and this one isn't that different.
Film Review: The boat that rocked
Richard Curtis, by his own admission, has carved out his career by making modern classic love films. But the Love Actually and Notting Hill creators brand new movie, The Boat That Rocked turns its attention to his other love, music.
The story is based on controversial pirate radio stations in the 1960s, in particular Radio Caroline. It is an ensemble comedy, where the romance is between the young people of the 60s, and pop music. Its about a band of DJs that captivate Britain, playing the music that defines a generation and standing up to a government that, incomprehensibly, prefers jazz.
Film Review: Che Part Two
In the second of a two part drama about the revolutionary life and times of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, viewers are taken to Bolivia for an on-the-ground document of guerrilla warfare. By all accounts , Che: Part Two it is the film Soderbergh originally wanted to make – but which would be difficult to stand on its own.
Film Review: Frost Nixon
Back in 1977, British satirist turned talk show host David Frost managed to secure unprecedented access to former American president Richard Nixon, still a global pariah and national disgrace following his 1974 fall from office after the notorious Watergate scandal. Little-known in the US, despite having managed to get Nixon's agreement to an almost insane 28-hour interview, stretched over 12 days, Frost had failed to sell the interviews to any television networks, funding the project out of his own money.
Film Review: The Spirit
Liked the over-the-top, heavily stylised Sin City, with its quirkily graphical black-and-white, comic-book feel? Can't wait until 2010 for the sequel? Well, this might just keep you going until then.
Film Review: Defiance
Actors who get cast as James Bond all too often find it hard to shake off that iconic character. Our last 007, Pierce Brosnan, has been finding it particularly tricky, picking up roles as sleazy losers in the likes of The Matador and cheesy all-singing, all-dancing clichés in Mamma Mia in a desperate attempt to show that he can do things other than look good in a tuxedo while fighting baddies and performing spectacular stunts. Bond before him Timothy Dalton spent a good decade carefully picking parts that would shake off the threat of typecasting, from villains to more nuanced and subtle characters on stage and small screen.
Film Review: Slumdog Millionaire
As unlikely award contenders go, a film about the Indian version of popular TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? made by the guy who brought us that classic piece of mid-90s drug-addled madness Trainspotting has to be up there with the weirdest of them.
Film Review: Bedtime Stories
After the release of the fun family adventure Inkheart two weeks ago, you may think that there's not much call for another movie about children's stories coming to life. But this is a very different take on a similar basic idea, and certainly shouldn't be written off right away. Where Inkheart opted for thrills and spectacle in a relatively straight, classic fantasy quest, this offering has instead gone for the comedy route – as the presence of Adam Sandler in the lead should attest.
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