Can you make a Japanese Iranian film? Kiarostami tries his luck in Like Someone In Love, a forlorn existentialism piece – featuring at CPH PIX Film Festival – that sees the Iranian auteur dabble with one part comedy of manners, and another more familiar doze of melancholic social commentary. Full review at The Frame Loop: http://theframeloop.com/2013/04/13/film-review-like-someone-in-love-kiarostami-cphpix/
Read my full review here: http://theframeloop.com/2013/04/11/film-review-closed-curtain-parde-panahi/
A mix of Scorsese, Malick & Nuri Bilge Ceylan, THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES is an ambitious, but uneven drama. Full review here: http://theframeloop.com/2013/04/10/film-review-the-place-beyond-the-pines-cooper-mendes-gosling/
Sally Potter's latest is a bit of a melodramatic mess, but Elle Fanning performance is incredible. Think of a young Meryl Streep, and you're not far off. My full review is over here: http://theframeloop.com/2013/04/07/film-review-ginger-rosa-sally-potter-fanning/
There’s always something devilishly exciting about a new Jason Statham movie. Sure, it’s no Shakespeare, but the baldy British action star has enough charisma and faux-Cockney swagger to make films like The Expendables and the ludicrous Crank series entertaining, in that silly, popcorn-chomping sort of way. Parker is no exception. Based on the novel 'Flashfire' from Donald E. Westlake’s hardboiled crime series, The Stath stars as the eponymous, hard-as-nails master thief with a questionable moral compass and a hulky scarred torso. After leading a successful million dollar heist on a local Ohio state fair, his crackerjack crew turn against him, leaving him bloodied, wounded and left for dead by the roadside. Unfortunately for them, Parker is seemingly indestructible, and limping with a vengeance. Deserting his girlfriend Claire (Emma Booth) and her Mafioso dad (a cameo from the gravelly voiced Nick Nolte), he hunts them down to the lavish Palm Beach Florida, and enlists a fledgling realtor Leslie (Jennifer Lopez), together they hatch a plan to catch his former crew whilst they undertake a jewellery auction heist. The first thing worthy of mention is that the plot, like all good/bad action B-movies, is utter balderdash. What could a shrill real estate agent know about the criminal underworld? How could The Stath survive a point blank bullet wound to the chest. And, most preposterous of all, how could anyone ever believe the Brit’s lame Texan accent? Parker is the sort of film where you need to leave such questions of plausibility at the door, and just enjoy the gaudy action spectacle. Helmed by the Oscar nominated director of The Devil’s Advocate and Ray, Taylor Hackford blends grisly film noir tropes with ultra-violent action set pieces. Getting off to a rollicking start, as the narrative takes prominence, Parker sluggishly tumbles through the two hour running time. It needs a good edit. Although J-Lo’s screen presence is magnetic, her character is entirely superfluous, attractive window dressing. Is it a ‘good’ film. Of course not! The plot is derivative, the ‘stick ‘em up!’ dialogue cringe-worthy, and the characterisation ignominious. Nevertheless, it’s mindless entertainment, which you can’t help but succumb to. More reviews at The Frame Loop www.theframeloop.com
Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow, the writer-director pair behind Oscar winning Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker, were all set to make their follow-up film about a failed capture of Osama bin Laden. Of course, that was until they received word that, on May 2nd 2011, the American Special Forces struck lucky second time around. Most filmmakers would have shelved the project altogether, but this defiant duo decided to start all over again. Zero Dark Thirty stars Hollywood’s leading lady of the moment Jessica Chastain as CIA agent Maya. A relatively new police official, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, she’s sent to the US Embassy in Pakistan, assigned the fearsome job to hunt-down the world’s most wanted man, DOA. Chronicling her nine yearlong pursuit, Maya is confronted with countless false-leads, dead-ends, bureaucratic red tape, political espionage, and the rising death toll of her embassy colleagues. It’s enough to cause a breakdown, but it only makes Maya more dedicated and resilient with the manhunt. No words can do justice for Chastain’s Oscar nominated performance. Maya is a character so completely drained of emotion or sympathy, that her presence is endlessly mesmerizing. Similarly to her underrated 1989 cop drama Blue Steel, Bigelow presents a formidable and empowering heroine that is so rarely available in mainstream cinema and society altogether. Ballsy and shrewd, Chastain’s Maya is the beating heart of what is an otherwise entirely unnerving, frosty feature. That’s not to say it’s bad, of course, just difficult. At times, it can be very difficult. Working with Killing Them Softly’s director of photography Greig Saucer, the handheld close-ups that dominate the film are so claustrophobic that you can almost taste the desert sand stuck on the camera lens. However, such a barebones aesthetic also produces some of the most white-knuckle cinematic experiences you’ll ever see; particularly in the final blackened night, capture-and-kill sequence. As with The Hurt Locker, ferocious visuals are not the only thing ZD30 has in its’ impressive inventory. Primarily based on interviews with intelligence operators and undisclosed CIA officials’ reports, journalist-cum-screenplay writer Mark Boal produces a script which mercurially bulldozes any narrative clichés and formulaic character tropes and instead delivers punchy political dialogue, so naturalistically delivered that it really has an uncomfortably veracious, almost documentarian zing to it. Seeing as we all know the story’s eventual outcome, the film rightly focuses on a warts-and-all depiction of the procedural, comprehensive details Maya’s first experience working with trophy infidel interrogator Dan (Jason Clarke), up to when she shakes the President’s defence committee into red-alert action (expertly, if all too briefly played out by James Gandolfini and Mark Strong). Despite the critical plaudits and award pile-ups, the film’s moment in the limelight has been stolen by a particularly shouty debate on its’ presentation of waterboarding and torture, more generally. Most shockingly of all is to find that, amongst all that divisive babbling, ZD30 is controversial in how starkly uncontroversial it all is. In what could understandably be considered a criticism of the film, Bigelow and Boal’s presentation of such nefarious subject matter is so pragmatic, so docile, that they have not only earned their ‘based on a true story’ stripes, but used them as a catalyst for public provocation. If you want to watch a film littered with scorn and staunch commentary on the American war on terror, perhaps you’d be better off with puppet-starring satire Team America. If you want the most unnerving, brilliantly acted thriller of the year, see Zero Dark Thirty. Remorseless and torturous throughout it’s entire 157 minutes it may be, but you won’t be able to stop watching. More reviews at The Frame Loop: www.theframeloop.com
A real shame! Where has the man who made The 40 Year Old Virgin gone? My full review is here: http://theframeloop.com/2013/02/13/40/#
Read my full review here: http://theframeloop.com/2013/01/30/reviewflight/
Read The Frame Loop's review here: http://theframeloop.com/2013/01/25/reviewlincoln/
Læse mig fuld anmeldelse her: http://theframeloop.com/2013/01/16/lesmisreview/
Læse mig fuld anmeldelse her: http://theframeloop.com/2013/01/18/thesessions/
Blaxploitation + Western = Tarantino's bedste film siden Jackie Brown Læs min fulde anmeldelse her: http://theframeloop.com/2013/01/17/django/
Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/31/365softly/
Some really fantastic performances in this one. Here's my full review: http://366movies.com/2012/12/28/361silver/
Like Disney's bonkers art film Fantasia, Ang Lee's LIFE OF PI adaptation is pure firework cinema - the plot stinks, but it's a shimmering spectacle of colours and imagination. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/20/253pi/
Peter Jackson's take on Tolkien's children's novel is incredibly misjudged and overlong. An Unexpected Journey is exactly what we all feared and expected: a Hobbit-by-numbers mini epic. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/12/345hobbit/
Peter Jackson's take on Tolkien's children's novel is incredibly misjudged and overlong. An Unexpected Journey is exactly what we all feared and expected: a Hobbit-by-numbers mini epic. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/12/345hobbit/
Peter Jackson's take on Tolkien's children's novel is incredibly misjudged and overlong. An Unexpected Journey is exactly what we all feared and expected: a Hobbit-by-numbers mini epic. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/12/345hobbit/
With a near forty year career, Michael Haneke has earned the title as one of the most important filmmakers making cinema today. He tells stories which many would shy away from, all containing a bleak critique on contemporary society as he sees it. You get as much from his films as the emotional baggage that you bring in with you, and his latest Palme d'Or winning Amour is no exception. Performed in his adopted-French, it's an unflinching look at a married couple coping with disease, age and the brevity of life. But we aren't voyeurs to the tragedy, we are vicariously experiencing it... Read the full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/11/344amour/
This kids' horror animation has tone and plotting problems, but with such a fabulous voice cast, dazzling stop-motion visuals and horror send-ups in their abundance, who cares?! Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/06/339paranorman/a
A gimmicky hybrid film, the Taviani brothers overwork the beautifully simple premise of 'Shakespeare in Prison', with excessive artistic expressionism and style. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/04/333caesar/
A truly haunting movie. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/12/02/329imposter/
One of the best films I've seen all year. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/11/27/323beasts/
Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/11/22/318endofwatch/
The final instalment to this tired vampire series doesn't even manage to finish up on a high. Messy visuals, terrible scoring and, unsurprisingly, terrible acting. Here's my full review: http://366movies.com/2012/11/16/311dawn/
Here's my review. Be sure to watch the long version! http://366movies.com/2012/11/14/305killing/
Here's my review. Be sure to watch the long version! http://366movies.com/2012/11/14/305killing/
http://366movies.com/2012/11/12/300zizek/
Here's my full, audio review: http://366movies.com/2012/05/21/113-a-cat-in-paris-2010/
An essay film that unsuccessfully mixes queer noir with cranked absurdity. Read the full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/11/06/293macao/
Take This Waltz' director Sarah Polley drops the fiction for a frank and delightful documentary on home truths and family lies. Read the full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/11/06/292stories/
A fascinating true story, woefully surpressed by cliched artistic vision. Read my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/11/06/291dreams/
THE MASTER is not about scientology, it's about an unlikely love between two outcasts. #366movies Read the full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/11/06/290themaster/
Bardem is the best bond villain I've ever seen. Craig is ballsy and tough, Judi Dench is sublimely austere and Roger Deakins cinematography is nothing short of beautiful. See it! Full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/10/30/284skyfall/
Madagascar 3 is a garish experiment at distraction tactics - hurl everything at the screen, and hopefully some of it will stick. Some does, but it's all a bit to wild to have charm or longevity. Read the full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/10/17/271madagascar3/
An intelligent sci-fi romp. Director Rian Johnson proves that he is the next Christopher Nolan in-the-making with this excellent film. Check out my full review here: http://366movies.com/2012/10/03/254-looper-2012/
Check out mini review for this and others at my film blog: http://366movies.com/2012/02/13/015tyrannosaur/
Check out my review over at my blog: http://366movies.com/2012/09/21/246untouchable/
Take a look at my review over at my website: http://366movies.com/2012/04/15/095keepthelightson/
I was fortunate enough to see this at Berlinale at the start of the year. Take a look at my review for this, and many more films, right here: http://366movies.com/2012/03/11/048elles/
