As I was walking out of Locke, a man behind me told his wife, “That’s my worst nightmare.” I was thinking of other clichés, too: for Ivan Locke, the events in the film are a shitshow, a tsunami, his Waterloo, a perfect storm. Most American audiences know Tom Hardy, who plays Locke, for sci-fi action…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 My biggest peeve with many comic book movies is how much they divert from their source materials. However, Sam Raimi’s three Spider-Man movies, whatever liberties taken with plot points, did not change the essence of Peter Parker and his alter ego: he was a teenage orphan who was bitten by a…
There are a large number of people who will go to see Under the Skin simply because they heard that there was a great deal of nudity in it. Of particular importance, Scarlett Johansson, the famous and curvaceous blonde actress many men (and women) fantasize about, is particularly naked, the first time she has gone…
Dom Hemingway The first two minutes of Dom Hemingway is perhaps the most thrilling film scene I’ve seen in several months. As the titular character, Jude Law – beefed up, with mutton chops and his natural receding hairline – stands naked and sweaty, only his head and torso visible for those two minutes while he…
For a good number of people, I could convince them to see a movie with a review one sentence long: “Tilda Swinton plays a vampire.” Though she’s been starring in films for nearly three decades – her first role was in Derek Jarman’s queer masterpiece Caravaggio in 1986 – it has only been since she…
Among the United Kingdom’s greatest exports – including Downton Abbey, Cadbury Eggs and the Magna Carta – is the underdog feel-good comedy. Where would world culture be without The Full Monty, Billy Elliot, Little Voice and Bend it Like Beckham? In a terrible place, I reckon. (This is as long as you don’t think about…
I am a member of the strong minority that believes that Captain America: The First Avenger is the best of the recent crop of Marvel movies. Joss Whedon’s The Avengers is great fun, but the Captain America story is much more emotionally rich. During World War II, an incredibly scrawny, sickly Steve Rogers tries over…
The similarities between the Divergent trilogy and The Hunger Games trilogy are impossible to ignore, so let’s get them out of the way. Both are about preternaturally capable teenage girls who help lead rebellions in dystopian futures, and both have been turned into big budget tent-pole movies with starry casts and Oscar-anointed leads. The Hunger…
I struggled to start writing this review because I wanted to communicate as powerfully and as effectively as possible how much I loved Wes Anderson’s eighth feature film The Grand Budapest Hotel. Luckily, I don’t have the same degree of difficulty when I write a review as Wes Anderson has when he makes a movie….
Apparently, one of the reasons Stranger by the Lake has been of such interest to film writers and culture bloggers is the sex. Alain Guiraudie’s extremely French sex thriller is being listed along with Blue Is the Warmest Color and Interior. Leather Bar as part of an art film trend of explicit and not always…
