Because Everybody Else Has One

Major computer issues (are there any other kind) stopped me from posting this and a few other updates in time.  Look out for more content in the next couple of days, including, would you know it, a book review! This has been up on Channel 24 for over a week now so you may have caught it already. If not... What it's about Roman J Israel, Esq. is a brilliant civil-rights lawyer but, as someone not blessed with the greatest social skills, his expertise is behind the scenes work, helping his partner prepare the very best defence for his clients. When his partner has a heart attack, however, Roman is forced to come to the fore and face not only the realities of a failing law practice but who he really is as a person, as a lawyer and as a once-fierce but now potentially obsolete fighter for human rights. What we thought A brilliant, searing character study, wrapped in a fairly mundane and occasionally dull law-procedural plot, Roman J Israel, Esq. is as awkward a...

Just two movies left to finish off this week. Well, three technically but I have no earthly idea what The Perfect Wave is supposed to be. American Hustle.  Following hot on the heels of his last film, the quite terrific Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle finds director/co-writer David O Russell on rather different ground. Moving from the character-driven intimacy of Silver Lining Playbook to a plot-and-style-driven crime caper that plays like a more flippant, less intense Goodfellas, it is, if nothing else, impressive how easily O Russell shifts gears from one genre to the next. American Hustle is a sprightly and attractive slice of pure entertainment that has what to say about identity verses appearance but somehow still feels slightly hollow for it. It may have garnered as many nominations as its predecessor and it's just as handsomely made, but it never quite manages to match the heart or the depth of Silver Linings Playbook. American Hustle tells the largely true s...

Again, I'll have the Channel 24 link up if and when they decide to post it... And here it is. What it's about Viktor is a man out for revenge against the crime empire that killed his wife and child but things get complicated when he meets Beatrice, the woman living across from his who has her own scars and her own thirst for revenge. What we thought Dead Man Down is a film that unfortunately lives down to its rather lackluster title, despite having a number of things very much in its favour. It isn't a terrible film by any means, but by resolutely refusing to live up to its own potential, it is a very disappointing one. Revenge stories are some of the most archetypal and, therefore, most overplayed stories around. They also belong to a genre that was so perfectly perfected by William Shakespeare in Hamlet that they still live in the Bard's shadow, no matter how many centuries have passed. In the same way that Romeo and Juliet still defines roma...

My second review from Channel24 this week of a film that I really, really like. Also, I will be starting to use a far less clunky star-rating graphic, which should hopefully make the ratings themselves far clearer. Hopefully, I will get round to bringing all my old reviews in line as well. These new graphics come courtesy of my good friend Chaim Ehrlich so you have him to thank for making this blog just that much more user friendly. Thanks again, Chaim! What it's about:   A remake of the 1985 horror-comedy cult classic in which a teenager tries to convince his friends and family that his next door neighbour is actually a vampire. What we thought: Fright Night may be yet another in a long line of cynical attempts to cash in on beloved horror films from other countries ( The Ring , Let The Right One In ) or Hollywood's own past (take your pick) but this is one remake that actually equals or surpasses the original in every way. Every way, that is, except for...