Because Everybody Else Has One

I forgot to post last week's review but, as it turns out, these two films make for a very interesting double bill. Both reviews are on Channel 24 too. The Old Man and the Gun What it’s about  Forrest Tucker is a career bank robber who has spent most of his adult life in and out of prison – usually out, thanks to his uncanny ability to escape even the most notoriously impenetrable prisons – but when he falls for a woman named Jewel, his life of crime comes to a head. Can he stop doing the one thing he’s truly good at and can he do so before he is brought down by a persistent young cop who’s obsessed with his case? Based on a true story. What we thought The Old Man & the Gun has been reported to be Robert Redford’s final film and, though there might be something ironic about finishing such a momentous film career with so small and unassuming a swansong, it actually turned out to be a fairly fitting farewell. It is undoubtedly a very slow, very serene and ultimately ...

Where's the love?! This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Based on Bill Bryson's beloved autobiographical travel book, we find Bryson (Robert Redford), older and living the quiet life with his wife in their suburban American home after two decades living in England. It's not long, however, before his general restlessness and unending passion for travel leads him to try hiking the punishing Appalachian Trail with a decidedly out of shape old friend (Nick Nolte) – all in the spite of the protests of his wife (Emma Thompson) and just about everyone else who knows him. What we thought A Walk in the Woods has generally not been particularly well received by overseas critics and, as near as I can tell, by many a Bill Bryson fan, but I'm slightly at a loss as to why this is. I haven't yet read the book on which the film is based and have only recently gotten into Bryson's work in general (based on what little I have read, though,...

I'm late with this again but here we actually have a fairly small week in terms of films that I've actually seen. Also released were Skoonheid, Soul Surfer and African Cats, all of which I have missed but as for what I've seen, it was a pretty damn decent week for film. Tamara Drewe was released on something like three screens throughout the country but I am covering it because a) I'm sure you will be able to find it on DVD in no time at all and b) it has become such a rarity for British films to actually make it to cinemas in our country that I'm not simply going to ignore one that actually does. Tamara Drewe is based on a generally well-regarded British graphic novel that I have admittedly not read but there's little point in getting into the film's plot as it really is a collection of cascading stories about a group of characters whose lives are affected, to various degrees, by the presence of our titular protagonist : a very beautiful but very t...