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Posts tagged ‘Drama’

Sep 7

The New Girlfriend (2014)
Une nouvelle amie

Directed by: François Ozon

2 stars

Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) and Laura grow up as inseparable best friends – a relationship that, at least for Claire, may be more than just platonic. They support each through everything, including marriage, but Laura falls ill and, shortly after giving birth, she dies.

Claire and husband Gilles (Raphäel Personnaz) want to support Laura’s widower David (Romain Duris) and baby Lucie, but when she drops in unexpectedly Claire discovers David dressed as a woman, with more than a passing resemblance to the late Laura. Read more

Sep 6

The Drop (2014)

Directed by: Michaël R. Roskam

5 stars

Cousin Marv’s, a bar somewhere in Brooklyn. A neighbourhood where criminals still run the streets. It is not a place you escape easily, unless you have money. Marv (James Gandolfini) lives with his sister, is fat, jaded, has money problems and a history of crime. Bob (Tom Hardy), who is Marv’s cousin, is quiet, solitary, loyal, goes to church and is kind to animals. Read more

Sep 6

The Dead Lands (2014)

Directed by: Toa Fraser

4 stars

Two Maori tribes meet at the site of an ancient battle, ostensibly to allow the visiting tribe to honour the remains of their dead ancestors, and thus pave the way to peace between the clans. But the leader of the visitors, Wirepa (Te Kohe Tuhaka), desecrates the bones (in a scene of scatalogical graphicness that prefigures the gore to come) and blames his host’s son, Hongi (James Rolleston), for the insult. Read more

Sep 5

The Judge (2014)

Directed by David Dobkin

4 stars

Hot-shot criminal lawyer Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr.) leaves his Chicago law-practice, his long-suffering, newly-unfaithful wife, and his sweetly precocious daughter (Emma Tremblay) to return to his family home in small town Indiana for his mother’s funeral. Read more

Sep 14

3 Comments

Unforgiven (2013)

Directed by Lee Sung-Il

5 stars

It’s hard to describe in words just how good Unforgiven, Lee Sung-Il’s remake of the 1992 Clint Eastwood movie of the same name, is. The earlier movie was no mean achievement, winning four Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. This Japanese remake won’t repeat that, because that’s not how the Academy works – and perhaps it’s fair in that Eastwood’s movie forms the very broad shoulders on which this film stands. But the new version climbs up there and doesn’t put a foot wrong. Read more

Nov 27

Resistance (2011)

Directed by: Amit Gupta

3 stars

“I hope you understand”, the last words uttered in Resistance, express a sometimes futile wish. This first feature from director Gupta is at times very confusing – not because it tries to cram too much plot into its ninety-plus minute running time, but arguably too little. The story is economically told, which is often a virtue, and it quickly dispels any notion that it will be a conventional war movie. Instead, it unfolds in a leisurely but frequently elliptical fashion so that we struggle to piece together motivations and roles. Read more

Nov 19

Essential Killing (2010)

Directed by: Jerzy Skolimowski

3 stars

Three Americans patrolling across what seems to be the Afghan desert are killed by a confused, frightened (and perhaps unwilling) man (Vincent Gallo) who is then fired on and captured by the patrol’s helicopter support. The temporarily deafened man is processed by his captors (chained, head shaved, dressed in orange) and treated to what are euphemistically known as enhanced interrogation techniques. Read more

Oct 31

Anonymous (2011)

Directed by: Roland Emmerich

3 stars

In a New York theatre, trench-coated Derek Jacobi soliloquises about the greatness of Shakespeare’s works, and then tantalises his audience with the suggestion – no, assertion – that Will was not in fact the author. The scene shifts to early 17th century London where playwright Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto), clutching a pile of papers, is chased through the streets of London by soldiers who eventually manage to burn him out of the Globe Theatre and arrest him, sans folio. Read more

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