Midnight’s Children (London Film Festival review)
Elegant looking and well intentioned, but epically bloated and choking on its own would-be grand metaphor…
reviews
Paranormal Activity 4 (review)
It’s the Where’s Waldo of spooky stories. (Where’s the ghost? Find the ghost!) But much less fun.
Ruby Sparks (review)
Ruby may be the most odious Manic Pixie Dream Girl ever, because she is a not-real woman, so we cannot even console ourselves with the notion that she has her own independent existence apart from Calvin.
Wadjda (London Film Festival review)
Delightful and powerfully satisfying, an arthouse crowd-pleaser about a charmingly irrepressible protagonist… (new DVD/VOD UK)
Casa de Mi Padre (review)
A little bit Mel Brooks, a little bit Airplane!: subtle humor that slips under your radar instead of bashing you over the head is what makes Casa one of the more adventurous comedies in recent years…
Sinister (review)
Worth a look for Ethan Hawke’s crankily intriguing performance as a writer who places himself in a creative pressure cooker of a situation, but not for much else.
Frankenweenie (review)
The Tim Burton-est movie in a long while, not merely because it embodies all those wonderfully weird and humanist Burton attitudes but also because only Burton would think to make a stop-motion film in glorious, creamy, black-and-white.
Taken 2 (review)
If this is any indication, Taken 3 will be nothing but Liam Neeson running around whatever European city ponies up the biggest tax credits, growling and beating up random swarthy passersby who look at him askew. It would be only a tiny step below this.
House at the End of the Street (review)
Banal, lazy filmmaking that cannot even be bothered to be cheerfully cheap and cheesy. Jennifer Lawrence is trapped in something that is constitutionally unable to allow her to be the strong, competent young woman she arrived as.
ParaNorman (review)
Dismal, yet profound and pungent, ParaNorman makes its points in ways more sharp and brutal than other “children’s” films. This is a story about ostracism and bigotry taken to extremes, and about our own unspoken prejudices and assumptions.
