Crazy Heart is not the sort of film I would go to the cinema to watch. A film about an alcoholic country music singer/songwriter who was once famous but is now playing small bars is more of my dad's thing; if it wasn't for Jeff Bridges finally getting his Oscar…
Alice In Wonderland is a film that should have been left in 2D – it was not filmed with the special 3D cameras, and you could see that it was a 2D film coerced into 3D in parts with fuzzy background characters in certain scenes, and it hurt the visual…
It's not surprising that this film didn't do as well as it could have done, although it is a shame – it is an intelligent action thriller, exactly the sort of thing to give the genre a good name and provide a thought-provoking yet simultaneously exciting film, something of which…
A Single Man is a day in the life of a middle-aged English college professor (Colin Firth) in Los Angeles in 1962 as he decides that he doesn't want to live any more after the death of his long-term younger partner (Matthew Goode) in a car accident. During the day,…
Solomon Kane was created by Robert E Howard a few years before he created Conan, and appeared in pulp magazines of the time (and in some comic books for Marvel in the 1970s). I mention this because I have read neither and didn’t have any knowledge of the character before…
One good thing: at least the UK title wasn't as silly as the American title (Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief), which sounds like the tour name for a disco band. I wanted to see this film because anything that takes an interesting modern spin on Greek mythology…
The basic gist of this film is boiled down to 'teen romantic comedy' meets Fight Club – Michael Cera plays Nick Twisp, who invents a cigarette-smoking, thin-moustache-wearing, smooth-talking alter ego called François Dillinger so that he can impress a girl. Therefore, the film needs a good central performance or, rather,…
Another topical detour from catching up on films I saw in the cinema in January and comic books I have bought, to talk about something that converges on two of my obvious loves: films and comics. And nothing to do with the fact that it hasn't come out in America…
This was a good film in all aspects: the script, adapted from a novel, was sharp and warm and resonant, but without being preachy; Jason Reitman directs with a sure touch, light when needed, visually interesting when necessary (this now makes three really good films he's made in a row,…
There is something so innately British to Sherlock Holmes, it always surprises me that the character is one of a handful of fictional creations known the world over. I love the well-written stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but I am not someone who thinks that there is only one…