Home Entertainment
16 March 2009-03-16
Out in the UK this week The Devil’s Whore (Lionsgate, cert 15) Having played Mrs Thatcher, Angela Riseborough is once more an iron lady in a proto-feminist TV series set during the English Civil War and laced with death and lashings of bodice-ripping and packed with a great cast (John Simm, Dominic West, Maxine Peak, Peter Capaldi). The Devil’s Whore aka The Devil’s Mistress – at Amazon How to Lose Friends and Alienate People (Paramount, cert 15) Another gold star for Shaun Pegg, as a gauche, arrogant, bumbling Brit git in New York journalism in a version of Toby Young’s comic autobiography heavy on the slapstick, easy on the barbs and probably … Read more
15 June 2015-06-15
Out This Week Cake (Warner, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD/digital) Child actresses signal they’ve grown up by shedding their clothes; older actresses their bid for independence by shedding their makeup. So it proves with Jennifer Aniston, in a feel-my-agony performance as a woman wracked by relentless physical pain after some sort of accident (all is eventually revealed) which has reduced her to zombie-like shuffling and perma-scowling. It’s a good performance by her, and a reminder she’s only as good as her material. But this is good material, and Aniston is surrounded by actors who are up to the salt. In particular Adriana Barraza as the hired hispanic help who seems to have the share of … Read more
15 February 2016-02-15
Out This Week Nina Forever (StudioCanal, cert 18) If you ever saw the funny, dark and intelligent UK TV series Utopia – conspiracy nerds discover there really is a gigantic conspiracy going on – you’ll already know Fiona O’Shaughnessy, who played the mysterious and sexy lynchpin Jessica Hyde. She’s mysterious and sexy again in this comic horror about a dead woman (O’Shaughnessy) materialising zombie-like in the bed where her clearly-not-grieving-enough ex (Cian Barry) is making the two-backed beast with the new girl (Abigail Hardingham) he’s hooked up with. These two are loved up, but their new relationship has to weather repeated re-appearances by the crack-voiced dead girlfriend, who develops the habit of turning up unannounced … Read more
20 July 2015-07-20
Out This Week Mommy (Metrodome, cert 15) In bad drama people say just what they think; in real life they rarely do. Xavier Dolan, usually referred to as a wunderkind, understands this, and in this grungy new drama he pushes that realisation to the max with a story about Steve, a disruptive ADHD kid and his flaky mother. It’s an urgently brilliant film, that never dips into the well of mawkishness reserved for “social issue” films. And that’s even with an extra “issue” added – the next door neighbour, a former teacher whose nerves are shot to shit, who becomes the friend of this dysfunctional duo. The performances are gritty, the dialogue shocking (“I’m … Read more
16 September 2013-09-16
Out in the UK this week Fast & Furious 6 (Universal, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD) Having started as a “hot cars, even hotter girls” kind of affair, the F&F franchise is morphing as it goes into something more like an Oceans 11 heist series, with Vin Diesel and the still-pointless Paul Walker increasingly being called on to do jobs that are only tangentially related to driving in increasingly exotic parts of the world. Dwayne Johnson is back in F&F6, and it’s a welcome return (unless your name is Paul Walker, I imagine) to share badassery and bromantic backchat between action sequences expertly handled by director Justin Lin, who has become a master of the … Read more
9 September 2013-09-09
Out in the UK this week Iron Man 3 (Disney, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD/VOD) Drawing a veil over the fact that Avengers Assemble was in effect Iron Man 3, the official Iron Man 3 arrives with Jon Favreau bumped from directing duties and Shane Black in the writing/directing chair. Black wrote the Lethal Weapon films and, blow me, if he hasn’t turned Iron Man – one of the best superhero franchises of recent years, thanks to its understanding of the sheer exhilaration of being able to do cool stuff – into a leaden, clanking 1980s action movie. Yes, Black can fashion a quip, and Robert Downey Jr is certainly the man to deliver them, … Read more
20 June 2016-06-20
Out This Week Pride & Prejudice & Zombies (Lionsgate, cert 15) And it is literally that… Pride & Prejudice… and zombies. Once the famous preamble – lightly scrambled – was out of the way, and I had been apprised of the fact that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains, it was straight into the tale of Elizabeth, if not the most beautiful then certainly the smartest of the Bennet daughters, and her growing relationship with dark, thunderous Mr Darcy. Lily James and Sam Riley play it straight as Elizabeth and Darcy, and Sally Phillips and Charles Dance also fit so neatly into the traditional roles of garrulous, mercenary Mrs … Read more
27 July 2015-07-27
Out in the UK This Week Clouds of Sils Maria (Artificial Eye, cert 15) Olivier Assayas follows Something in the Air, his largely autobiographical personal meditation on the aftermath of the events of May 1968, with a different type of dramatic reflexivity. Clouds of Sils Maria is a meditation on acting, performed by a trio of actors at the top of their game. Juliette Binoche, Kristen Stewart and Chloë Grace Moretz are the three, all channeling vague versions of themselves. Stewart plays the personal assistant to Binoche, an actress now about to play the older role in a remake of the punishing two-hander that made her name years before. But who to play … Read more
17 December 2012-12-17
Out in the UK this week The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Cinefile, cert 15, DVD) Tonally similar to his Marius et Jeannette from 1997, Robert Guédiguian’s latest drama, about a Marseilles union official questioning his principles after he’s violently burgled by a comrade, is warm-hearted and delightful, Ken Loach in French and with added sunshine. The Snows of Kilimanjaro – at Amazon When the Lights Went Out (Revolver, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD) A poltergeist monsters a 1970s council-house – avocado bathroom suite, twin-bar electric fire and all – in this British genre horror done with polish, style and gut-puckering sound design. When the Lights Went Out – at Amazon The Killing Series 3 (Arrow, cert … Read more
7 September 2015-09-07
Out This Week John Wick (Warner, cert 15) Like some kind of undead film star, Keanu Reeves manages magnificent returns every few years – Speed, The Matrix and now John Wick, a super-sleek bit of badass comic-book adaptation relying heavily on Reeves’s blank persona (no one does it better) for much of its appeal. He plays a retired hitman so frightening that, we’re shown, even incredibly hard hardmen blench when they hear he’s on the warpath – after some damn fool goes and kills the pet dog that was the only reminder of his dead wife. And that’s all you need to know about the plot. The screenplay is incredibly smart, a collection of … Read more
19 September 2016-09-19
Out This Week Everybody Wants Some!! (E One, cert 15) About perfect, Richard Linklater’s ode to university life when he was a lad is a portrait of 1980s guys just hanging out and having fun, getting laid, listening to music, crashing parties and playing sports. Not much work gets done. It’s done in an Altman-esque overlapping style, pumps music of the era onto the soundtrack and is thick with cultural references to make us feel like we’re there – Space Invaders games as recreation, My Sharona on a car radio, the Burt Reynolds moustache still a non-ironic look. There are no big names and you’d be tempted to think Linklater is aiming for … Read more
1 April 2013-04-01
Out in the UK this week Silver Linings Playbook (EV, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD) Almost entirely brilliant from first breath to last gasp, David O Russell’s beautifully made, perfectly acted adaptation of Matthew Quick’s novel follows bipolar Bradley Cooper and his faltering relationship with fellow psychiatric case Jennifer Lawrence. If you’ve ever doubted Lawrence’s epic ability, watch this. In fact she’s so good – essentially mainlining Juliette Lewis – that she forces a good performance out of Robert De Niro, who is just one nugget of brilliance in a cast including Jacki Weaver (if you haven’t seen her in Animal Kingdom you have missed out) and Chris Tucker (entirely forgiven for those Rush Hour films … Read more
