FILM REVIEWS
Photo: IFC Productions
Richard Linklater's Boyhood is really quite a simple story. Its about a boy, Mason (played by Ellar Coltrane), and his life as he grows up. It shows his life from age 5 to 18. Linklater's choice to film the same actors over the course of 12 years is really what makes this film stand out. That directorial choice meant that what came across on the screen was far more naturalistic than otherwise.
I've heard people ask the question: why couldn't he have just cast different actors for each age of the kids? He could have, but it wouldn't have been the same film. By using the same actors, I like to think that the characters' themselves grew up over time...
I've heard people ask the question: why couldn't he have just cast different actors for each age of the kids? He could have, but it wouldn't have been the same film. By using the same actors, I like to think that the characters' themselves grew up over time...
Photo: Magnolia Pictures
As an indie dark comedy about bizarre indie rock music, it was expected that Frank, directed by Lenny Abrahamson, would take us out of our comfort zones. What wasn't expected was the deeply emotional and mental issues that surface from some of its chief characters.
Domhnall Gleeson plays Jon, a young wannabe rock star who stumbles into the offbeat band Soronprfbs led by Frank (Michael Fassbender). Never found without his strange doll-head, even in the shower, Frank suggests, "Would it help if I said my facial expressions out loud?"...
Domhnall Gleeson plays Jon, a young wannabe rock star who stumbles into the offbeat band Soronprfbs led by Frank (Michael Fassbender). Never found without his strange doll-head, even in the shower, Frank suggests, "Would it help if I said my facial expressions out loud?"...
Photo: Bona Fide Productions
Speaking at the screening of Nebraska at the 57th BFI London Film Festival, director Alexander Payne rightly claimed to have made a family drama that is ‘at once touching and funny’. His intuitive directorial decisions create a beautiful unity throughout the film. From the cinematography to the acting choices to the editing pace, Nebraska is a quietly touching yet humorous film that I do not hesitate to call art...
Photo: Film 4
The Selfish Giant mesmerised me. Its cinematography is so intimate that I felt wrapped up in the depression that plagued the characters. Writer and director Clio Barnard presents two teenage boys living in poverty and dysfunction in Bradford. Arbor (Conner Chapman) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas) support one another when it seems they have no other companionship and nothing positive in their lives...
Photo: Warner Bros
My expectations of Prisoners were low: the trailer highlighted the vengeful father theme, similar to that of Taken, and seemed to rely too much upon the film’s big name stars such as Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman. I expected it to be a one-dimensional, box office-driven movie, and in many ways it was, but as the movie progressed there was more depth and complexity than I had predicted...
Photo: Indian Paintbrush
Breathe In presents modern family life and the self-indulgence and egoism that can break it down. The film is a commentary on the state of the family in our modern culture, presenting two negative approaches to family life, one of selfishness and the other of self-pity. But there is another approach to family life that the film does not consider: that of life as self-gift.
Guy Pearce plays Keith, a high school music teacher in a town outside New York City...
Guy Pearce plays Keith, a high school music teacher in a town outside New York City...
Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films
Renoir is an impressionist film about an impressionist painter. It mimics the work of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir in both narrative and cinematography, offering a glimpse of the life of the Renoir family.
The plot begins as aspiring actress, Andrée (Christa Theret), arrives at the French Riviera home of Renoir (Michel Bouquet) near the end of his life in the summer of 1915. Hoping to pose for his paintings, she arrives and meets his youngest son, Coco (Thomas Doret), a neglected boy with a far more negative view on life than his father. As Andrée and Renoir develop a working relationship, it becomes clear that Renoir suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which facilitates the film’s theme of mortality...
The plot begins as aspiring actress, Andrée (Christa Theret), arrives at the French Riviera home of Renoir (Michel Bouquet) near the end of his life in the summer of 1915. Hoping to pose for his paintings, she arrives and meets his youngest son, Coco (Thomas Doret), a neglected boy with a far more negative view on life than his father. As Andrée and Renoir develop a working relationship, it becomes clear that Renoir suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which facilitates the film’s theme of mortality...
