Posts Tagged Movie Review
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November 27, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Stardust: Film
Stardust Director: Gabriel Range Salon Pictures / Wilding Pictures / IFC Films Stardust is a little movie. That could have been fine. There are some wonderful small pictures. But Stardust is also a terrible movie. Plagued by many things – not just a lack of Bowie’s music, and distancing from the estate. For a start, […]Archive
November 16, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
The Postcard Killings: DVD
The Postcard Killings Director: Alison Ellwood GFC Podcard / Good Films Collective / Hindsight Media / Madman Based on a bestselling James Patterson crime novel (is there any other kind?) The Postcard Killings arrives on DVD and blu-ray about a decade after the book. And though I’ve not read the source material I had fairly […]Archive
November 16, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Laurel Canyon: DVD
Laurel Canyon Director: Alison Ellwood Canyon Films, LLC / Madman It’s hard to see this as anything more than a boomer circle-jerk: Oooh, we had the best music didn’t we… Laurel Canyon is this near-mythical place in songs, in albums, in bands’ biographies. It is real. It was a place; a place where a large […]Archive
November 13, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Alive: DVD
Alive Director: Rob Grant Vamanos Films / Madman Alive is by no means great, but it can be quite good. It starts off feeling like a run-of-the-mill torture-porn horror, and yes, I’m almost embarrassed by how jaded and bored I was when I delivered that line…almost…Archive
November 4, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Ava: DVD
Ava Director: Tate Taylor Voltage Pictures / Freckle Films / Vertical Entertainment / Madman Ava starts off okay – but boy does it slide. And quickly. And when I say it starts off okay I mean okay in a same-old-story, lazy-night-on-the-couch, female-assassin action-film way. You’ve got your trackies on and your expectations low. Unfortunately by […]Archive
October 16, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Lazy Susan: DVD
Lazy Susan Director: Nick Peet SHOUT! FACTORY Lazy Susan is, quite extraordinarily, the worst comedy film you might ever see. In that it’s only joke – pretty much the literal lone ‘joke’ – is that the female character of Susan is played by a man. That man is Sean Hayes (Will & Grace) who […]Archive
August 6, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
The Booksellers: Film
The Booksellers Directors: D. W. Young Greenwich Entertainment / Madman The Booksellers is very much a does-what-it-says-on-the-tin doco; the clue is in the title. Couldn’t be more obvious if it was displayed like a sign in a shop window…er, kinda like the poster and all the branded imagery relating to the film and its marketing.Archive
June 30, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Richard Jewell: DVD
Richard Jewell Director: Clint Eastwood Malapaso Productions / Appian Way Productions / Warner Bros. Pictures Richard Jewell is the story of a security guard that went from national hero to chief suspect in a crushing blow for his own health and sanity and in an awful trial-by-media persecution that is just part of the downfall […]Archive
June 18, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
This Is Not A Movie: Film
This Is Not A Movie Director: Yung Chang National Film Board of Canada (NFB) / Documentary Edge Festival Subtitled Robert Fisk and The Politics of Truth – This Is Not A Movie is both portrait of Fisk and his working methods and a reminder of how journalism has changed, perhaps how far it’s fallen; certainly […]Archive
June 17, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Saul & Ruby’s Holocaust Survivor Band: Film
Saul & Ruby’s Holocaust Survivor Band Director: Tod Lending Nomadic Pictures / Documentary Edge Festival Did you follow through with that lifelong artistic dream during the recent paid 8-week vacation of Lockdown? Did you pick up the drum-sticks for the first time, or first time in years? Did you write that novel, or paint a […]Archive
June 16, 2020 by Simon Sweetman