Category Archives: Reviews

Film review | The Great Gatsby – Baz Luhrmann gives Gatsby glitz but true class is missing

Posted on 16 May 2013 by Jason Best

Baz Luhrmann’s much-hyped adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is everything you’d expect: brash, glitzy and bursting with the director’s trademark razzle-dazzle. If Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age classic is the Great American Novel, then this frantically jazzed-up 3D film … Continue reading →

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Film review | Mud – Beguiled on the Mississippi by Matthew McConaughey’s tale-spinning outlaw

Posted on 11 May 2013 by Jason Best

With its story of a scrappy teenage boy aiding a fugitive on the Mississippi River, writer-director Jeff Nichols’ beguiling coming-of-age adventure Mud can’t help but evoke that great American classic Huckleberry Finn. The setting, though, is the present-day Arkansas Delta … Continue reading →

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Film review | Deadfall – Eric Bana is the bad guy with a gun in a whiteout thriller with a nifty noir vibe

Posted on 10 May 2013 by Jason Best

A B-movie with an A-list cast, crime thriller Deadfall sets its plot in motion with some bracing shocks in its first few minutes. Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde’s incestuously close brother-and-sister crooks, Addison and Liza, are fleeing from a casino … Continue reading →

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Film review | Star Trek Into Darkness – JJ Abrams’ sci-fi sequel hits warp speed from the start

Posted on 9 May 2013 by Jason Best

JJ Abrams hits warp speed right from the start of Star Trek Into Darkness, the sequel to his cracking 2009 reboot of the classic sci-fi series, kicking off the movie with a breathtaking sequence that combines breakneck thrills, deadpan comedy … Continue reading →

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Film review | The Look of Love – A flavour of Partridge for Steve Coogan’s porn playboy Paul Raymond

Posted on 27 April 2013 by Jason Best

Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom follow up previous collaborations 24 Hour Party People, Cock and Bull Story and The Trip with The Look of Love, a biopic of porn ’n’ property tycoon Paul Raymond, once the richest man in … Continue reading →

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Film review | Bernie – Jack Black’s small-town mortician is a marvel in tragi-comic true story

Posted on 26 April 2013 by Jason Best

In an inspired stroke of casting, Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine play sweet and sour in Bernie, an offbeat comedy based on a stranger-than-fiction true story. Texas funeral director Bernie Tiede (Black) is cheerful, public-spirited and beloved by everyone in … Continue reading →

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Film review | Iron Man 3 – Third time’s a charm as Downey Jr’s Tony Stark turns up the superhero snark

Posted on 25 April 2013 by Jason Best

Robert Downey Jr is back for his third solo outing as billionaire inventor Tony Stark, aka metal-suit wearing superhero Iron Man, and he’s in splendidly sardonic, wisecracking form. Joss Whedon gave Downey plenty of knockout zingers in last summer’s Avengers … Continue reading →

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Film review | Love Is All You Need – Pierce goes for a romantic encore (but this time he doesn’t sing)

Posted on 20 April 2013 by Jason Best

Danish auteur Susanne Bier is best known for turning out award-courting, art-house fare such as her 2010 Oscar-winner In a Better World.  She’s let her hair down, though, with Love Is All You Need, a crowd-pleasing romantic comedy-drama revolving around … Continue reading →

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Film review | Olympus Has Fallen – Beefy Butler saves the day when the White House goes up in smoke

Posted on 18 April 2013 by Jason Best

Heavily armed terrorists seize control of a landmark building and only a lone maverick lawman can save the day. No, it’s not the Nakatomi Tower and Bruce Willis’s NYPD cop John McClane in Die Hard but the White House and … Continue reading →

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Film review | Oblivion – Mopping up after the apocalypse: Tom Cruise’s repairman is a sci-fi hero

Posted on 13 April 2013 by Jason Best

‘We won the war but lost the planet,’ declares Tom Cruise’s ex-soldier Jack Harper in voice-over at the start of epic sci-fi adventure Oblivion, introducing us to the post-apocalyptic Earth of 2077. The war was fought with invading aliens and … Continue reading →

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