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Not your typical jingoistic Hollywood action movie but lacking some key ingredients.  A believable performance by Noomi Rapace and some strong action set pieces are let down by a lack of subtext* and a frustrating co-star. The relatively short running time is both a blessing and a curse in that it remains palatable yet doesn’t provide […]

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With Velvet Buzzsaw, Dan Gilroy succeeds in simultaneously subverting melodrama and slasher film as devious and deluded characters are slowly consumed by the art around which their world revolves. While installations, paintings and ghastly portraits pervade both scene and story, Gilroy’s double helix of character arcs, drawn from a clique for whom Art is a […]

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Imagine you’re on the same commuter train you’ve ridden to and from work day after day, year upon year when something very suspicious happens.  A woman who looks really similar to the love interest from Scorcese’s The Departed offers you a large sum of money in exchange for finding a passenger who “doesn’t belong”.  Suddenly the commute […]

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In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth.  It’s unclear from the original text as to when he created giant rock monsters but fast forward to 2014 and Darren Aronofski released the film, Noah.  While God took 7 days to create the World, Aronofski’s reboot of God’s epic took 14 years (screenplay to release) and cost […]

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As every schoolboy knows, Jaws is not a film about a shark.  While we’re on the subject of films not being about what you might think they’re about, Midnight Express is not a film about a train, (it’s a “prison word for escape”).  Brawl in Cell Block 99 is not a film about a prison.  It’s also not […]