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Eddie Harrison

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The Wrestler

Mickey Rourke: The Wrestler

8 Jan 2009

I’ve had a poster of Mickey Rourke on my wall for over 20 years now. A black and white blow-up from Alan Parker’s Angel Heart, it pictures Rourke as private detective Harry Angel, freshly demobbed after WWII, his hair back-combed into an untidy quiff…

The Wrestler

The Wrestler

(4 stars)8 Jan 2009

DRAMA/SPORT ‘What happened, did the price of tights go up?’ a sneering store-manager taunts Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson (Mickey Rourke) when the impoverished wrestling star comes looking for work. Fighting a losing battle with his own finances, Randy…

Defiance

Defiance

(3 stars)8 Jan 2009

DRAMA/WAR The suggestion in Knocked Up that Steven Spielberg’s Munich was ‘Rambo for Jews’ seems to have inspired Edward Zwick’s latest project. After military epics Glory and The Last Samurai, Zwick arrives at the remarkable true story of the…

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

Beverly Hills Chihuahua

(2 stars)8 Jan 2009

COMEDY/ADVENTURE The gritty, seedy world of Mexican dog fighting evoked in Amores Perros is (unsurprisingly) entirely missing from this brightly-lit family comedy from Raja Gosnell, the auteur behind Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. Beverly…

Twilight

Twilight

(2 stars)11 Dec 2008

(12A) 121min ‘I hope you enjoy disappointment,’ murmurs surly vampire-next door Edward (Robert Pattinson) in Catherine Thirteen Hardwicke’s adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s vampire-romance novel, but Twilight is likely to be a matter of extreme…

Far North

Far North

(4 stars)11 Dec 2008

(15) 89min After an auspicious debut with The Warrior, writer-director Asif Kapadia went to Hollywood with disastrous results in the form of super-lame Sarah Michelle Gellar horror flick The Return. Adapted from the short story True North by Sara…

Inkheart

Inkheart

(1 star)11 Dec 2008

(PG) 106min Christmas may not have been cancelled, but the withdrawal of the latest Harry Potter instalment left a gaping hole in the festive cinema schedules, with Iain Backbeat Softley’s long-shelved adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s children’s novel…

Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa

Madagascar 2: Escape 2 Africa

(3 stars)27 Nov 2008

COMEDY/ANIMATION When Alex the lion (voiced by Ben Stiller), Gloria the hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) escaped from their Manhattan zoo in 2005 hit Madagascar, they were leaders of…

Changeling

Changeling

(4 stars)27 Nov 2008

CRIME/DRAMA Clint Eastwood’s feel for actors doesn’t desert him in this true story of 1920’s Los Angeles featuring Angelina Jolie in a similar Oscar-baiting vein to her role as Mariane Pearl in Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart. Jolie…

Max Payne

Max Payne

(1 star)13 Nov 2008

(15) 99min The film noir influences on the Max Payne video game series made a cinematic outing inevitable, but John Moore’s abortive fantasy-thriller exemplifies everything that’s wrong with console to big-screen crossovers. Jockstrap-fresh from…

My Best Friend’s Girl

My Best Friend’s Girl

(1 star)13 Nov 2008

(15) 99min From Howard Deutch, the auteur behind the seminal teen movie Pretty in Pink starring Molly Ringwald, My Best Friend’s Girl is a 1980s throwback rom-com, updated with scatological language. Dane Cook, so disagreeable in last year’s Good…

Quarantine

Quarantine

(2 stars)13 Nov 2008

(18) 89min Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s grimly effective Spanish-zombie movie [REC] gets the Hollywood treatment in John Erick and brother Drew Dowdle’s scene-by-scene remake. Quarantine purports to be the surviving document of what happens…

W.

W.

(3 stars)30 Oct 2008

The American aphorism that suggests 'any boy can grow up to be president' is blandly dramatised in Oliver Stone's outrageously timed film, the first biopic to consider the life story of a sitting US president. Fresh from his deadly pursuit by Anton…

Paul Newman

Film & DVD Playlist - Paul Newman

30 Oct 2008

‘What we’ve got here is failure to communicate’ was the tagline of Cool Hand Luke, 1967’s chain-gang drama starring Paul Newman, who sadly died from cancer in October. The many obituaries covering his best-known performances in hits like Butch Cassidy…

Eagle Eye

Eagle Eye

(3 stars)16 Oct 2008

THRILLER Reuniting the talent from last year’s sleeper hit Disturbia and featuring a similar surveillance theme, Eagle Eye is a busy conspiracy thriller featuring manboy-of-the-moment Shia LaBoeuf and directed by DJ Caruso. With two major franchises…

Igor

Igor

(3 stars)16 Oct 2008

ANIMATION/COMEDY It’s a tough life for hunchbacked assistants of mad scientists. Igor (voiced by John Cusack) ekes out his precarious existence as humble servant to the sinister Dr Glickenstein (John Cleese), an evil genius set on winning the annual…

The Stone of Destiny

The Stone of Destiny

2 Oct 2008

The pedigree highlight of Charles Martin Smith’s career so far was directing Air Bud, the story of a basketball playing golden retriever. So how did he come to be directing a film about the Scottish National Party? Stone of Destiny is a feature film…

Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited

(3 stars)2 Oct 2008

DRAMA Julian Jarrold’s revamp of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel pares back the opulent trimmings of the television series to expose the bare bones of Waugh’s lament for the civilised past. Charting blithe social-climber Charles Ryder (Matthew…

88 Minutes

88 Minutes

(1 star)2 Oct 2008

THRILLER Someone really should keep Al Pacino away from director Jon Avnet. The star of Sea of Love and Carlito’s Way has struck up an unfortunately productive relationship with the hack director of Red Corner and Up Close and Personal. Avnet…

Fly Me To The Moon

Fly Me To The Moon

(2 stars)2 Oct 2008

ANIMATION A 3D film describing man’s first trip to the moon is a lively sounding prospect, and moments in Ben Stassen’s animation offer a genuine wow-factor, depicting a space-rocket blasting into the atmosphere, or the view from above the…

Mirrors

Mirrors

(2 stars)2 Oct 2008

HORROR Korea has recently surpassed Japan as the go-to guys for rubbish horror-movie ideas, with this remake of 2003’s Into the Mirror a good example of an already hokey plot getting seriously lost in translation. Alexandre Aja’s disposable shocker…

Playlist: Mashup and reworked movies

Playlist: Mashup and reworked movies

18 Sep 2008

Not enjoying the films you’re watching? Why not just re-cut them to reflect your own sick tastes? Reworking or ‘mashing-up’ classic films is a popular internet sport. Millions have already seen how much cuter The Shining’s father-son dynamic would look…

Death Race

Death Race

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

After a long gestation as a big budget vehicle for Tom Cruise, Paul W Anderson’s rehash of elements from Roger Corman’s 70s cheapie Death Race 2000 finally rolls into theatres to be met with suitably lowered expectations. It’s hard to cheapen the memory…

The Fist Foot Way

The Foot Fist Way

(3 stars)18 Sep 2008

Getting a cinema release through the endorsement of Will Ferrell and his Anchorman/Tallegeda Nights director Adam McKay, The Foot Fist Way is a low-budget mockumentary about a small-time martial arts training school. Made in 2006, the central role of…

Zombie Strippers

Zombie Strippers

(2 stars)18 Sep 2008

There was a time in 70s cinema, and then again in 80s video, when putting the word ‘strippers’ in the title made for a guaranteed moneymaker. Competition from the super-pornography-highway of the internet has put the kibosh on such suggestive marketing…

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