Category Archives: Film

The Keeper, Film Review. Picturehouse @ F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: David Kross, Freya Mavor, John Henshaw, Harry Melling, Michael Socha, Dave Johns, Barbara Young, Chloe Harris, Mikey Collins, Gary Lewis, Dervla Kirwan, Angus Barnett, Butz Ulrich Buse, Julian Sands, Olivia-Rose Minnis.

To capture a life in sport in film is something that cinema normally fails to truly understand, it focuses too readily on the large scale, the sense of the occasion and the thousand flashing lights that go off in the subject’s face when they battle through adversity to claim the prize they have long dreamed of holding aloft. Regardless of whether it is in the realm of fiction, or in the arena of prepared truth, films about sporting heroes always feel as if they have only room for the fantasy, the polished glamour and the underdog suitable ending which arguably would feel more at home between the pages of Roy of the Rovers, Victor or Tiger comic books.

The Keeper, Film Review. Picturehouse @ F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(640 words, estimated 2:34 mins reading time)

Dumbo (2019). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, Alan Arkin, Nico Parker, Finlay Hobbins, Roshan Seth, Lars Eidinger, Deobia Oparei, Joseph Gatt, Miguel Munoz Segura, Zenaida Alcade, Douglas Reith, Phil Zimmerman, Sharon Rooney.

When the lid to Pandora’s Box was ripped open, the hinges almost groaning with delight as all the evils of the world came storming out, chasing down humanity with thoughtless plagues and the possibility of soul-minded destruction, nobody paid heed to what came fluttering lazily out after Hope had been urged to rescue the minds of all, the almost burned-out wings that carried the act of the live action remake, the guise in which imagination is lauded but in which sits unhappily reflecting upon the demise of the searing height of new imaginations being allowed to take hold.

Dumbo (2019). Film Review. full post

(530 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Fisherman’s Friends. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 8.5/10

Cast: Tuppence Middleton, Daniel Mays, James Purefoy, David Hayman, Christian Brassington, Sarah Winter, Dave Johns, Noel Clarke, Jade Anouka, Christopher Villiers, Maggie Steed, Jo Hart, Sam Swainsbury, Oliver Wellington, Julian Seager, Ken Drury, Sandy Foster, Charlotte Baker, Mae Voogd.

A nation apart but attached to England by the narrowest of land borders, a distinctive people who have been ravaged by plunderers and prospectors, who up until only recently have been told that their heritage and language was barren, extinct and their people mocked for their accent, their willingness to not join in the race that has splintered other communities in the name of gentrification. Cornwall may be an English county but it is to be argued that it is own country and woe betide the incomer who tries to take away their language, their song.

Fisherman’s Friends. Film Review. full post

(406 words, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

What Men Want, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Cast: Taraji P. Henson, Kristen Ledlow, Josh Brener, Kellen Lutz, Mathias Alvaraz, Chris Witaske, Max Greenfield, Paul B. Johnson, Brian Bosworth, Kauser Mohammed, Richard Roundtree, Taj-Naranja Jenkines, Aldis Hodge, Auston Jon Moore, Devonta Freeman, John Collins, Tracy Morgan, Shane Paul McGhie, Lisa Leslie, phoebe Robinson, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Tamala Jones.

What Men Want, Film Review. full post

(476 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

Captain Marvel. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Gemma Chan, Lee Pace, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Djimon Hounsou, Rune Temte, Colin Ford, Clark Gregg, Chuku Modo, Lashana Lynch, Robert Kazinsky, Kenneth Mitchell, Marilyn Brett, Stan Lee.

There are times when you look at a film and understand the hype that has been attached to it, that the feeling of a completed article is close at hand, and yet in the same recognised thought, you see the issues that others have labelled down and wondered if they even went into the screening with that one purpose of mind, straight forward, non-objective or stereotyped open mindedness.

Captain Marvel. Film Review. full post

(604 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

The Aftermath. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Keira Knightley, Jason Clarke, Martin Compston, Kate Phillips, Jannik Schumann, Fionn O’Shea, Alexander Scheer, Flora Thiemann, Tom Bell, Jim High, Anna Katherina Schimirigk, Abigail Rice, Iva Sindelkova, Logan Hillier, Joseph Arkley, Fredrick Preston, Claudia Vasekova.

The Aftermath. Film Review. full post

(522 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Tiffany Haddish, Stephanie Beatriz, Alison Brie, Nick Offerman, Charlie Day, Maya Rudolph, Will Ferrell, Jadon Sand, Brooklynn Prince, Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayiade, Ben Schwartz, Noel Fielding, Jason Momoa, Cobie Smulders, Ike Barinholtz, Ralph Fiennes, Will Forte, Jimmy O. Yang, Jorma Taccone, Bruce Willis, Gary Paton, Sheryl Swoopes, Todd Hansen, Doug Nicholas.

The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part. Film Review. full post

(541 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

Fighting With My Family. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Florence Pugh, Nick Frost, Lena Headey, Jack Lowden, Vince Vaughn, Dwayne Johnson, Olivia Bernstone, Leah Harvey, Mohammed Amiri, Jack Gouldbourne, Elroy Powell, Hannah Rae, Julia Davis, Stephen Merchant, Ellie Gonsalves, Aqueela Zoll, Kim Matula, James Burrows, Thea Trinidad.

You must never be afraid to risk losing everything in the pursuit of the one goal you have always held in your heart, the price is extraordinarily high but the reward of satisfaction will always be worth it, even if it eventually takes you down a road to which you might never recover. Too high a price? Too much jeopardy involved? Nobody said it would be easy, nobody ever said it would be an easy fix, but sometimes wrestling with one’s own conscious is worth all and one that is captured with spirit and generosity of scope in the biggest sports arena of all, the ring.

Fighting With My Family. Film Review. full post

(769 words, estimated 3:05 mins reading time)

On The Basis Of Sex. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Sam Waterston, Kathy Bates, Cailee Spaeny, Jack Reynor, Stephen Root, Chris Mulkey, Gary Werntz, Francis X. McCarthy, Ben Carlson, Ronald Guttman, Wendy Crewson, John Ralston, Arthur Holden, Angela Galuppo, Geordie Johnson, Jeff Lillico, Callum Schoniker, Joe Cobden, Sharon Washington, Holly Gauthier-Frankel, Tom Irwin, Alexandra Petrachuk, Paul Spera, Aiza Ntibarikure, Marina Moreira, Moira Wylie.

 

If the biopic serves any purpose, it is to serve justice to the characters it is its honour to portray, a quest that for many falls short or has to be suitably arranged so that it spices up what is otherwise the dull and routinely languid.

On The Basis Of Sex. Film Review. full post

(499 words, estimated 2:0 mins reading time)

Cold Pursuit. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Michael Richardson, Michael Eklund, Bradley Stryker, Wesley MacInnes, Tom Bateman, Domenick Lombardozzi, Nicholas Holmes, Jim Shield, Aleks Paunovic, Benjamin Hollingsworth, John Doman, Emmy Rossum, Dani Alvarado, Julia Jones, Michael Adamthwaite, William Forsythe, Elizabeth Thai, David O’ Hara, Gus Halper, Kyle Nobess, Raoul Trujillo, Nathaniel Arcand, Glen Gould, Mitchell Saddleback, Christopher Logan, Tom Jackson, Arnold Pinnock.

Cold Pursuit. Film Review. full post

(453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)