Category Archives: Film

The Snowman. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision * *

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Chloe Sevigny, Val Kilmer, J.K. Simmons, Charlotte Gainbourg, Jamie Clayton, James D’Arcy, David Dencik, Toby Jones, Sofia Helin, Jacob Oftebro, Anna Reid, Jonas Karlsson.

It could be deemed our own fault, the height of expectation drawn from the Nordic Noir television and film dramas has been of such good quality, that as an audience we perhaps think that any drama set in the north of Europe is going to reap the same beneficial advantages of story-telling, that the quality bench mark cannot falter. An expectation sadly not realised when it comes to The Snowman.

The Snowman. Film Review. full post

(410 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Blade Runner 2049. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Dave Bautista, David Dastmalchian, Edward James Olmos, Jared Leto, Mackenzie Davis, Lennie James, Barkhad Abdi, Sean Young, Loren Peta.

The dystopian feel of our lives is always there, humming in the back ground, playing that sad song of regret whilst understanding it is our own folly that has bought us to such junctures in time. It is a genre of writing that has existed perfectly well and in many ways is arguably more suited to our own thoughts of humanity’s future than the clean, sanitised and off kilter imagination of many science-fiction films; for even they soon revert to the realisation that not all is good where humanity treads, even in space.

Blade Runner 2049. Film Review. full post

(482 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Channing Tatum, Halle Berry, Jeff Bridges, Elton John, Edward Holcroft, Hanna Alstrom, Calvin Demba, Thomas Turgoose, Tobi Bakare, Keith Allen, Tom Benedict Knight, Michael Gambon, Sophie Cookson, Lene Endre, Pedro Pascal, Poppy Delevingne, Bruce Greenwood, Emily Watson, Samantha Womack.

 

A long line of sequels is always possible when a film comes along with the possibility of an open ended cast and is good enough to carry the weight of excitement, action and sometimes outlandish plot; if it is respectable enough for the makers of James Bond, then it more than good enough for those responsible for The Kingsman.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle. Film Review. full post

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

Home Again. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Reece Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, Nat Woolf, Lake Bell, Pico Alexander, Candice Bergen, Lola Flanery, Jon Rudnitsky, Reid Scott, Josh Stamberg.

It is a struggle at times to show sympathy to someone who is intent on hurting themselves artistically, to whom the relationship between film lover and the offering on the screen is far below par and mainly due to the insistence of saccharine in the diet, leaves you feeling sluggish, desperate for something, anything to add a punch to overload placed before you. It is a struggle but one that seems to be forever on the menu, just slightly dished up in a different casing, in numerous sweet deserts, it is the feeling that you are Home Again and nothing has truly changed.

Home Again. Film Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Borg V McEnroe. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast:  Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Bjorn Granath, Sverrir Gudnason, David Bamber, Tuva Novotny, Robert Emms, Jane Perry, Colin Stinton, Leo Borg, Scott Arthur, Tom Datnow, Claes Ljungmark, Ian Blackman.

Sport has changed, in many ways it has become sterile, predictable and staid, the problem can be placed at the door of many reasons, some will point the finger at the amount of money flowing into the game of football, motor racing, tennis and all those mass spectator sports in between, the amount of airtime afforded, especially in Europe to football, others will perhaps suggest that the problem lays at the door of personality and rivalry. So little of either, so few names that are willing to go beyond the rehearsed answers, so few that are not ruled by emotion rather than the P.R exercise, sport in many ways was so much more thrilling and dramatic before wall to wall coverage on television.

Borg V McEnroe. Film Review. full post

(575 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)

Flatliners (2017). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton, Kiersey Clemons, Kiefer Sutherland, Madison Brydges, Jacob Soley, Anna Arden, Miguel Anthony, Jenny Raven, Beau Mirchoff, Charlotte McKinney, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Steve Byers.

The obsession to remake a film is perhaps arguably getting out of hand, it is the current vogue that is spiralling ever onwards and not always for the better. There are some that slip through and the appeal is surprisingly endearing, they grab the attention and add a notch of interest to the cinematic bedpost. However, mostly it an experiment for artistic sake only, to see how another director might envision the response of a character differently or how another person might be used as better plot device.

Flatliners (2017). Film Review. full post

(390 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

American Assassin. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Litsch, David Suchet, Navid Negahban, Scott Adkins, Charlotte Vega.

It becomes a bone in which to gnaw upon when you feel certain parts of cinema toiling away at the rehash button and not finding a way to remark upon the state of the world without being able to demonise and sacrifice the high ideals in which it really should find itself producing. It is a bone that has worn thin in many ways and whilst the opening five minutes of American Assassin has brought the idea of localised terror up to date, the sense in which perhaps the general public should be careful and wary of; it is soon becomes almost a chore in which to continue with.

American Assassin. Film Review. full post

(431 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Mother!. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brian Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson, Stephen McHattie, Kristen Wiig.

It really isn’t saying a lot about a film when you start thinking to yourself as you reflect and muse upon what you have seen, that you ponder that at least it wasn’t as bad as Noah. The story of creation told in a very modern way, in an approach that actually makes more sense for those who might have found something far better to attend than religious studies on a Monday morning, or even those to whom the imagination runs a lot deeper than what we are persuaded to do when considering passages from the Bible.

Mother!. Film Review. full post

(459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Going Down With Cassini And Two Mad Men.

We can touch

the brink

of Heaven

and send the machine

to plummet

into the heart of Saturn,

to break our bondage

and be more than just humanity

as Cassini

sends clouds scattering,

yet

we can descend

so low,

to plough the very depths

of Hell

as we think

that

the madness of machine

Armageddon

is somehow suitable

a threat

to contain

two mad men.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017

Going Down With Cassini And Two Mad Men. full post

(72 words, estimated 17 secs reading time)

IT, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Nicholas Hamilton, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, Stephen Bogart, Stuart Hughes, Geoffrey Pounsett, Pip Dwyer, Molly Atkinson, Steven Williams, Elizabeth Saunders, Megan Charpentier, Joe Bostick, Ari Cohen, Anthony Ulc, Javier Botet, Katie Lunman, Carter Musselman, Tatum Lee, Edie Inksetter, Neil Crone, Sonia Gascón, Janet Porter.

 

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

(619 words, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)