Category Archives: Film

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Matthias Schoenaerts, Diane Kruger, Paul Hamy, Percy Kemp, Zaid Errougui-Demonsant, Victor Pontecorvo, Michael Dauber, Franck Torrecillas, Chem Eddine, Phillipe Haddad, Jean-Louis Coulloc’h, Hubert Rollet, Rachid Hafassa, David Colombo, Rabia Elatache, Arthur Vercken, Serge Michel, Anais Couette, Christian Bianchi.

All films have potential, by their very nature they are there to entertain or even inform; some though are baffling to the point of unpleasantness, they do nothing but argue with themselves about their role and like a pair of lovers quarrelling over who last paid for a night out, the position of what could be beautiful is replaced by a dark intrusion and one that brings the film into the arena of the fundamentally objectionable.

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

(378 words, estimated 1:31 mins reading time)

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey, Tao Okamoto, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa.

There are moments of cinema so longed for that when they finally arrive it is always with a touch of hesitation of whether the viewer will actually believe in the finished article. The ultimate match-ups, the suspense, the nature of heroism, the costumes, the fights, the unexpected and the one cruel eye of misfortune waiting in the wings like an errant spider, swollen, ready to pounce on anything that makes the film stand out in a way that just doesn’t fit in with the idealistically placed images running around the fan’s mind.

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(518 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

10 Cloverfield Lane, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, John Gallagher Jr., Bradley Cooper, Suzanne Cryer.

It was only ever going to be inevitable that the strikingly excellent film Cloverfield would eventually bring some sort of sequel, after all J.J. Abrams is not known for leaving a story alone when there is a glimmer of hope that it can be taken just that next stage further. The presentation of the sequel though would always be seen as a testing ground for just how far a story regarding an alien invasion and the destruction of the world could be taken; monsters in the end are everywhere in such a premise.

10 Cloverfield Lane, Film Review. full post

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

High Rise, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast; Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, Elisabeth Moss, Keeley Hawes, Dan Renton Skinner, Sienna Guillory, Enzo Cilenti, Peter Ferdinando, Reece Shearsmith, Augustus Prew, Stacy Martin, Leila Mimmack, Tony Way, Neil Maskell, Alexandra Weaver, Emilia Jones, Victoria Wicks, Bill Paterson, Dylan Edwards, Toby Williams, Eileen Davies, Maggie Cronin.

Brutal and dark, deeply disturbing and a tremendously excellent film, it seems strange then in that case that it has taken the best part of four decades to get J.G. Ballard’s High Rise to the screen but then it would not have had arguably the best actor for the role of the slowly mentally disintegrating Dr. Robert Laing in Tom Hiddleston.

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

(563 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Catherine Frot, André Marcon, Michael Fau, Christa Théret, Denis Mpunga, Sylvain Dieuaide, Aubert Fenoy, Sophia Leboutte, Théo Cholbi, Astrid Whettnall, Vincent Schmitt, Christian Pereira, Martine Pascal, Grégoire Strecker, Jean-Yves Tual, Boris Hybner, Pierre Peyrichout, Joël Bros, Lucie Strourackova, Petra Nesvacilová, Lubos Veselý, Damian Odess-Gillett, Jaroslav Smíd, Iva Paulusova, Jean-Marie Frin, Artemio Benki.

How we deal with the delusions of grandeur in others, even if they cannot see it for themselves is to witness sometimes just how cruel a species we can be, just how far we can allow the unheard ridicule to go; sometimes the effect of such treatments can be devastating.

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

(442 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: David Thewlis, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tom Noonan.

Individuality must be considered as sacred, it is surely a fundamental law of humanity that to be different to everyone else, to feel connection to everyone by being dissimilar in thought, deed and drive, is a right worth preserving; when someone says to you, why can’t you be like x, that is the road to conformity that is to be avoided and heralded as the start of being a faceless and unthinking drone.

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

(450 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Anya-Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, Harvey Scrimshaw, Ellie Grainger, Lucas Dawson, Bathsheba Garnett, Sarah Stephens, Julian Richings, Wahab Chaudrey.

It is in the richness of performance, in the attention to the madness to come as the idea of witchcraft in the young colonies and towns that made up the New England Commonwealth, which makes The Witch such a startling and intriguing film in which to savour.

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

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

The Creative Process: A Documentary About Art. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Art is subjective, there can be no full consensus on any aspect of it, no full agreement on what makes one form stand out more than anything else for art divides people more than unites; it is the passion and the pursuit of it that makes it breathe and in those who give it so semblance of life, their words must always be heeded if we are ever to understand the world of the creative process.

The Creative Process: A Documentary About Art. Film Review. full post

(435 words, estimated 1:44 mins reading time)

London Has Fallen, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision *

Cast: Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Morgan Freeman, Charlotte Riley, Alon Aboutboul, Waleed Zuaiter, Michael Wildman, Radha Mitchell, Clarkson Guy Williams, Patrick Kennedy, Colin Salmon.

It’s rare for a film to be seen in the minds of its audience as nothing more than propaganda, of pandering and fulfilling its purpose of being a tool for recruitment in a war that doesn’t make sense and one in which will have those with more sheltered lives running for cover and being subject to a fear that is only as real as Hollywood and Government wish it to be.

London Has Fallen, Film Review. full post

(427 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

The Forest, Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Cast: Natalie Dormer, Eion Macken, Stephanie Vogt, Taylor Kinney, Ibuki Kaneda, Akiko Iwase, Noriko Sakura, Yûho Yamashita, Terry Diab, Yukiyoshi Ozawa.

There are places steeped in their own mythology and natural setting that it is a surprise to find that it has had relatively few films or television programmes devoted to its uniqueness, its solitude or its folklore and traditions. Perhaps in the case of Japan’s Aokigahara Forest at the base of Mount Fuji that might be a good thing for the restless spirits that abide in that lonely place are not ones that should be talked about in the craven image of film making.

The Forest, Film Review. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)