Category Archives: Film

Dark Horse, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There are many names that sit like Kings of old on the throne of the nation’s favourite race horse and whatever the rights and wrongs of which there are plenty on either side of the argument, the fact that an animal is so revered is one of the great pleasures in life for many millions of people.

A Little Chaos, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Kate Winslet, Stanley Tucci, Jennifer Ehle, Alan Rickman, Helen McCrory, Matthias Schoenaerts, Steven Waddington, Danny Webb, Adrian Schiller, Adrian Scarborough, Pauline Moran, Phyllida Law, Morgan Watkins, Henry Garrett, Alistair Petrie, Adam James.

There are films in which the abundance of talent on offer simply overwhelms the story line, the procession of acting nobility so engulfing, so crushing, that the film dies a thousand scripted deaths; it never truly lives up to the dignity envisioned off screen and the grace offered in the initial stages of casting. Thankfully this is not the issue when it comes to A Little Chaos.

Cobain: Montage Of Heck, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Too many modern Rock and music documentaries live in the moment; they are stifled by the effects of the past and constricted by image. The opposite is perhaps arguably true of the biopic, one that in many ways glamorises the person involved, certain areas of life, of thoughts and deeds airbrushed out, spoken as if acting as a token, a memento in which the picture doesn’t want to go down a certain route but invites the viewer to do it on their own but no staging post of reference to the impact on other significant lives.

Woman In Gold, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds, Katie Holmes, Tatiana Maslany, Max Irons, Charles Dance, Elizabeth McGovern, Antje Traue, Daniel Brühl, Neve Gachev, Frances Fisher, Jonathan Pryce, Tom Schilling, Moritz Bleibtreu, Anthony Howell, Moritz Bleibtreu, Allan Corduner, Henry Goodman, Nina Kunzendorf, Alma Hasun, Justus Von Dohanyi, Kudger Pistor, Ben Miles, Rolf Saxon.

Force Majeure, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Johannes Kuhnke, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Vincent Wettergren, Kristofer Hivju, Fanni Metelius, Karin Myrenberg, Brady Corbet, Johannes Moustos, Jorge Lattof, Adrian Heinisch, Michael Breitenberger, Karl Pincon, Julie Roumogoux, Peter Gaunt.

Nature is a force so incomprehensible that its overwhelming tsunami like effect it has on the soul is to be seen as complex and extraordinary. Like an avalanche travelling at a hundred miles an hour and aiming straight at you, the only thing to do is either run from it, or stare it down, come Hell or high water, your choice is how it will be seen to define you.

While We’re Young, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Naomi Watts, Ben Stiller, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Maria Dizzia, Adam Horovitz, Matthew Maher, Bonnie Kaufman, Hector Otero, Deborah Eisenberg, Dree Hemingway, Matthew Shear.

 

One of the biggest problems with humanity is that nothing is truly unique anymore. Our voices are confined with a masking obscurity of soundbites and instant quotes, our actions governed by what has gone before and if by chance something truly exclusive and distinctive is said, it gets tarnished within hours on social media and copied world-wide. In a world where seven billion people inhabit every available bit of land and conscious, to be the one outstanding adult is pretty much impossible, the optimism of this is to only be felt While We’re Young.

Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Daryl Hannah, William Sanderson, Brion James, Joe Turkel, Joanna Cassidy, James Hong, Morgan Paull, Kevin Thompson, John Edward Allen, Hv Pike, Kimiko Hiroshige, Bob Okazaki, Carolyn DeMirjian.

Classics never die, they may slowly start to rust away or fade into the obscurity afforded all things great and small, but like the Mona Lisa, Concorde or a 40 year old bottle of Balvenie, if someone is still thinking of them then like a replicant caught doing a Marilyn Monroe pose over a steam vent in a future New York City, then the image will remain forever.

Sad. Man. Smiling, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Paul Carmichael, Chris Chapman, Thomas Williams, Siobhan Crinson, Adam Sheldon, Arron Hussein, Thomas Atkinson, Dan Haydock, Hannah Gill, Hevv Jamieson, Talulah Pritchard, Sarah Allen, Naomi Lambert, Sarah Moore, Louise Froggatt, James Keysell, Jack Mitchell, Philip Milor, Olivia Murphy, Steven Quinn, Martin Williams, Dan Broom, Kate Bleasdale, Connor Lawler, Sian Woods, Denise Webb, Angela Wilkins, Brittany Macrae, Simone Murphy, Lisa Symonds, Jackie Jones, Sam Liu, Lee Burnitt, Daniel Mugan, Dorcas Sebuyange, Anthony Scott, Rebecca Eve, Philip Laing, Caitlin Clough, Freya Balchin, Alison Philips, Aaron Kehoe, Jack Spencer, Rhea Little, Tasha Ryan, Thomas Whittaker, Jean Paul Marie, Jamie Peacock, Fleet Sumner, Stewart McDonald.

Dior And I, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The art of the documentary is to give you a glimpse into a world that you may never have imagined being drawn into. To step so far out of your comfort zone, to truly take in what is being said about a subject that you may have absolutely no interest in whatsoever and to give you an appreciation, a glimmering of insight and comprehension in the complex lives of others. It is to thank inwardly the documentary makers for their diligence; even if at the end of it you are still none the wiser for the fascination of said subject.

Wild Tales, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ricardo Darín, Oscar Martínez, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Érica Rivas, Rita Cortese, Julieta Zylberberg, Darío Grandinetti, María Onetto, María Marull, Mónica Villa, César Bordón, Leonardo Sbaraglia, Walter Donado, Nancy Dupláa, Oscar Martínez, Germán de Silva, Diego Gentile.   

There are films that come along that just take your breath away. Whether it is for the scenery, the sheer animal magnetism between protagonists and leading artists, the story line or the images that seem ahead of their time; film has the power to shock, to captivate and to believe that anything is still possible. In the world of cinema and for the first time in what seems an interminable age, Spanish language film Wild Tales does everything you want it to and perhaps with great sincerity, some things you don’t want it to.