Tag Archives: FACT Cinema.

The Railway Man, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Jeremy Irvine, Stellan Skarsgård, Sam Reid, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tanroh Ishida, Marta Dusseldorp, Masa Yamaguchi, Keiichi Enomoto, James Fraser, Shoota Tanahashi, Akos Armont.

 

The Railway Man might face strong competition for the title of Best British film in 2014 but it won’t for the want of being an absolutely brilliant film with a cast that shines throughout and with the horrors of war not glossed over and forgotten. It is not a film to be taken lightly; it should be approached, just like the other film out this weekend, 12 Years A Slave, as not just a piece of cinema, to be sat through and then left discarded at the foot of the mind as other films get shown throughout the year, but as a piece of history, cinematic or otherwise.

The Railway Man, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(546 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

12 Years A Slave, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Adepero Oduye, Paul Giamatti, Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Chris Chalk, Michael K. Williams, Kelsey Scott, Alfre Woodward, Quvenzhane Wallis, Devyn A. Taylor, Cameron Zeigler, Rob Steinberg, Jay Huguley, Christopher Berry, Bryan Batt, Bill Camp, Dwight Henry, Ruth Negga.

12 Years A Slave, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

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

The Hobbit, The Desolation Of Smaug. Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly,  Benedict Cumberbatch, James Nesbitt,  Sylvester McCoy,  Lee Pace, Stephen Fry, Luke Evens,  Graham McTavish, William Kircher, Stephen Hunter, Dean O’ Gorman, Aiden Turner, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Adam Brown, Mikael Persbrandt, Ryan Gage.

There is no better way to round off an outstanding year in cinema that too return to the Lonely Mountain, through a forest of spiders and a tangle with the web that Elvish Men weave and via one of the finest dialogues captured throughout the whole of the Lord of the Rings trilogies and a journey involving a reluctant thief, a Wizard and a gang of Dwarves than to immerse yourself fully into the world of The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug.

The Hobbit, The Desolation Of Smaug. Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(611 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

Saving Mr. Banks, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Annie Buckley, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Bradley Whitford, Ruth Wilson, Melanie Paxson, Victoria Summer, Kathy Baker, Rachel Griffiths, Dendrie Taylor, Kimberly D’Armond.

Saving Mr. Banks is a film that exemplifies the thought that somewhere between novel and film the life of the author is lost in the complexity of producing a cinema hit. The life of the writer, whose soul is poured into the painful birth of producing something that in a lot of cases is a cathartic way of exorcising a childhood memory, is overlooked. Cinema audiences, perhaps comforted in many cases by the end result, neglect the person who gave them the character in the first place.

Saving Mr. Banks, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

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

Gravity, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Orto Ignatiussen, Phaldut Sharma, Amy Warren, Basher Savage.

There are seminal moments in cinema, moments of pure genius that you have to applaud and make note of to tell your grandchildren just how exceptional the film was so they can be inspired to find their own defining film moment. The instant when you knew that all your cinema going days had been but a test for your senses to get acclimatised to for the sheer majesty that is about to hit them in Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron’s mouth-watering, jaw dropping, heart thumping spectacle, Gravity.

Gravity, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

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

Philomena, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Mare Winningham, Michelle Fairley, Neve Gachev, Charlie Murphy, Simone Lahbib, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Charles Edwards. Xavier Atkins, Wunmi Mosaku, Alan Davis.

True stories that are given celluloid treatment usually veer into the realms of films that gloss over certain aspects of life just in case it upsets someone of a particular calling, not so in the case of Philomena. This is a film that doesn’t shy away from the monstrous way in which some girls were treated in Ireland when they became pregnant.

Philomena, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(567 words, estimated 2:16 mins reading time)

Le Week-End, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum, Olly Alexander, Brice Beaugier, Xavier De Guillebon, Marie-France Alvarez, Denis Sebbah, Charlotte Léo, Lee Breton Michelsen, Sébastien Siroux

Le Week-End, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(537 words, estimated 2:09 mins reading time)

Blue Jasmine, Film Review. FACT Cinema.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Andrew Dice Clay, Bobby Cannavale, Max Casella, Michael Stuhlbarg, Joy Carlin, Peter Sarsgaard, Richard Conti, Annie McNamara, Daniel Jenks, Glen Caspillo, Tammy Blanchard, Kathy Tong.

Every male director needs his absolute leading lady, every screenwriter needs the one person who can carry a film from start to finish and have the audience utterly absorbed by that person’s story. Woody Allen, long since one of the masters of this art, has perhaps the distinction of being able to bring the very best out of the actors who grace his films. The excellent Diane Keaton stands out in his early works as being a gem of comedy and now as Woody Allen comes to the other side of his long career, the outstanding Cate Blanchett gives one of the finest performances of her life in the superb Blue Jasmine.

Blue Jasmine, Film Review. FACT Cinema. full post

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

Rush, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde, Natalie Dormer, Alexandra Maria Lara, Pierfrancesco Favino, Christian McKay, Sean Edwards, Martin J. Smith, Rob Austin, Tom Wlaschiha, Alistair Petrie, Julian Rhind Tutt, Stephen Mangan.

One of the greatest sporting rivalries of all time certainly deserves the finest attention, the doting and sometimes critical eye of one of Hollywood’s premium directors and a script that captures the imagination and complexity of two of the motor-racing world’s most enduring figures. Ron Howard’s Rush delivers everything you could ever want in a film that looks at the relationship of man and machine…or in this case two men who dominated the sport in 1976, Britain’s James Hunt and Austria’s Niki Luada, the ultimate sporting playboy who revelled in the excess of life and the cool reserved detachment of a man born to be a winner.

Rush, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

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

About Time, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lindsay Duncan, Lydia Wilson, Richard Cordery, Joshua McGuire, Tom Hollander, Margaret Robbie, Will Merrick, Vanessa Kirby, Tommy Hughes, Clemmie Dugdale, Harry Hadden-Paton, Mitchell Mullen, Lisa Eichom, Jenny Rainsford, Catherine Steadman, Graham Richard Howgego, Kenneth Hazeldine, Natasha Powell, Richard E. Grant, Richard Griffiths.

About Time, Film Review. FACT Cinema, Liverpool. full post

(657 words, estimated 2:38 mins reading time)