Tag Archives: Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T.

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Michael Stuhlbarg, Dean O’ Gorman, David James Elliott, David Maldonado, John Getz, Alan Tudyk, Louis C.K., Richard Portnow, Roger Bart, Robert Stripling, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ellie Fanning, John Goodman, Stephen Root, Christian Berkel.

The era of McCarthyism was arguably one of the most shameful times in American politics, one that to this day still sends a shiver down the spine and causes the heart to miss a beat or two as the scare tactics employed by the junior senator and those of involved with the committee hearings dealing with the House Un-American Activities. That shiver should be felt for all time, it should never relent and whilst Arthur Miller brought the nauseous feeling and rising anger superbly to the stage in the classic The Crucible, Trumbo makes it feel so much more modern and dastardly.

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

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

Dad’s Army, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Toby Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Bill Nighy, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtney, Mark Gatiss, Blake Harrison, Daniel Mays, Sarah Lancashire, Emily Atack, Ian Lavender, Bill Paterson, Frank Williams, Alison Steadman, Annette Crosby, Holli Dempsey, Martin Savage, Felicity Montague, Oliver Tobias, Julia Foster.

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be but sometimes by revisiting the past you are in danger of completely undermining all the excellent work that once went on before; the package and the idea may look appealing but the beyond the sentimental, the finished article is a pale and perhaps at times, irritating shadow.

Dad’s Army, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Michael Caine, Harvey Keitel, Rachael Weisz, Jane Fonda, Paul Dano, Alexander Macqueen, Chloe Pirrie, Madalina Diana Ghenea, Gabriella Belisario, Roly Serrano, Nate Dern, Alex Beckett, Mark Gessner, Tom Lipinski, Luna Zimic Mijovic, Ed Stoppard, Paloma Faith, Heidi Maria Glössner, Helmut Förnbacher, Sumi Jo.

Life, if you’re fortunate, is made of many facets of ingenuity and peace, as well as the insanity that prevails through being a fully paid up member of the Human Race. Music though surely is the most over-riding of all emotions to get tangled up in and to be able to have running through your mind, after all, even in the solitude of an arid desert exists music and poetry as the sands shift with the wind.

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

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, Brian d’Arcy James, Stanley Tucci, Gene Amoroso, Elena Wohl, Neal Huff, Billy Crudup, Duane Murray, Brian Chamberlain, Paul Guilfoyle, Michael Countryman, David Fraser, Paloma Nuñez.

Inside every writer, is the journalist they want to be and when the right story breaks, when the article or report that falls into their lap that could make their name, there always is a price that is to be paid that comes attached to it; a price that some are not willing to pay and some find too enormous to bring down. When the subject matter is corruption within one of the fabled estates of the land, the hesitancy in pursuing the story may be understandable for the price is taking away people’s faith, it is the Spotlight on which some might not recover.

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

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, Marisa Tomei, Rafe Spall, Rudy Eisenzopf, Casey Groves, Maria Frangos, Hunter Burke, Bernard Hocke, Shaunna Rappold, Brandon Stacy, Aiden Flowers, Peter Epstein, Tracy Letts, David Zalkind, Adepero Oduye, Hamish Linklater, Karen Gillan.

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

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10

Cast: Leonardo diCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, Forrest Goodluck, Paul Anderson, Kristoffer Joner, Joshua Burge, Duane Howard, Melaw Nakehk’o, Fabrice Adde, Arthur Redcloud, Christopher Rosamond, Robert Moloney, Lukas Haas, Brendan Fletcher, Tyson Wood, McCaleb Burnett, Emmanuel Bilodeau, Grace Dove, Chesley Wilson.

There are extraordinary feats of human endeavour that you just have to marvel at, lessons from people in the past to how they conducted themselves under severe pressure and extremes and how perhaps as young infants of the 21st Century we have lost that natural affinity to stretch ourselves against such adversity.

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

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Andre Ward, Tony Bellew, Ritchie Coster, Jacob ‘Stitch’ Duran, Graham McTavish, Malik Bazille, Ricardo McGill, Gabe Rosado, Wood Harris, Buddy Osborn, Rupal Pujara.

Hollywood and sport doesn’t exactly mix, football, golf, rugby, ice hockey, all end up being seen as a pale imitation of what can happen on the field of play and the reason it mostly comes down to is the ability to replicate the dramatic vision of the spectacle is almost non-existent. The film revels too much in the prowess of the team event to be carried off in spectacular fashion, it looks clumsy and forced, the poetry of the game stunted and fluffed out, it is overdone and over produced.

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

(400 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers, Wendy Crewson, Sandy McMaster, Matt Gordon, Amanda Brugel, Joe Pingue, Joan Allen, Zarrin Darnell-Martin, Cas Anvar, William H. Macy, Jee-Yun Lee, Randall Edwards, Justin Mader, Ola Sturik, Rodrigo Fernadez-Stoll, Rory O’ Shea, Tom McCamus, Kate Drummond, Jack Fulton.

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

(470 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Pilou Asbæk, Dar Salim, Tuva Novotny, Søren Malling, Charlotte Munck, Dulfi Al-Jabouri, Alex Høgh Andersen, Jakob Frølund, Philip Sem Dambæk.

There are no winners in war, just people who are alive and those who have died and sometimes those that are in between the two states, their hearts functioning but ground to stone and whose thoughts are too preoccupied with what they have witnessed to ever find solace in humanity again. War is meaningless at the best of times, when it sees the split second decision enforced upon someone, to let someone else die or a comrade, then the futility of it is heart-breaking and obvious, such is the madness of A War.

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

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

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Eddie Redmayne, Adrian Schiller, Amber Heard, Emerald Fennell, Ben Whishaw, Pip Torrens, Matthias Schoenaerts, Nicholas Woodeson, Sebastian Koch Rebecca Root, Henry Pettigrew, Richard Dixon, Sonya Cullingford.

The Danish Girl has been a film in the making for so long, that has had so many stars attached to it that it began to feel as though it might never materialise. Yet time has a way of making cinema goers wait for what could be seen as a groundbreaking and informative film, and they don’t come much more groundbreaking than a story about one of the first recorded gender reassignment procedures on record.

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

(496 words, estimated 1:59 mins reading time)