The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was a surprise hit in 2012, leveraging the “oldies” out of their armchairs and into the cinemas in droves: the film returned around 15 times its modest $10M budget. Now three years later comes the sequel – the amusingly titled “Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”, and its much of the … Read more
Last year’s “Pride” brilliantly demonstrated how far gay rights have come in the UK in 30 years. Selma does an equally superb job in showing how far racial equality has come in the US in 50 years. The year is 1964 and racial tension is rife in the Southern states, with attacks and murders … Read more
Matthew Vaughn, who’s previous films in the director’s chair number just four – “Layer Cake”, “Stardust”, “Kick Ass” and “X-Men: First Class” – does not do subtle. But he certainly does do stylish and entertaining. Of this set of past works, Kingsman is probably most closely aligned to Kick Ass with its anarchic tone and … Read more
Clint Eastwood has become a highly respected figure in the film industry. His iconic acting would have got him there, but add on his prolific film score composing and the fact that American Sniper is his 37th (THIRTY-SEVENTH!) directorial credit and the much over-used epithet “legend” is surely applicable. Given that I was less than … Read more
Ex Machina has a simple story dealing with a deeply complex and philosophical topic: namely what makes humans human. The increasingly omnipresent Oscar Isaac plays billionaire Nathan Bates, genius creator of ‘Google’ – my mistake – ‘BlueBook’, the world’s “leading search engine”. Living in the middle of the American wilderness (in reality, a very picturesque … Read more