Screen Trip - FILM & TV REVIEWS AND CRITICISM

A spectacular marketing disaster, this thoughtful drama directed by Richard Eyre (Stage Beauty, Notes on a Scandal) featuring a sensitive and brilliant A-lister cast was sold as a mystery thriller - guaranteeing its miserable flop at shopping mall cineplexes. Any viewer with a smidgen of psychologic...

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There are few memorable and thoughtful films which effectively venture into the mental dis-ease territory, especially in the everyday life context, but lately there have been notable exceptions, including Perks of Being a Wallflower and Lars and the Real Girl. What is likeable about Silver Linings P...

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Not many mainstream movies offer an actual experience these days, opting instead to sell the viewer a nicely packaged and pre-digested numbing pill of sameness, rather than a thoughtful dialogue, an approach that apparently does not do well at the box office, historically speaking. The most expensiv...

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You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go... - Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go! At the heart of most, if not ultimately all, of We...

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Of course this movie is easy to dismiss straight off the bat based on its very title, which does a good job of encapsulating what it is essentially about. Kind of reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in that way.In a nutshell Abraham is a playful genre mash-up, part patriotic period nostalgia t...

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For those that like their reviews in a nutshell its dark, twisted and visually stunning, with lots of action and great special effects, so just go and see it already. More serious than the recent playful Mirror, Mirror (also quite good), Snow White amp the Huntsman offers yet another spin on the...

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Young Adults heroine is Mavis Gary, portrayed with bravura by Charlize Theron, a young adult fiction writer living an empty and depressed post-divorce existence in Minneapolis. Mavis is experiencing some creative blocks while ghost writing the latest installment in a teen book series, until, out of...

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This warts-and-all valentine to 70s rock scene was produced by the band's driven creator Joan Jett, which gives the film some gritty indie credibility. Directed by Floria Sigismondi, who decided to move on from music videos, the film is loosely based on "Neon Angel The Cherie Currie Story," a 1989 ...

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Written amp directed by Canadian Rubba Nadda, this old-fashioned, thoughtful romantic drama offers a distinctly female sensibility and a loving take on the ancient city of Cairo. Veteran indie actress Patricia Clarkson (Lars and the Real Girl, Good Night and Good Luck, Vicky Cristina Barcelona)...

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Duncan Jones' directorial debut is a successful indie tribute to sci-fi cinematic greats of 1970s and 80s, with a somber - and sobering - twist. That David Bowie really has some super creative genes. And he passed them to his son Zowie, better known as Duncan Jones. Duncan studied philosophy and it ...

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I have been a zombie, a vampire and a squid, which not many people can claim, says the delightful Bill Nighy (Underworld, Pirates of the Caribbean), best remembered as the naughty singer of carols in Love Actually, who stars in this black-cum-romantic comedy as Victor Maynard, an anally retentive ...

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After having some naughty fun with gamer zombies and deranged masons in Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Hot Fuzz (2007) respectively, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were probably wondering what the natural progression for their next project would be, and then eureka a monolith dropped aliens! Wasnt ther...

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An updated version of a well-known Brothers Grimm fairytale, Red Riding Hood was directed by none other than Catherine Hardwicke, of Twilight fame. Hardwicke certainly does have some affinity for the dark woods, mysterious mists and monsters hiding in the shadows as well as romantic virginal panting...

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Peter Weir has had a long break since 2003s Master and Commander, the swashbuckling, seafaring adventure starring Russell Crowe. With The Way Back he continues in the vein of recreating history, but on a different scale altogether. The film was inspired by a World War II memoir, The Long Walk by Sl...

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Black Swan is a confrontational and intense psychodrama about a rather prim ballerina portrayed by Natalie Portman (V for Vendetta, The Other Boleyn Girl), all set on a journey to discover her dark side as she dives head first into her spotlight performance. Pressured to embody perfection under ...

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A romantic comedy with a spy twist, The Tourist is a piece of Hollywood tinsel with a splash of old world charm, making for a palatable holiday aperitif. And it does go down quite smoothly, too. Directed and co-written by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (The Life of Others, 2006), the film has a di...

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Directed and co-written by Spaniard Alejandro Amenbar, who gave us the sublime ghostly thriller The Others (2001) and the thoughtful drama The Sea Inside (2004), Agora is that rare cinematic pleasure, a large-scale historical production lavish in its details, rich in characters and hypnotic action,...

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Blue Valentine is a second feature drama (after Brother Tied) directed and co-written by Derek Cianfrance, starring Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling. It is a heartbreaking and emotionally draining for both the actors and the viewers story of the disintegration of romantic love. I repeat not a...

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So am I but, truth be told, my presence there is truly negligible. I simply prefer my friends in 3D. David Fincher (Fight Club, Panic Room) decided to direct a movie which reminds us of a time before our social lives became standardised and marketed on Facebook, and how this phenomenon actually came...

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There have never been this many vampires and other assorted creatures gracing our screens big and small well, ever. I blame it all on Buffy. The trend now includes Being Human, Sanctuary, Supernatural and Moonlight, to name just a few. Here, there are even good and bad witches, so imagine the a...

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