Stories from Confessions of a Film Critic
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The Best & Worst of 2011
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Dec 22, 2011
The approaching change in the calendar brings with it the irresistible urge to look back over the year and compile a list of the best, and worst, films of 2011. I have listed my favourites in no particular order but if I must pick one above all the others, it would be Terence Malick's Tree of Life, as entrancing as it was baffling. As has become the barometer… Full Story »
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Sensation
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Nov 14, 2011
Writer and director Tom Hall's droll and daring Irish sex comedy Sensation is the coming of age story of a timid Limerick farmer who meets a New Zealand call girl, falls in love for the first time and learns something about how the world works.Opening with a scene where lonely, mid-twenties Donal (Domhnall Gleeson) masturbates… Full Story »
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The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of The Unicorn
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Nov 7, 2011
The life's work of Belgian illustrator Georges Remi (whose nom de plume was Herge), the Tintin comic series - originally published in French between 1929 and 1976 - has evolved in the intervening decades into a multi-billion euro business that includes dozens of international translations and more than 200 million sales, animated television series and films, two… Full Story »
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Sep 24, 2011
For his first English language film, Swedish director Thomas Alfredson adapts John le Carre's seminal spy novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for a beautifully acted and absorbing cold war thriller that is one of the best films we will see this year. This is a chill, autumnal film that perfectly suits the season, as the summer's jumping pantomimes and fiddly 3D toy advertisements finally give way to… Full Story »
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Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part II
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Jul 24, 2011
All's well that ends well. After eight films in ten years and cumulative box-office returns of more than $6 billion, the Harry Potter franchise comes to a rousing conclusion in The Deathly Hallows Part II . Having inherited the series from originator Chris Columbus and predecessors Alfonso Cuaron and Mike Newell, continuing director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves have combined to bring a brisk efficiency to JK… Full Story »
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Transformers: Dark of the Moon 3D
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Jul 14, 2011
Michael Bay continues his one-man quest to blow everything up in the interminable, deafening Transformers: Dark of the Moon , the third in the ever-diminishing franchise built around robot toys from the 1980s. The best moments in the movie arrive in the first ten minutes, as Bay and his screenwriter Ehren Kruger re-jig history to land the Apollo 11 mission on the moon on a secret… Full Story »
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Cold Fish
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Apr 19, 2011
Inspired by an infamous case of serial murder which took place in the Satima province in 1993 (and is still winding its way through the Japanese courts), cult Japanese director Sion Sono's macabre serial killer drama Cold Fish is a full-throated, blood-soaked examination of a murder and mayhem in Tokyo.Meek, bespectacled Shamoto… Full Story »
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The Company Men
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Mar 30, 2011
The legacy of the global financial crisis and the collapse of the American manufacturing economy are addressed in John Wells' sombre downsizing drama The Company Men, a timely exploration of the human cost of unemployment on three men, all working for fictional conglomerate GTX.The story opens with brash sales manager Bobby (Ben Affleck) sweeping into the company car park in his white… Full Story »
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True Grit
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Feb 23, 2011
Jeff Bridges reinvents the iconic role of Rooster Cogburn in the Coen Brother's vastly entertaining horse opera True Grit, more a re-working of Charles Portis' original novel than a straight remake of Henry Hathaway's John Wayne starring 1960s Western.As the film opens, 14 year old Mattie Ross (played with tremendous facility by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) arrives in a… Full Story »
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The Fighter
Confessions of a Film Critic &bull Feb 16, 2011
Arriving in cinemas laden with Oscar nominations, David O. Russell's The Fighter is an old-fashioned, unashamedly crowd-pleasing boxing story, flawlessly acted and brilliantly directed, that tells the true story of welterweight "Irish" Micky Ward's unlikely journey to a world championship belt.Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale) once went ten rounds with Sugar Ray Leonard, briefly knocking him down, and… Full Story »
