Promised Land
[ Hits:125 ]
Review: Promised Land deals with the contentious fracking debate, which isn't surprising, considering it's a Gus Van Sant film. The director is known for tackling difficult subjects head-on and he's opted for a big one as far as environmental concerns go. While he's quite fearless in most of his films, he's taken a step back with his approach to Promised Land, delivering a quietly powerful message that's neither backdrop nor full-blown propaganda.Instead of beating us over the head with the issues or go...
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Little One
[ Hits:186 ]
Review: Little One is the story of a mother, who takes a young girl under her wing. The story is simple, yet the circumstances are not. A six year old girl has been left for dead in the veld near a middle aged woman's home near an informal settlement. After saving her life, an inextricable and life-changing mother-daughter bond is formed between the rescuer and victim.The story is truly heartbreaking and there's a tensile emotional undercurrent that drives this simple, yet beautiful film. The endless re...
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The Impossible
[ Hits:164 ]
Review: The Impossible is one of those films that you dread watching, because you know you're going to have to endure real devastation and emotional upheaval. It's the kind of drama you end up seeing because there's nothing else to watch, your curiosity got the better of you or you heard it was a must-see.
The affects of the tsunami that killed over 250,000 people in Thailand in 2004 literally rippled throughout the world. Tourists and locals were washed away and families separated in a matter of minut...
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The Sessions
[ Hits:177 ]
Review: Sex in Hollywood is more often than not, represented as something depraved, insignificant, lust-induced and fleeting. According to Hollywood, the act of sexual intercourse has lost it's intimacy with two actors essentially reducing themselves to mascots for their species. Whether love at first sight or high school sweethearts, it's incredibly rare for sex to be given the respect it deserves in popular culture.One film that does instill a sense of intimacy is ironically one that starts off trying...
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Verraaiers (Traitors)
[ Hits:756 ]
Review: Verraaiers (Traitors) is the latest drama from director-writer team, Paul Eilers and Salmon de Jager, who previously collaborated on Roepman (Stargazer). These film-makers are quickly developing a reputation for producing quality films, characterised by strong performances, beautiful cinematography and compelling narratives, and Verraaiers continues this trajectory.
Verraaiers is the story of several men, who decide to protect their families and run the risk of being branded 'cowards' in favour...
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Zero Dark Thirty
[ Hits:294 ]
Review: Zero Dark Thirty is not The Hurt Locker. This may seem pretty obvious from the outset, but you've got to leave your preconceptions behind when you watch this chronicle of a decade-long manhunt. While both films share a number of crew and film-makers, these are two very different films.
The Hurt Locker presented a taut war thriller about a fearless soldier dedicated... no, addicted to serving his country in the war on terror. Zero Dark Thirty presents a series of eye witness accounts of the crit...
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The Perks of Being A Wallflower
[ Hits:374 ]
Review: The Perks of Being A Wallflower is a character-driven drama about the musings of a loner, suffering his way through high school, coping with first love and a dark secret with a little help from his friends. It sounds like a downward spiral of teenage angst, but The Perks of Being A Wallflower manages to overcome it's love/hate relationship with misery, by nestling in the arms of high school romance.
It's part Dead Poet's Society and part Donnie Darko, as our protagonist's journey weaves between...
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Stilte
[ Hits:927 ]
Review: Stilte is an Afrikaans coming-of-age romance drama from South African writer-director Darrell Roodt, who is best known for Yesterday, Cry The Beloved Country and more recently Jakhalsdans. Although, based on its religious undertones, Stilte could have been a Regardt van der Bergh film, fitting into the same sub-genre as: Faith Like Potatoes, Hansie and Tornado and the Kalahari Horse Whisperer.
Stilte carries a powerful and uplifting message delivered with a refreshing innocence that isn't spec...
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Die Wonderwerker
[ Hits:1526 ]
Review: Katinka Heyns is the director behind South African classics such as Paljas and Fiela se Kind. It's been more than a decade since her last film, making Die Wonderwerker, a much anticipated follow-up for the acclaimed director. She marks her return with a biographical mystery drama based on a chapter from the life of famous Afrikaner laywer, poet and naturalist, Eugene Marais.The man's output may not have been extensive, but he's still revered for his poems and studies on nature. Die Wonderwerker ...
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A Million Colours
[ Hits:1038 ]
Review: A Million Colours is based on the true story of two best friends, who fought the system that tried to separate them, after they shot to fame in 1975 with the release of the South African film e'Lollipop. Muntu Ndebele and Norman Knox didn't see life in black or white, at a time when the government tried to enforce Apartheid, instead they chose to see a million colours.
Andre Pieterse produced e'Lollipop and co-wrote A Million Colours with Canadian director, Peter Bishai. A Million Colours is th...
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Shame
[ Hits:564 ]
Review: Steve McQueen is a fine artist turned film director, who shares the name of the more famous action man and Hollywood icon - yet they are distinctly different. McQueen's latest offering Shame, is yet another dark drama in the wake of Hunger and gives his audience a voyeuristic glance into the world of a man's sexual addiction.
The film's subject matter and 18 age restriction is warranted as Shame serves quite literally in-your-face sexuality. Just like McQueen, Michael Fassbender is another ris...
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Albert Nobbs
[ Hits:466 ]
Review: Glenn Close garnered an Oscar nomination for her portrayal of Albert Nobbs, a butler leading a secretive life of servitude in the hope of opening a tobacco shoppe in Dublin. While beautifully filmed and spurred on by an intriguing premise and great production values, Albert Nobbs lacks focus and leans too heavily on the ensemble's collective talent.
The concept would have possibly worked better if they had veiled it in Gothic horror like Jane Eyre (2011) or applied more claustrophobic and vo...
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Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
[ Hits:771 ]
Review: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a miracle. Why? There's no other way you could explain it being nominated for a Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards. Grant 2012 hasn't been the strongest year for Hollywood with only a handful of truly excellent films, but let's call it what it is... extremely long & incredibly irritating.
Stephen Daldry is a fine director, an auteur who invests a couple of years in each of his films. He's been nominated for an Oscar for Best Directing for ever...
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Material
[ Hits:1922 ]
Review: Material is one of the smartest, most heartwarming movies to originate from South Africa, telling the story of a young Muslim man whose love for stand-up comedy leads to conflict when his father expects him to take over the family business.
There's always a hint of seriousness in a joke and as John Cleese once noted - "comedy is very much like tragedy". Material is a comedy drama, what's come to be known as a "dramedy", creating an uneasy balance between domestic strife and life's funnier mome...
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The Skin I Live In
[ Hits:665 ]
Review: Skin... everyone's got one, except that guy dangling from the tree in Predator. The word has developed a stigma and a deviant curiosity in Hollywood: Mysterious Skin, Skinwalkers, 'skin flicks' - it would be rash to think The Skin I Live In, a film that nabbed a spot in Quentin Tarantino's Top Ten Films of 2011 could cure that little niggling 'skin' problem.
Renowned filmmaker, Pedro Almodovar, knows how to make your skin crawl. The director of Talk to Her, Broken Embraces and Volver also ...
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Margin Call
[ Hits:831 ]
Review: The award-winning documentary Inside Job drilled down into what caused the 2008 financial crisis by consulting some of the finest financial experts. Margin Call creates a fictionalised account of the most critical 24 hour period of the meltdown, featuring some of Hollywood's most respected actors.
Margin Call is a companion piece to Inside Job in the style of 12 Angry Men, offering outsiders a glimpse into the backroom ethics and doomsday plotting of an investment bank on the brink of collapse....
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The Ides of March
[ Hits:573 ]
Review: It's no secret, 2011 was a dismal year for Hollywood. The movie machine is running out of ideas, David Lynch is focusing on music, budgets are being screwed tight and we're getting a spill of bankable franchise sequels and unnecessary adapatations. Although one actor seems to have risen out of the ashes...
No, not Joaquin Phoenix... he hasn't done a film since 2008, we're talking about Ryan Gosling! He's had a fantastic year... The Ides of March, Drive and Crazy, Stupid, Love. Let's just say it...
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50/50
[ Hits:895 ]
Review: Laughter is the best medicine, but cancer and comedy don't mix - unless your name's Mike Birbiglia or you're watching 50/50. Disambiguation: we're reviewing 50/50, the comedy-drama about a 27-year-old guy struggling to beat the odds, after being diagnosed with cancer and not 50|50, the hard-hitting 27-year-old nature conservation show. There is a difference.Cancer is deadly serious, which is probably why very few people have tried to broach the subject in film, let alone comedy. Yet, they've tak...
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Trust
[ Hits:570 ]
Review: Trust is an important drama thriller about a teenage girl who falls prey to an online predator and the repercussions that a rape has on the victim and her family. It's an eye-opening yet disturbing watch, partly for its inevitability and for its real world danger with families at risk of the same incident. Every father wants to protect his little girl and Trust offers something of a social commentary on how media has brought with it a wave of new privacy and safety issues. We're unaware of what ...
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Master Harold... and the Boys
[ Hits:1586 ]
Review: Master Harold... and the Boys is an adaptation of Athol Fugard's acclaimed stage play about a young boy wrestling with his convictions when it comes to his father and his caretaker in 1950s South Africa. The era, known for its discriminatory racist government policies, separated South Africans and created barriers preventing black South Africans from enjoying equality and the same level of privileges as their white counterparts. This tense atmosphere fuels the drama of Master Harold... and the B...
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