Retro Movie Review – Hotel Mumbai
The main trust of the film is the attack on the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel. This site was chosen for its opulence and the large numbers of Westerners that stayed there. We follow the plight of the humble hotel staff, most notably Anupam Kher as head chef Hemant Oberoi and Dev Patel as Arjun, one of his waiters. The staff are presented as selfless and brave. This reality is confirmed by the high number of actual staff members that were killed in the siege while protecting their guests.
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Retro Movie Review – Southpaw
The film also provides further proof (if any more is actually needed) on how fine an actor Jake Gyllenhaal has become. His take on the lead role, that of boxer Billy Hope is absolutely mesmeric. His time in the gym and time spent training to learn the techniques of boxing have paid real dividends.
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Gyllenhaal fills the screen with electricity and menace and he makes the most out of what is a rather pedestrian screenplay. Sutter’s ability to plumb the depths of ...
Retro Movie Review – Trainwreck
The story set up is about a woman in the big city not looking for love but finding it anyway. She is comfortable turning around traditional rom-com situations in regards to male and female behaviour for the discomfort of some audience members. She also succeeds in giving the film a big heart amongst all the relationship carnage.
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The way Schumer resolves the final situation is most unexpected and proves her comic ability to think outside the box. It’s a fantastic ...
Retro Movie Review – Django Unchained
When the rumours of Tarantino tackling the Western genre first surfaced, what a hundred years ago, it provided a number of great movie conservationist’s topics. Could his make cowboys look and sound cool? Could he recharge careers and get superlative performances from his regulars? Could he make an increasingly jaded audience stand up and cheer? In almost all categories the answer is a resounding yes.
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Few are unaware of the film’s basic synopsis after another ...
Retro Movie Review – Guardians of the Galaxy
And all this for a superhero team that not many people know, and the first Marvel film not to feature one of the Silver Age group of characters created by Stan Lee.
The Guardians are a bunch of undesirables who find themselves fighting together to prevent one of the Infinity Stones from reaching Thanos. If that all sounds a little crazy, then welcome to the Marvel Universe (not just Earth, or Asgard, or wherever it is that Agent Coulson buys his suits) where universe destroying gems and ...
Retro Movie Review – American Hustle
The always-outstanding British actor Christian Bale lays to rest the man in black for the new man in fat. His visual transformation is just one element of his transcendent performance. He has to act his butt off just to transcend that hairdo of his. Jennifer Lawrence adds to her building resume of great performances as Bale’s on screen wife who is both hilarious and clueless.
Bradley Cooper’s manic drug fuelled performance is also outstanding. Now no discussion of great roles in this ...
Retro Movie Review – Birdman (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)
Mexican writer and director Alejandro González Iñárritu has delivered a story inside a story about a past his use by date movie star, Keaton, who previously reaped the riches and empty adulation that went with his role of playing the big screen superhero Birdman. He is seeking redemption (artistically and humanly) by writing, directing and starring in his own Broadway play.
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Alejandro uses music masterfully as the first three quarters of the film is set to a ...
Watch the trailer for The Informer
He’s given a chance for early release by becoming an informant for the FBI (Academy Award nominees Rosamund Pike and Clive Owen) and using his covert skills in an operation to take down The General, the most powerful crime boss in New York.
But when the FBI sting meant to finally earn Koslow his freedom results in the death of an undercover NYPD cop, Koslow finds himself caught in the crossfire between the mob and the FBI.
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The General insists Koslow takes the ...
Retro Movie Review – Whiplash
The story of a young prodigy musician joining a demanding music school and running headlong into its most obsessive teacher becomes the canvas on which actors J.K. Simmons and Miles Teller paint one of the most vibrant images in recent memory. Teller is the obsessive drummer with a fixation on jazz icon Buddy Rich and Simmons, the teacher with an eye on transcendence and the demands to accomplish it.
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Compliments also go out to writer – director Damien Chazelle ...
Watch the trailer for I Am Woman!
Within weeks she was broke. Within months she was in love. Within five years she was one of the biggest superstars of her time, and an icon of the 1970s feminist movement, who wrote a song which galvanised a generation of women to fight for change.
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I Am Woman will be released in Australia later this year.
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