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Below you'll find our latest reviews of films out in cinemas and on DVD, as well as updates on festivals and short films. For a list of older reviews just click on the relevant section from the menu above.
To complete our nostalgia session (for this week anyway), here's the complete first season of The Real Ghostbusters... the classic cartoon series based on the popular film. The first series consists of 13 episodes on 2 DVDs. The cartoon series overall was a superb example of how to do a movie conversion properly, with the early seasons managing to appeal to both young and old alike. Sure there are a few compromises (most notably Slimer the friendly ghost) but the plots are still challenging and have long-lasting appeal. In this animated update of the hit motion picture, the Ghostbusters are up to the same...
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"I am Michael Bay, AND I WILL SHOUT AT YOU UNTIL YOUR EARS BLEED!" This is the rallying cry of the great director, and it can be heard with real passion in the second Transformers movie, Transformer: Revenge of the Fallen. The story, as far as it can be gleaned above the shrieking of metal and missiles, the shouting of men and machine, and the blaring musical accompaniment, is that 'The Fallen' (the creator of the Decepticons) is sheltering on the moon (or maybe Mars) planning his revenge on the universe for his death millennia ago while his minions on the ground search for allspark fragments and a mystical...
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If there is a must-own DVD so far this year, then The Good, The Bad, The Weird is it. From the moment that this film burst forth from the screen at the London Film Festival, to when it wowed critics in cinemas (read our review HERE) and finally blew away those audiences who dared to give a chance to a non-American action movie.The Good, The Bad, The Weird is so much more than that. Branded an 'Oriental Western' by director and co-writer Kim Jee-Woon, it's a film that fuses all-out action, offbeat Korean humour and plenty of classic Western cliches. Loosely based (or maybe just inspired) by The Good,...
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Debuts on Blu-ray Disc on 15 June, 2009Available for the First Time in High Definition in Celebration of the 25th Anniversary - Arrives Packaged with 32 Page Scrapbook, Including Exclusive High-Def Features Slimer Mode and Ecto-1 Refurbishment Featurette As an unashamed champion of the 1980's, the one aspect that i find hardest to defend is the cinematic output. Sure there were some great family orientated films and adventure movies... but do these stand up as classics like Jaws from the 70's or Fight Club from the 90's? We all remember the Indiana Jones movies and the Back to the Future trilogy...
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People familiar with John Woo's Hollywood films might justifiably wonder what all the fuss is about. The director might have shown glimpses of past glories with Face Off and his BMW short film The Hostage, but these really are outweighed by the showboating nonsense which has become his calling card. Even those films which have been warmly received still had excess and style over substance so it's interesting to see Woo return to his native China and present us with Red Cliff, based on the battle of The Three Kingdoms. Interesting and rewarding, as this not only betters recent John Woo films, but also...
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There are two kinds of great stag nights in the world: those you wont ever forget and those that push the boat out so far you cant even remember what happened. The Hangover is about the latter, delivering 100 minutes of steady raucous laughter about a bachelor party gone very very wrong.Determined to give their friend a good send off, Phil (Cooper) and Stu (Helms) take their best friend Doug (Bartha) to Vegas for his stag night accompanied by Dougs strange almost-brother-in-law Alan (Galifianakis). But when they wake up in their devastated hotel room the next morning, they have no recollection...
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Edinburgh is a city that looks good on film and has been used as a backdrop for great films such as Trainspotting and Shallow Grave and now from this new work from writer and director Richard Jobson it becomes almost a character itself.In New Town Killers, the story follows Sean (James Anthony Pearson) a parentless teenager with an older sister Alice (Liz White) whose debt is spiralling out of control. Sean is approached one night by two private investment bankers Alistair (Dougray Scott) and Jamie (Alistair Mackenzie) who offer him the chance to earn 12 grand in one night. The catch is he has to hide...
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Being stuck in the woods with a bunch of sarky teenagers is no ones idea of a good time I guess, in fact in Eden Lake two people found out just how bad it could really be for them. This year sees a similar storyline emerge in this new film from Julian Richards, director of the excellent The Last Horror Movie. Summer Scars sees a group of school kids decide the bunk off school on a hot summers day and one of them steals a moped to bring along. Deep in the woods they hang out, take the piss out of each other and eventually take turns on the moped, but when two of them out joyriding crash into a dishevelled...
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A horror remake that's not imported from Spain or Asia? That's almost as original as an original film! At least that's what the studio executives could have said when they were pitched this remake of mediocre 70s horror from Wes Craven.Less spooky, strange and imaginative than later Craven fares, Last House on the Left tells the story of the Collingwood family. Emma and John are taking their daughter Mari on a holiday to their summer house. They family have been through a tough patch and just need to relax. Little do they know that a prison escapee, his two henchmen and cowed son are on the loose....
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You might be forgiven for thinking the quality of British horror has taken a bit of a dip lately, what with the rather lacklustre Tormented and the god-awful Lesbian Vampire Killers. But as soon as you see Doghouse, youll find the words plunge or even plummet might be more appropriate. Ladies and gentlemen, there is a film worse than Lesbian Vampire Killers and this is it.Six lads having mid-life crises decide to visit a picturesque village in the middle of nowhere to get in touch with their masculinity. Apparently the village has women that outnumber the men five to one. Of course, nothing is as it seems...
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On paper this sounds like a wrinkly Richard Curtis film, with a grumpy Dustin Hoffman coming to London and finding love in the shape of charming Emma Thomson. Don't let that put you off though as Last Chance Harvey is a fun and emotional romance set against the backdrop of the Capital. When Harvey Shine (Hoffman) arrives in London for the wedding of his daughter, all the regular problems of his work life follow him along. Desperate to land a big contract he is constantly on the phone, something which led to the break up of his marriage and the distant relationship he has with the rest of his family....
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What happens when you combine the gritty life of a Manchester postman, depicted with characteristic intensity by Ken Loach, with a fantasy world in which he is mentored by his hero Eric Cantona? The answer is Looking For Eric, a superb drama that delves deep into psyche of a sports fan.It's not just about any sports fan though, it's about a man to whom sport represents a glimmer of hope in a life that is spiraling out of control. Eric Bishop is a Mancunian postman who lives with his two stepsons. He has two ex-wives, a fact he is not very proud of, and his stepsons are running riot. Worse still,...
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A middle-class French family comprising Julien (Vincent Lindon), his wife Lisa (Diane Kruger) and their young son Oscar is torn asunder by the sudden arrest of Lisa on suspicion of the murder of her boss. Having just had a blazing row with her, and being seen rinsing blood from her coat, she is naturally the prime suspect. But she maintains her innocence and Julien, desperately in love with her, never doubts. He fights through all of the legal channels with every resource available to him but finally he must concede defeat: at least at the hands of conventional justice.What does this quizzical...
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For those who haven't seen this film in cinemas: here is a brief catch up on the plot though of the film. (The story, like the original, is pretty simple.) Ten years ago a coal miner, Tom Hanniger, in a small town called Harmony caused an accident in the tunnels resulting in five men dying and another, Harry Warden, slipping into a coma. Flash ahead one year in the sleepy town and on Valentines Day Harry wakes up and promptly kills 22 people with a handy pickaxe before being killed, with me so farFlash ahead again ten years later and Tom returns to the town on Valentines Day (of course) and tries...
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Horror and Science Fiction have always been good bedfellows and when they come together (excuse the pun) to create something relatively new it is something well worth checking out. This new film is just that.Its New Years Eve in the city of Terminus and as some people are getting ready to party others are confused and maybe even altered as all forms of communication are being jammed by a strange and bizarre signal that, when witnessed, drives the viewer towards violence, murder and madness. Ben (Justin Welborn) has just spent the night with Mya (Anessa Ramsey), the woman he loves, and he must save...
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Reboot or not the latest entry in the Terminator franchise fails to live up to expectations. Sure we might have already been on a slippery slope with T3: Rise of the Machines, but at least that still had Arnie hurling himself around. This time we get a growling Christian Bale and a plethora of soulless machines which also lack menace as well as heart. The biggest problem with the film is the 'twist' which despite much temptation won't be revealed here (even though the trailer gives it away).Set in the future, we follow a disparate group of survivors in a war-ravaged setting as the human resistance...
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Generally speaking there arent that many good sports movies; theyre often riddled with clich and plot ground so well trodden you could use it as a ploughed field. And when was the last good film about baseball made? Field of Dreams in 1989 - 20 years ago! Thankfully, Sugar is less about sports metaphors and slow motion clockwatching and more about a young man trying to find a place he fits in the world.Miguel Sugar Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) is a young baseball pitcher from the Dominican Republic on the minor league baseball circuit who attends a special US academy designed to farm and select...
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Robert and his two children Sam and Kate head deep into the Norfolk countryside to visit their elderly grandmother, Hannah, but when they arrive they find she has befriended a mysterious loner named Joe. Initially suspicious, Robert struggles to understand the unlikely friendship and tries to re-take his position at the head of the family. Meanwhile the rest of the group respond to Joe in their own way, and end up seeing one-another in a new light.Shot in a very traditional style, Shadows in the Sun is a drama of old that shuns the present trends for gritty, handheld action and chooses instead...
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To say that 12 Rounds is the best movie from the WWE stable might seem like a backhanded compliment... in fact it's actually a reverse open-handed chop. Putting aside the wrestling vernacular for one moment, the film in question turns out to be a solid if unspectacular action movie which might fall down on visual thrills but does boast a leading man who can convey some moments of emotion. Given that the star is pro-wrestler John Cena this might come as a surprise (well probably not to those who think Cena has been 'acting' for the last decade or so in the ring). Detective Danny Fisher (John Cena)...
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If you didn't think Ryan Reynolds was among Hollywood's hottest property before you see this film, you certainly will afterwards. With a performance offering more charm than a 1920s cocktail bartender he leads an all-star cast in this family drama spanning 3 generations.The trouble is, his charm is misplaced among a mixed bag of a family consisting of his strict, distant, and emotionally stunted father (Willem Defoe), loving but put-upon mother (Julia Roberts) and rebellious Aunt (Emily Watson). Just in case that wasn't enough, Carrie Ann-Moss shows up as his estranged wife.The plot itself is spun...
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