Review: Hobson's Choice

Wonderful British comedy set in a boot shop in Victorian Manchester revolving around a patriarch and his three daughters.  I could watch Laughton all day as the rubber faced alcoholic father who is outmanoeuvred by his rather smarter daughters.  An incredibly youthful looking Scales plays one of them.

Lean injects a few directorial flourishes along the way- watch out for the conclusion of the moon sequence in particular.

De Banzie's and Mills' growing love and support for each other is a delight to behold - and I had not previously realised that Mill's could play comic roles so well.

Verdict: Fresh feeling period comedy. 

Review: Blithe Spirit

Early David Lean comedy based on Noel Coward play. The special ghost effects are limited and not especially special - but the ensuring romantic triangle is fun to watch as the near screwball exchanges crackle with wit.  Rutherford adds significant extra value as the eccentric and bumbling medium.

The end scene left me wondering if the makers of Stardust had watched Blithe Spirit...

Verdict: Gentle Sunday fare.

Review: The Girl that kicked the hornet's nest

Third in the trilogy of Swedish films based on the best-selling book series.  Here the conspiracy around Salander goes a little deeper and reaches a resolution. Rapace is as excellent as ever on as the emotionally closed but vulnerable super hacker.  I still miss the narrative of the first film where its mostly two people working together to solve a mystery

Verdict: Good conclusion to the trilogy. 

Review: Everest 3D

Everest is a sad example of how seemingly small individual errors can compound and become a tragedy of frankly awful proportions.  The first time I watched it I was often baffled who was who as there was a lot of near identical looking men whose faces were near obscured by beards, goggles and hoods.  It was a little easier this time around (my tip is to pay close attention to the colour of clothing).

3D accentuates all of the vertigo inducing proportions of the many crevasses and cliff edges featured in the film - as well as one truly heart in mouth helicopter ride.

Verdict:  Acts of remarkable bravery and survival 

Review: Rampage

If you are in the right frame of mind, Rampage, is near perfect creature feature. An out of control corporate space experiment turns (bizarrely) a gorilla, a wolf and a crocodile into enormous versions of themselves with heightened characteristics such as aggression.

Johnson once again gives a charismatic performance as a primatologist who happens to have had extensive military training. He may actually be getting better as an actor too although some of the climatic close ups felt a bit bizarrely over-expressed. It's not quite as convincing (and lacks the humour) of Pratt's very similar character from the Jurassic World movies.  I would have liked to have seen more of his interactions with George the CGI gorilla. I could probably watch an entire movie of the two of them taking the mickey out of each other.

Harris' geneticist character provides a good foil although in fairness, neither of them are called upon to demonstrate much in the way of scientific knowledge. But it's good to know they could if they need to.

Unusually, the primary villain is also played with such genuine relish by the somehow familiar but can't quite place Ackerman that in a different movie I'd probably be rooting for her.

My favourite performance, however, has to be that of the scenery chewing Morgan's government agent.  It's perhaps no coincidence that he also gets most of the best lines:

"When science shits the bed, I’m the guy they call to change the sheets."

Verdict: Enjoyably dumb action fare.

Review: The Girl Who Played With Fire

The second Swedish adaptation of Larsson's best-selling book of the same name shifts the focus on Lisbeth Salanders' origins while weaving in a new and contemporary conspiracy around human trafficking and prostitution.

As with the book, it feels a little flabbier and less satisfying compared to first entry in the series.  I'd rather have Salander working with Blomqvist to investigate a new mystery rather than building her mythos by wrapping her character in conspiracy.

 Rapace continues to be excellent and her character's rage is a little more more contained in favour of demonstrations of her hacking skills.

Verdict: Good adaptation slightly marred by the source material.

Review: The Two Faces of January

Dunst, Mortensen and Isaac are the unsympathetic trio at the heart of this Mediterranean period drama.  It's a competent, but curiously old fashioned piece perhaps better suited to the black and white era of movie making.  But even there, it fails to ratchet up the suspense enough to be worthy of a comparison with, for example, Hitchcock.

That sounds like I have a bit of a downer on The Two Faces of January, but you'd be wrong. It's good Sunday afternoon fare and Greece looks wonderfully dusty and I could almost feel the heat radiating from it.

Verdict: Beautiful scenery and period detail lift an ordinary thriller plot. 

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Swedish film version of the book turns out to be a bit more faithful and satisfying than the Hollywood version.  The length gives the story the time it deserves to unfold.

It's easy to see why Rapace was able to build an international film career off the back of it. Although posing as a solid Scandi-noir mystery thriller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is really an extremely effective vehicle for introducing us to Lisbeth Salander - an emotionally unavailable, yet vulnerable hyper-violent hacker.

She's never less than compelling to watch.

Verdict: Good adaptation of the best book in the series.

Review: Kinky Boots

Brit-com based around a struggling shoe factory that to ensure its survival decides to go into a new line of footwear. Edgerton & Ejiofor make for a good double act, but there's a feeling of having seen this all before and there's a misstep towards the end with Edgerton's character which serves only to heighten the drama. Ejiofer is never less than convincing in his role!

For shoe aficionados, however, there is plenty to enjoy here - especially the glimpses into the manufacturing process.

Verdict: Unlike the footwear this feels a little insubstantial.

Review: The Go-Giver: A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea

Simple short and well-written modern business parable promoting altruism. The story takes Joe, a sales professional, through five challenges set by a mysterious mentor (who it turns out is super-wealthy and a super-ager too), as he tries to find an edge in his attempts to get ahead.

It's a sweet story and I guess if there is a criticism, it is that it doesn't seem very evidence based.  Especially given, the description of the principles as Five Laws of Stratospheric success.  That's a pretty bold claim and there aren't any real world case studies to stand it up.

Verdict: Whizz through this quickly for a warm and fuzzy. 

Review: This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor

Kay's memoirs of his career as a hospital doctor are perfused with a dark wit and occasional tragedy like an Adrian Mole inspired take on the television series, Bodies.

“Natural does not equal safe. There’s a plant in my garden where if you simply sat under it for ten minutes then you’d be dead.’ Job done: she bins the tablets.
I ask him about that plant over a colonoscopy later.
‘Water lily.”

Adam Kay, This is Going to Hurt 

It's an emotionally exhausting but at times quite, rather than hilariously, funny read. The initially short and light hearted diary entries draw you in and keep you as it becomes tougher going. 

Verdict: Going to Hurt may not live up to its name, but it is brutally funny at times. 

Review: The Prestige

Made in 2006, The Prestige surfed the wave of stories about magicians in the early 2000s (cf The Illusionist  and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell).  Director Nolan's trademarks are all present and correct - a certain precision to the cinematography, an unworldly feel to the score, an out of kilter take on a familiar story, and even draws upon his repertory of actors.

The result is an involving, if not quite top drawer Nolan, story of two rivals each taking ever greater risks to outdo the other.  Perhaps inevitably, because it's a tale of magicians, we aren't clued into what's really going on until almost the very end either.   The final part, the so-called Prestige, is where the real magic happens - and it's deliciously meta.

The only odd point for me is Bale's extraordinary accent. In one on-the-nose conversation, a character calls his character out for performing - and I found myself nodding, but for entirely different reasons.  Admittedly, he does have a uniquely difficult role to play, but I'm not sure the accent helped at all.

Verdict: Twisty plotted Nolan at his near best.

Review: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

Described as one of Powell & Pressburger's greats - it's quite hard to know how to pigeon hole The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp as it's a war era drama which feels subversive and satirical about war and the military at times.

I viewed it primarily as a three ages of man drama with comedic and romantic elements in it - and found the transformation of young radical to seemingly pompous and out of touch veteran rather moving and wholly convincingly played by Livesey.   The mostly verbal comedy moments have also travelled well down the ages, while the romantic segments are touching enough to round out the production.

The new restoration edition looks amazingly fresh by the way, and shows off the weirdly lurid colour process to full effect.

Verdict:  Involving wartime drama