Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Sam Mendes Stars: Olivia Colman, Micheal Ward, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Tanya Moodie, Tom Brooke, Hannah Oslow. The latest film from Oscar winning director Sam Mendes (Skyfall, 1917, etc) is something of a love letter to the cinema and the effect of films on our lives. But it is something of a tepid love letter when compared to films like the glorious Cinema Paradiso and the like. The film is set in the dreary coastal town of Margate, which has seen better years, and most of the drama centres around the art deco Empire …
MOTHERING SUNDAY
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Eva Husson Stars: Odessa Young, Colin Firth, Olivia Colman, Josh O'Connor, Emma D'Arcy, Glenda Jackson, Sope Dirisu, Patsy Ferran. This period drama about doomed love is sort of like an edgier variation on Upstairs Downstairs. The film is set mainly in the spring of 1924. The central character is Jane Fairchild (played by Australian actress Odessa Young), a maid working for the aristocratic Niven family. Jane is an orphan and although she has no family and no formal education she dreams of making her way through …
THE FAVOURITE
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Yorgos Lanthimos Stars: Olivia Colman, Rachel Weisz, Emma Stone, Nicholas Houkt, Joe Alwyn, Mark Gatiss, Jennifer White, James Smith. With films like The Lobster and The Killing Of A Sacred Deer to his credit, idiosyncratic Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos has become something of a critic’s favourite and a darling of the art house circuit. But his latest film, the arch and blackly comedic period piece/costume drama The Favourite is something of a change of pace, his most ambitious film to date, and, arguably, his most …
MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Kenneth Branagh Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Judi Dench, Olivia Colman, Penelope Cruz, Leslie Odom jr, Lucy Boynton, Sergei Polunin, Tom Bateman, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo. Strangers On A Train? Agatha Christie is the world's best-selling author, having sold some 2 billion copies of her crime and mystery novels. She has written 66 novels, 33 of which feature her famous creation, the arrogant, fastidious and brilliant Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot. Many of her books …
LONDON ROAD
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Rufus Norris Stars: Olivia Colman, Kate Fleetwood, Paul Thornley, Anita Dobson, Tom Hardy, Eloise Laurence, Phillip Howard, Jenny Galloway, Paul Hilton. Britain's National Theatre has established a reputation for their impressive staging of some of the finest works of notable playwrights as well as some more quirky theatre pieces. And in recent years they have taken these plays to the world via the cinema screening through a series of National Theatre Live screenings, which captured a live performance on film and beamed it into cinemas …
LOCKE
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Steven Knight Stars: Tom Hardy, voices of Olivia Colman, Ben Daniels, Andrew Scott, Ruth Wilson, Tom Halland. It takes a compelling solo presence on screen to hold the audiences attention for the duration of a film. Recently Robert Redford did just that in the engaging drama All Is Lost, and before that Ryan Reynolds similarly held us in suspense as a man buried alive in the 2010 thriller Buried. And now it is the turn of Tom Hardy (Bronson, The Dark Knight Rises, etc) who is charged with the task of holding us enthralled on screen in …
CUBAN FURY
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: James Griffiths Stars: Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, Ian McShane, Chris O'Dowd, Kayvan Novack, Olivia Colman, Rory Kinnear. Beefy comic Nick Frost is best known for his work alongside Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright in the so-called "Cornetto trilogy" (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, and last year's disappointing The World's End), but here he branches out on his own for this formulaic, cliched and somewhat predictable romcom. Nonetheless, Cuban Fury is likeable enough crowd pleasing romcom, that will appeal to those who liked Shall We …
ARRIETTY
Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi Stars: voices of Tom Holland, Mark Strong, Olivia Colman, Saoirse Ronan, Geraldine James. Arrietty is the latest film from Japan’s Studio Ghibli, and it maintains the high standards we have come to expect following such superb animated films as Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away, etc. However, studio veteran Hayao Miyazaki has not directed Arietty. Rather he has left the chores to his protégé Hiromasa Yonebayashi, a former animator who makes his feature debut here. Nonetheless, Miyazaki’s fingerprints are …