Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Damien Chazelle Stars: Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Pablo Schreiber, Christopher Abbott, Ethan Embry, Patrick Fugit, Olivia Hamilton, Ciaran Hinds, Corey Stoll, Shea Whigham, Lukas Haas. Oscar winning filmmaker Damien Chazelle has quite a resume to his credit. He who gave us the superb drama Whiplash, which was my top film of 2014. He followed that with La La Land, a colourful and kitsch homage to the old Hollywood musicals of yesteryear, but I was not quite as enamoured with it as many other critics seemed Continue reading
SONG TO SONG
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Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Terrence Malick Stars: Michael Fassbender, Ryan Gosling, Rooney Mara, Natalie Portman, Cate Blanchett, Holly Hunter, Iggy Pop, Val Kilmer, Patti Smith, Flea. I loathed the past couple of films from revered auteur Terrence Malick, particularly his To The Wonder and Knight Of Cups, with their frustratingly obtuse, indulgent and abstract experimental nature, existential meditations, impressionistic and unconventional approach to narrative, the mumbled and at times inaudible dialogue often delivered as internal monologues, the Continue reading
LA LA LAND
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Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Damien Chazelle Stars: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, J K Simmons, Tom Everett Scott. The new film from director Damien Chazelle (the superb Whiplash) is a charming and ambitious take on the old fashioned technicolour Hollywood musical and it harks back to those classic musicals of the 50s and 60s, a bygone era of glamour and romance. The film is inspired by the likes of Jacques Remy's classic The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg and Stanley Donen's Singin' In The Rain, and is steeped in nostalgia. There are numerous in-jokes about Hollywood and Continue reading
DRIVE
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Reviewed by GREG KING Director: Nicholas Winding Refn Stars: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman. Maverick Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn makes tough, unflinchingly brutal and uncompromising dramas like his Pusher trilogy and the physically bruising Bronson. For his first American film, Refn has made a dark and downbeat hard boiled noir-like thriller that has moments of quiet punctuated by sudden explosive bursts of graphic, bloody violence. Refn brings an outsider’s perspective to his depiction of LA, Continue reading
