Rating: MMMM

Review of sunny, seasonal romantic-comedy, (500) Days of Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (‘3rd Rock From The Sun’) and Zooey Deschanel.

Director: Marc Webb
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Clark Gregg
Running time: 95 mins

Rating: MMMM

Review of Coco Avant Chanel, biopic of  French fashion designer and style icon,
Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, starring Audrey Tautou and Alessandro Nivola. French with English subtitles.

Director: Anne Fontaine
Starring: Audrey Tautou, Alessandro Nivola, Benoit Poelvoorde, Marie Gillain
Running time: 105 mins

Currently finishing airing on BBC2 is HBO’s ‘reconstruction’ of the cop show, ‘The Wire’ (2002-2008), which for me has set a new standard in television drama. Not since ‘The West Wing’ have we seen such a rich and frankly rewarding series.

Rating: MMMM

Review of Michael Mann’s ‘biopic’ of the notorious American criminal, John Dillinger.

Director: Michael Mann
Starring: Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard, David Wenham, Stephen Dorff
Running time: 140 mins

Watching last week’s Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, I was struck by the eponymous host interviewing Hollywood screen actress Sandra Bullock, promoting her new film The Proposal. In their conversation, Ross and Bullock briefly discussed the romantic comedy genre (to which The Proposal supposedly belongs) and how the name has morphed into the word ‘rom-com’ which Ms. Bullock suggested refers to how these types of films cannot be called ‘romantic comedies’ anymore as they are neither romantic or funny – therefore ‘rom-com’ can be used to categorise them as it represents “a little bit of what they have”.

Having finally gotten round to watching Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (2009) a couple of nights ago, I was left feeling mildly disappointed. Yes, Mickey Rourke is brilliant as Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, and yes the fight scenes are very realistic and yes the casting is excellent – BUT… I was left feeling rather disappointed by the film’s ending. Or maybe thats because those kind of finales are ten-a-penny at the moment. And I did see The Thing for the first time only recently, which has an ending that to me seems similar to The Wrestler. Its a shame, as the first 45 minutes were well paced and deftly handled.

Rating: MMM

Review of Doubt first published in a February 2009 issue Spark*, the newspaper of Reading University Students’ Union.

Director: John Patrick Shanley
Starring: Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
Running time: 104 mins

Rating: MMMM

Review of Frost/Nixon first published in a January 2009 issue of Spark*, the newspaper of Reading University Students’ Union.

Director: Ron Howard
Starring: Michael Sheen, Frank Langella, Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell
Running time: 122 mins

Rating: MM

Review of “W.” first published in November 2008 issue of Spark*, the newspaper of Reading University Students’ Union.

Director: Oliver Stone
Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, James Dreyfus, James Cromwell
Running time: 129 mins

Review of Blood Diamond as the ‘classic review’ feature first published in a November 2008 issue of Spark*, the newspaper of Reading University Students’ Union.

Director: Edward Zwick
Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly
Running time: 143 mins