Rating: MMMMM

Clint Eastwood’s latest film, Invictus tells the story of the true events that followed the 1994 election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa, and Mandela’s subsequent attempt to unite his fragile and divided country with the help of South African rugby captain, Francois Pienaar.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon,
Running time: 133 mins

Rating: MMMM

From celebrated director Jane Campion comes a biopic of nineteenth century Romantic poet John Keats, exploring his romance with Miss Fanny Brawne, beginning in 1818.

Director: Jane Campion
Starring: Abbie Cornish, Ben Whishaw, Kerry Fox, Paul Schneider
Running time: 119 mins approx.

It was a tiring day at work, I’d already watched an old (and slightly below-par) episode of Gavin and Stacey, I’d dropped the last cookie in the house in my cup of tea (turning it into a soggy mush), I was in a downward spiral. Gazing over at a pile of unwatched and unopened dvds, my listless eyes fell upon series 1 of ‘Mad Men’. Despite believing myself to be devoid of the energy that I usually invest in a new television series, I blithely decided to give the aliterated show a visual whirl.

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

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

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