Review: Tyrannosaur

Considine's debut serves up a gruelling watch but a worthwhile one

Director & Screenwriter: Paddy Considine

Cast: Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman & Eddie Marsan

A widower who is violent, unemployed and running out of money and a Christian woman who is suffering from terrible abuse from her husband form an unlikely friendship.

Running Time: 92m 21s

Certificate: 18 - Contains very strong language and a scene of sexual violence

Paddy Considine is one of those ever-reliable performers. With a wide array of parts in films ranging from the black revenge thriller, Dead Man’s Shoes, to the Hollywood blockbuster, The Bourne Ultimatum, to the Pegg and Frost police comedy, Hot Fuzz, Considine has turned his hand to every kind of role and has always had found success. Now, he has started to show us that he is equally unflappable as a director.

Juror's Film Festival: Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968)

One of the greatest science-fiction films ever made has been ruined by the mother of all spoilers. If you, by some frankly inexplicable stroke of good fortune, do not know the ending of the original Planet of the Apes, I implore you to go and watch it and stop reading this review forthwith. I envy those who have been able to watch this film unspoilt.

Juror's Film Festival: Coraline (d. Henry Selick, 2009)

Henry Selick and Tim Burton must have been separated at birth. It is the only explanation for these two cinematic kindred spirits. The pair have (inevitably) worked together, and their styles are incredibly complementary to each other, but there is a crucial difference. Selick, far more than Burton, has the eye of a child. A twisted child at that, but a hugely imaginative one.

Juror's Film Festival: Four Lions (d. Chris Morris, 2010)

Four Lions is undoubtedly one of the most awkward films you’ll ever see. After all, it is a comedy about suicide bombers, made by Chris Morris, a man who has never shied away from the uncomfortable and whose humour is frank, brutal and close-to-the-bone.

It is also one of the most important British films made in the last ten years. It attempts to deal, through the most comedic and ridiculous ways, with perhaps the most troubling element of the war on terror: the humanity of terrorists and suicide-bombers.

Juror's Film Festival: Big Fish (Tim Burton, 2003)

Tim Burton often thrives on blurring the lines between fairy tale and reality, but whereas with Edward Scissorhands the fairy tale bursts into a world of Americana as an alien force, here the two sit side-by-side, almost undifferentiated.

The story is of Edward Bloom (Albert Finney/Ewan McGregor), a teller of tall tales who is coming to the end of his time. His son, however, has tired of the blatant exaggerations and falsehoods that his father still tells. Over the course of Edward’s last days, the story of his life is recounted, strange and fantastical in its nature, but as his son, Will (Billy Crudup), investigates his father’s life, he discovers that there may be more truth in his father’s stories than he suspected.

Review: The Skin I Live In

In the hands of a madman...

Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Screenwriter: Pedro Almodóvar, based on the novel “Tarantula”, by Thierry Jonquet

Cast: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Jan Cornet, Marisa Paredes, Blanca Suarez & Roberto Alamo

Plot: Doctor Robert Ledgard is a successful plastic surgeon living in a secluded where he is keeping “a patient”, the beautiful Vera, in total isolation. The arrival of the maid’s criminal son arrives whilst Robert is away triggers a series of recollections about Robert’s tragic past, how Vera came to be there and what her surgery may have been for.

Running Time: 120m 19s

Certificate: 15 - Contains strong sex, sexual violence, brief gore & very strong language

The issue of spoilers in reviews is a tricky one. You must give a small idea of what the plot is but shouldn’t give away too much. It’s the observer effect in film form – to talk to somebody about watching a film is to change their experience of watching it. In the case of Pedro Almodóvar’s new film, The Skin I Live In, it feels as though to say anything about the content of the film or even the films it is drawn from is to tamper with it.

Film Review: The Guard

The Gleeson Effect Strikes Again


Director and Screenwriter: John Michael McDonagh
Cast: Brendan Gleeson, Don Cheadle, Liam Cunningham, Mark Strong and Fionnula Flanagan
Plot: Sergeant Gerry Boyle is an unconventional police officer. Sweary, durg-abusing and hooker-using, he can build up quite a rap-sheet of his own, but he is also an honest cop in a quiet rural Irish setting. A murder is discovered just as a major FBI drug-smuggling investigation moves into the area, but in an area of bent coppers, Boyle is the only one who sets about investigating.

Rating: 15

Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

He came. He saw. He made a damn fine blockbuster.

Director: Rupert Wyatt

Screenwriters: Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver

Cast: James Franco, Freida Pinto, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, David Oyelowo & Andy Serkis

Plot: Will Rodman is a scientist who is seeking the cure for Alzheimer’s. After one of his experiments on apes goes wrong, he smuggles a baby ape out of the lab only to discover that it has been affected by the trial and is incredibly intelligent. He keeps it and calls it Caesar but, when Caesar grows up, a moment of anger brings him to an animal pound where exposure to other simians and mistreatment by his keepers bring about a change in Caesar that poses a great threat to the world outside.

Film Review: Super 8

Michael Bay take note: this is how to make a proper spectacular

Director & Screenwriter: J.J. Abrams

Cast: Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, Riley Griffiths, Ryan Lee and Ron Eldard

Plot: A bunch of kids in a small American town are making a zombie movie with a Super 8 camera. Whilst filming at a train station one night, a passing Air Force train crashes. As the army move in to clean up, a number of curious and increasingly terrifying events start to take place in the town.

Review: Beginners

From out of the closet comes a little surprise

Director & Screenwriter: Mike Mills

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer and Mélanie Laurent

Plot: Oliver’s father was gay. Despite this, he stayed married to Oliver’s mother for 44 years. In the aftermath of his father’s death, Oliver is left to ponder what his father meant to him. As he deals with this he meets Anna, and the two begin to fall in love.

Reviews: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Harry battles for the final time

It all ends, not with a whimper, but with a dazzling blast

Director: David Yates

Screenwriter: Steve Kloves

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Alan Rickman & Maggie Smith

Plot: The hour is dark indeed, and Harry, Ron and Hermione still have many Horcruxes to destroy in their seemingly impossible quest to vanquish Voldemort. As they continue, and Voldemort becomes more aware of their efforts, a final battle becomes inevitable.