Firth Class: ‘Kingsman’ is the best spy movie of the decade

Film Review: Selma

DREAM WORKS

Unlike recent similarly civil rights-themed films such as The Help and Lee Daniels’ The Butler, this account of the Martin Luther King-led protest march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 never resorts to crass sentimentality to achieve its goals or…

‘Birdman’ is an electric acting masterclass

It’s both ironic and telling that a film aggressively mocking modern Hollywood and…

Film Review: Inherent Vice

PHOENIX NIGHTS

Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the “American auteurs of our era”, was born in 1970- the same year, doubtfully by coincidence, that he has chosen to set his latest brain-melting philosophical epic. Following his polarising 2012…

Film Review: Whiplash

Damien Chazelle’s ‘Whiplash’ will shake you to your core

Film Review: Exodus: Gods and Kings

CHARIOTS OF WATER

When adapting bible stories into films, the essential goal is to have as broad an audience as possible for your film by not just appealing to Christians. Darren Aronofsky’s solution with Noah was to turn the Old…

Film Review: Foxcatcher

WRESTLE MANIA

Foxcatcher is the anti-Gone Girl. A murder mystery in which the murder takes place in the final scene, after over two hours of incredibly slow, brooding character development. The murderer is obvious from the very beginning — if you know…

Film Review: Big Eyes

MR. & MRS. KEANE

Amongst all his tedious directorial trademarks, one thing Tim Burton has always been able to capture quite well is the misery and isolation of white-picket-fence suburban America. For the first time, in Big Eyes, he explores this not as…

Film Review: Into The Woods

FOREST ROMP

Disney chose to release Into The Woods on Christmas Day- the one annual release date when major family blockbuster and Oscar-contending dramas overlap. The reason for this, I suspect, is that Disney have no clue who Into The Woods is…

Film Review: Wild

INTO THE WOODS

Reese Witherspoon bought the rights to Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl with the intention of starring in the coveted Amy Dunne role herself. When David Ficher was brought on board to direct, he booted Witherspoon out of the role and replaced her with…