If you’re reading this and you’ve ever managed to persuade me to watch a romantic comedy with you then it’s safe to say I was head over heels in love and you took advantage of my temporary weakened state. I despise the genre almost as much as I despise soap operas, reality TV, Lonsdale vests and Mick Hucknall. So, on the surface, I’m not the kind of guy to really pitch ‘Silver Linings Playbook’ to am I? Well, when the pitch comes direct from Bret Easton-Ellis who has a body of work that’s filled with cutting intelligence and borderline depravity that I so admire, I thought to myself this movie must be worth a look.

Bradley Cooper plays Pat Soltano Jr, a married man with an undiagnosed history of mental illness tipped over the edge by a singular event involving his now estranged wife. Continue reading →

The outcome of this review is somewhat inevitable. I’m an absolutely enamoured admirer of the work of Ang Lee. From his fractured family unit drama ‘The Ice Storm’ to his breakthrough ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ and even his first Hollywood misfire ‘Hulk’ I’ve always found much to enjoy in his work, no matter how flawed it may seem. For me there’s always something more I notice on repeat viewings.

Perhaps it was wrong of me to assume from the stunning trailers that ‘Life of Pi’ would be a 3D visual spectacle aimed at the summer audience with the subtraction of substance and emotion to match. I couldn’t have been more wrong in my assumption.

The titular ‘Pi’ is a young boy whose family own a zoo.

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‘V/H/S’ is in theory right up my street. I’m a fan of the ‘found footage’ horror sub-genre and  this coupled with an anthology format allowing a number of talented directors to showcase their talent in bite-size segments had me incredibly interested in what the film could offer. Did my expectation match reality? Well, yes. And also no.

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