Viewer Reviews
Recent Reviews By PAULA GALVIN
 | This Must be the Place (Film)Self-indulgent piffle - paula galvinThis self-indulgent, self-reverential piece of piffle was the second surprise film of the J.D.I.F.F and boy what a surprise it was...if surprise registers as a slow sinking into the seat as ennui takes over. It is neither fish nor fowl,aspiring to one thing,that seems to trail off into nothingness and then another divergent trail of enervation and malaise more ... |
 | Contraband (Film)An action-packed thriller. - paula galvinThis is without doubt THE best heist film of recent years and one of the more notable films of the last year.Mark Wahlberg leads a super cast in this complex and thrilling tale. The director , Baltasar Kormakur, has done a splendid job in revealing this tangled tale of a drug-smuggling operation into which Wahlberg, despite his best intentions is led. more ... |
 | Black Gold (2012) (Film)A dazzling epic - paula galvinColourful,dazzling and epic in its scope,this film is a breath-taking tale of ambition,love,family and the battle between retaining the past and embracing modernisation. It is based on Hans Reusch's novel,"The Great thirst" and the black gold refers of course to oil which is discovered bubbling under the Yellow Belt sands. It is set in the Arab world of the more ... |
 | Albert Nobbs (Film)Pallid and colourless. - paula galvinLike the make-up that Glenn Close uses in this film that leave her looking washed out and featureless,this film seemed to be an insubstantial and pallid affair. Despite it engaging Glenn Close's mind and passions for the past fifteen years,the film lacks passion and colour and I found it unaffecting and unengaging. The film, Albert Nobbs ,is based on a more ... |
 | The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Film)Uplifting!! - paula galvinSeven people leave vaguely depressing,unfulfilled lives in Britain to encounter the noisy,bustling,chaotic colour that is Mumbai.They all have different reasons for leaving,Tom Wilkinson is retiring from the life of a barrister,Penelope Wilton and husband , Bill Nighy(an unlikely coupling if ever there was one) are taking this trip as opposed to the more ... |
 | We Need To Talk About Kevin (Film)Visceral . - paula galvinThis film is "the sum of all(parents') fears;the notion that you might give birth to a child with whom you do not bond..in fact even worse,you might dislike/hate the child.This is the premise on which Lionel Shriver based her book,"We need to talk about Kevin" and on which Lynne Ramsay has made a stunningly brilliant film. That said,it is a difficult film more ... |
 | The Lion King 3D (Film)To 3-D or not to 3-D!! - paula galvinThe only thing the 3-D will add to this film is the extra euro for your 3-D glasses.I have always loved this film,the animation is beautiful,its message for children and adults alike is clear,the scenery is superb and the characters and music great.It is nothing other than a cynical exercise to bring in lots more revenue.It does not enhance the film and it more ... |
 | Midnight in Paris (Film)A piece of Parisian nostalgia - paula galvinIt is obvious that Woody Allen is in love with Paris,"Paris in the rain""Fin du siecle Paris""Paris in the twenties" so as an affectionate,whimsical piece,this works.But as a film...no!! There is too much wrong with it,for us the audience to view it affectionately. Perhaps it is the unsympathetic characters we encounter,the boorish or pompous Americans,the more ... |
 | The Green Lantern (Film)harmless bit of fun - paula galvinThis lavish sci-fi adventure has a lot to live up to.It cost in the region of 300 million dollars to make and promote and an awful lot of painstakingly boring research went into the making of it,including poor Blake Lively having to test fourteen shades of brown hair dye when she decided that her character,Carol Ferris was definitely a brunette(oh,the more ... |
 | The Tourist (Film)woeful - paula galvinThis has to one of THE most awful films I have seen in the last decade .It is excrutiatingly,mind-numbingly frightful and utterly pointless. One would think,that given the beauty quotient of these two gorgeous actors;Depp and Jolie,there would be some spark of chemistry between them but there is not one jot of it,no fun,no laughs just dreary posturing and more ... |
 | The Way (Film)Uplifting - paula galvinProbably the most genuinely uplifting and beautiful film I have seen in the last number of years and one which is so clearly lit by the spirit of Martin Sheen and his son,Emilio Estevez,that images and words and feelings will remain with you long after the credits have rolled. more ... |
 | Water for Elephants (Film)Eminently watchable - paula galvinThis is an eminently watchable,entertaining and dramatic film,beautifully filmed,beautifully choreographed and with two very attractive leads and an almost comically twisted villain,it has all the ingredients for a pleasant night out but no more than this. It tells the story of Jacob Jankowitz,an aspiring veterinarian whose parents are tragically killed on more ... |
 | The Kids Are All Right (Film)Dreadful!! - paula galvinI was really looking forward to this film.I love Julianne Moore for everything she has ever been in,am quite a fan of Annette Bening and just liked the idea of a Hollywood film about a lesbian couple but everything about this film is just dreadfully wrong and I just found it cringe-makingly awful. We meet this "different" family at dinner time ,Jules is the more ... |
 | Eat, Pray, Love (Film)Enjoyable romp - paula galvinI had begun this book by Elizabeth Gilbert and found it awful so was not really looking forward to the movie but I must say,I was pleasantly surprised.I suppose I should preface this by saying that I find Julia Roberts to be very likeable on-screen so perhaps this has coloured my view of the film. It is also stunningly shot in three gorgeous more ... |
 | Archipelago (Film)Supremely confident - paula galvinJoanne Hogg's second film(following her directorial debut,"Unrelated") is supremely assured and is testament to her growing confidence as a writer and as a director. As with "Unrelated","Archipelago" tells the story of a very British,very upper middle class family who are gathered together one summer to mark an important event,in this case,Edward's move to more ... |
 | Little White Lies (Film)Sexy and funny - paula galvinImagine a French film without pretension,without artifice,natural,unstyled with a soundtrack by Creedence Clearwater Revival,Gladys Knight and the Pips,David Bowie and Janis Joplin ,some characters who have a bonhomie and esprit de corps ,a few males who are buffed and honed to perfection ,seascapes of azure blue and pristinely white sand and the ethereally more ... |
 | Arthur (Film)Awful - paula galvinThis is an absolutely appalling movie and one wonders why in the name of all that is holy,it attracted the likes of Helen Mirren,Jennifer Garner and Geraldine James. I cannot abide Russell Brand,a man who is so convinced of his own ability to amuse that he does not even try to be funny and this film is not funny so poor old Brand has to act,which he cannot more ... |
 | Mars Needs Moms (Film)Woeful - paula galvinAnd Moms and their kids need this film like a hole in the head,it is sloppy,condescending,simplistic and ridiculous.The animation is (grudgingly granted!!) okay but given the enormous budget for the film,how did they get it so diastrously wrong. Beam me up Scotty!!!! more ... |
 | Source Code (Film)Great second film from Duncan Jones - paula galvinIt is great to see Duncan Jones follow up his directorial debut with such an assured and masterful film as "Source Code" Based on an intriguing idea of a parallel universe and some other clever ideas derived from quantum physics this film has plenty to keep you suitably diverted for an hour and a half or so. It has the return to the same scenario of more ... |
 | Submarine (Film)Brilliant debut by Ayoade - paula galvinThis film debuted at the 35th Toronto International Film Festival in September 2010 and was the opening film for our own JDIFF.It has been receiving generally great(and very well-deserved)reviews. It is part of that genre of "coming of age" films which can be either a disaster or a triumph.This one thankfully belongs in the latter camp.It is quite simply more ... |
 | You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger (Film)Charming with a stellar cast - paula galvinThis was the perfect film for a lazy Sunday afternoon,non-taxing,delightful and with a stunningly stellar cast and some deliciously funny moments. Most of the characters are disappointed in some way;Sally(Naomi Watts) because she has not yet opened a gallery despite her degrees in Art and a great eye for new talent,Roy(Josh Brolin) because his second novel more ... |
 | Benda Bilili! (Film)Uplifting - paula galvinI went to see this film as one of the Jameson Film Festival offerings and it was by far the most uplifting.A film shot on a tiny budget and five years in the making with the most improbable bunch of miscreants in a shockingly deprived area,it is nonetheless a beautifully positive and life-affirming film. Papa Ricky suffers from polio but this does not more ... |
 | Rango (Film)Great animation but disappointing. - paula galvinThis film is really a pastiche of all westerns through the ages and is probably a bit too sophisticated and knowing for a young audience. It is really difficult to know for whom Gore Verbinski intended the film as I would imagine young children would be frightened by it and teenagers would be bored by it so that only leaves adults and I would imagine its more ... |
 | Fair Game (Film)Plausible. - paula galvinSean Penn and Naomi Watts are eminently believable as a couple committed to the truth but coming to it from different angles. Sean Penn plays Joe Wilson,an ex -ambassador who is now a stay at home Dad.His wife,Valerie Plame ,is to her friends and dinner party guests "something boring in Finance".IN reality she leads a far from boring life as a C.I.A more ... |
 | Unknown (Film)Better off not knowing!!! - paula galvinThis film really does not have a lot to recommend it,it has not got the intellectual brilliance to make it a really good thriller,nor the fantastic action scenes to make it a great action picture. It also has Liam Neeson as the hero and to be quite honest I think he is just looking too old and tired to play this part any more.The plot involves a convoluted more ... |
 | As If I Am Not There (Film)Harrowing and hard to watch - paula galvinThis film opens with a young girl leaving her close-knit family in Sarajevo to teach in a rural village.The village is attacked by soldiers,the men shot down and the women brought to a camp.On the way,we see beautiful unspoiled countryside which is contrasted starkly with the awfulness of the camp where they will be routinely humiliated,beaten and raped. more ... |
 | Potiche (Film)Deneuve does funny!! - paula galvinWhen I have seen Catherine Deneuve in films before,she is usually elegant,slightly frosty and forbidding.In this one,"Potiche" she begins like this,the beautiful,downtrodden,obedient wife of the frightful Robert Pujol,owner of an umbrella factory,a man who is unbelievably insensitive towards his wife,boorish towards his mistress and tyrannical towards his more ... |
 | Brighton Rock (Film)Directorial debut downer. - paula galvinRowan Joffe obviously allowed his love of Graham Greene's novel to stand in the way of good judgement in deciding to make a remake of the technically peerless 1947 Brighton Rock . This remake not only adds nothing to the original but actually reduces the book too. Sam Riley(who does a pretty good scowl but nothing else) is Pinkie,a petty criminal with more ... |
 | Never Let Me Go (Film)Heartbreakingly sad! - paula galvin"It had never occurred to me that our lives,so closely interwoven could unravel with such speed.If I'd known,maybe I'd have kept tighter hold of you" The speaker here is Cathy a girl whose life was inexticably linked from childhood to adulthood to those of Tommy and Ruth.They are boarders at what appears to be an idyllic school,called Hailsham more ... |
 | Biutiful (Film)Dark. - paula galvinThe darkness of this film is illuminated by stunningly brilliant performances .The film charts the last days of Uxbal,an ordinary decent criminal who tries to do his best to be a good father to his children Ana and Mateo,a good ex-husband to his deranged and estranged wife Marambra,and a good support to the Chinese and Senegalese who populate this more ... |
 | The King's Speech (Film)Majestically moving - paula galvinThis beautiful film has at its heart a very universal theme,that of a person overcoming a disability.In this case ,the person is Bertie,beloved husband of Elizabeth and the future King of England,his disability is a stammer,so severe that he is often reduced to near paralysis of his facial and vocal muscles and unable to utter a sound.It is a disability more ... |
 | Barney's Version (Film)Moving - paula galvinA stellar cast and a beautiful script based on the 1997 book by Mordechai Richler makes this film a gently moving triumph. We meet Barney ,an executive at "Totally Useless" productions working on the ridiculously hammy "Constable O'Malley of the North" He has made some major mistakes in his life and his timing has been a little circumspect to say the least. more ... |
 | Black Swan (Film)Ponderous and pretentious - paula galvinPortman apparently spent a year in training for this part and in interviews talks about the physicality of the part and the difficulty of doing the very difficult dancing with acting and showing the emotion on her face. Why did Aronofsky not use her face and the body of a professional ballerina? That is just one of the many questions I asked myself as I sat more ... |
 | Blue Valentine (Film)A relationship unravelling - paula galvinA relationship unravelling before our eyes,two people growing apart who once only had eyes for each other,and the fractured lives left in the wake of a dying or dead relationship. Derek Cianfrance's beautifully directed work has almost the feel of a documentary about it:you feel almost voyeuristic looking at the pain of this couple for whom life and more more ... |
 | Love And Other Drugs (Film)Refreshingly adult - paula galvinHere is an unconventional love story between two characters who want sex and nothing else,but both for different reasons ;Jamie(Jake Gylenhaal) is an absolute charmer,shallow in the extreme but gorgeous and Maggie(Anne Hathaway) is a Parkinson's Disease sufferer who does not want the emotional attachment of a relationship.So it would appear both are going more ... |
 | Let Me In (Film)A surprising triumph - paula galvinI had seen the Swedish version of this film last year,"Lat ren Ratte Komma" and had been chillingly thrilled by it so was not really expecting to be similarly entranced by this Hollywood remake but I am delighted to say that I was. The action this time moves from Sweden to new Mexico and the main characters are Owen and Abbey.They play characters who are more ... |
 | You Again (Film)Not again - paula galvinNot since "Bride Wars" have I seen anything as charmless and unfunny as this prenuptial farce.It tells the story of marni,played by Kirsten Bell with about as much charisma and intelligence as an amoeba who is on her way home to meet her brothers fiancee.On the flight home,her mother informs her that the said fiancee was at high school with her and sends more ... |
 | Another Year (Film)Mike Leigh's masterpiece - paula galvinMike Leigh's films are often described as "grimly realistic" or depressing and there are elements of his films that are but there is so much more to them than this."Another Year" is his finest example to date of the consummate skill of this wonderful film-maker,a director who trusts his actors sufficiently to allow them to improvise the script and to get to more ... |
 | Due Date (Film)Inappropriate,implausible but hilarious! - paula galvinIt is not often that one views a film with a degree of dispassion because its characters are so inherently unlikeable,a sinking feeling in the pit of ones stomach because you know the outcome of the highly improbable plot but nonetheless roar with laughter ."Due Date" is such a film;the plot is absurd.The comedy puerile,in many cases embarassingly so(I was more ... |
 | Winter's Bone (Film)bleak and harrowing - paula galvinGranik's film of Daniel Woodrell's book is a bleak and harrowing view of a people who live close to a harsh and unforgiving Nature.These people who live in the Ozark area of the Appalachian mountains are rough and ready,lacking in any sort of social niceties but with a steely fidelity to kin and their own form of justice. Ree Dolly(brilliantly and more ... |
 | The Town (Film)Cool,assured directing - paula galvinCool,confident directing,a great cast and an action-packed,thrilling plot with an unexpected romance will ensure the deserved success of this film. Ben Afflect directs and stars in this film,playing a hard-nosed criminal from Charlestown(a suburb in Boston which has produced more crime than the rest of the U.S)A bank robbery goes seriously wrong and they more ... |
 | Dinner for Schmucks (Film)Unsatisfying - paula galvinRather than having a good few belly-laughs at this film,I was left instead with a bad taste in my mouth and a complete lack of satisfaction. The cast look good on paper but the film just isn't nasty enough or cutting enough to create any impression whatsoever.Paul Rudd plays a businessman who is invited to bring the dumbest friend he has to an important more ... |
 | The Runaways (Film)A little more grit.... - paula galvinA little more grit and a lot less of what looks like posing for a fashion magazine,might have rescued this film and made it more purposeful and realistic. The premise itself is quite interesting...two girls wish to rebel against the image of acoustic-guitar strumming females and really emerge as players in the man's world of sex and drugs and rock and roll. more ... |
 | The Maid (2009) (Film)This low-budget ,low-key film defies genre - paula galvinThis low-budget ,low-key film defies genre.It is a gentle ,moving,sometimes funny,sometimes satirical look at life through the eyes of Raquel,a maid who has been working with a family for twenty years in the suburbs of Santiago in Chile.Her behaviour has become increasingly bizarre and her temper is short,so the mother tries to hire extra help to alleviate more ... |
 | The Secret In Their Eyes (Film)Ambitious. - paula galvinThis film won the best foreign film Oscar and deservedly so.It is ambitious in its plot ,has two complicated,flawed but thoroughly engaging protagonists,a theme that is universal and enough action ,drama and romance to keep an audience happy. It begins with a leavetaking,cuts to a vicious and brutal rape and then to a reunion. Juan Jose Campanell's canvas more ... |
 | In Bruges (Video)Dark and delicious - paula galvinThis film is so darkly comic,so politically incorrect and so devilishly good that you will laugh from beginning to end.I saw this when it first came out and loved it and watched it on T.V. last night and loved it even more. It tells the story of Ken(cerebral and sensitive,superbly played by Brendan Gleeson) and Ray( a bit of a more ... |
 | Julie and Julia (Video)Strictly for foodies!!! - paula galvinAs a woman who loves food and all the preparation and the buying and the choosing that goes into it,this film appealed hugely to me.It was also refreshing to see a Hollywood film in which women really do eat.Granted it is not a challenging film but nor is it one of the dreaded "chick flit" genre. It tells the story of a terminally bored temp, Julie more ... |
 | Please Give (Film)A moving and thought-provoking film - paula galvin"Please give" looks at the notion of giving and taking on a variety of levels but does so in such a gentle and restrained way,that we can draw our own conclusions.I always admire directors such as Nicole Holofcener who credit their audiences with sufficient intelligence and insight to make up their own minds about a film. And whilst the plot of this film more ... |
 | Leaving (Film)Beautiful performance from Scott Thomas - paula galvinKristin Scott Thomas gives a beautifully affecting performance of a woman overcome by a passion which causes her to leave her beautiful home ,her successful husband and her teenage son and daughter. Suzanne leads an idyllic life in a pastoral bliss.When she decides to resume work as a physiotherapist ,her husband Samuel(Yval Attal) enlists the help of a more ... |
 | His and Hers (Film)best film to come out of ireland in the last decade - paula galvinI went to see this film for the second time last week (a thing I have never done before!) and I took my mother-in-law with me as I knew she would love its wholesome reality and she did. I found it even more rewarding and engaging the second time around.From the moment the film opens on the six/seven month old baby girl on whose face the emotions of surprise more ... |
| His and Hers (Film)beautifully engaging and uplifting - paula galvinIn these days of gloom and doom ,it was an absolute joy to go to see "His and hers" a beautifully crafted and splendidly uplifting piece of cinematic magic.It was utterly devoid of any "technical tricks";it even lacked a narrative ,the ladies,girls ,women,kids told the story themselves and it moved seamlessly from children talking about their dads,to young more ... |
 | Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Film)so bad .....it's..........bad!! - paula galvinI have read so many reviews of this film that I am inclined to think I went to see a different one to most other people.Even Cosmo Landesman writing in the Sunday Times and with whom I would usually agree,took a completely contrary view. The only thing to be said for my wasted one hundred and forty six minutes at the cinema was that they cost me more ... |
 | Dogtooth (Film)darkly absurd! - paula galvinThis film is violent,brutal with sexual scenes which are clinically explicit and moments of dark,dark humour. It tells the story of a family who are not given names,merely the appellations of son,eldest and youngest .They are educated (if it could be called that!) at home and are made to feel very afraid of stepping beyond the confines of their suburban more ... |
 | Lourdes (Film)ambiguous and ambivalent. - paula galvinJessica Hausner is that too rare species of director who beieves that cinemagoers are suficiently intelligent to make up their own minds about a film.So in "Lourdes" we are not given any glib answers,there is instead an almost documentary feel to this film which depicts pilgrims travelling to Lourdes in the hope of curing a physical or in some cases an more ... |
 | Whip It (Film)fun and feisty - paula galvinThis film marks Drew Barrymore's directorial debut and just like its director,the film is vivacious,fun,charming and high-spirited. Ellen Page plays Bliss Cavender,a shy,bespectacled girl from the tiny town of Bodeen in Texas.Her mother(brilliantly played by Marcia Gay Harden)wants her daughter to be a beauty queen just like she was.Bliss's first act of more ... |
 | The Father of my Children (Film)Affecting.. - paula galvinHumbert Balsan was legendary in his native France for his dedication to serious,independent film-making and it is in this spirit and perhaps as an homage to him,that Mia Hansen-Love has chosen to tell this story. Gregoire Canvel(Louis -Do de Lencquesaing) is an independent film-maker who is up to his tonsils in debt.He smokes and drinks coffee furiously more ... |
 | Crazy Heart (Film)A stand-alone performance! - paula galvinIf Jeff Bridges does not get the Oscar for his superb performance as Bad Blake ,a washed-up,alcoholic,one-time famous country and western singing star,then there is no justice in Hollywood!!! Bad is down on his luck,playing in tiny venues and bowling allies to a few stalwart fans.He is cynical about life and cares about nothing other than his McClures more ... |
 | I Am Love (Film)Sumptuously operatic! - paula galvinWhen the camera pans onto the snow-swept rooftops of Milan and we are ushered into the beautifully elegant marbled halls of the Recchi family,the scene is set for something rather special.The event is the birthday of the paterfamilias who has chosen this day to announce his successor.The glassware,the beautiful tableware,the elegant conversation at table more ... |
 | Avatar (Film)Spectacular - paula galvinWith an interval of eleven years since his last movie,four years from conception to birth and $300million reportedly spent on it,,James Cameron's newest contribution to world cinema was never going to be anything less than spectacular and it is,astonishingly and brilliantly so.It captured my imagination and held me spellbound for three hours(so much so that more ... |
 | The Greatest (Film)Beautifully crafted - paula galvinI never thought I would see the day when I would hail Pierce Brosnan's acting skills but I have to hand him due plaudits here.He plays a man whose eldest son,Bennett(the "greatest" of the title) is killed in a car accident.He leaves behind a mother whose grief is all-consuming and a younger brother,Ryan(the "fuck-up" as he describes himself) who insists more ... |
 | Everybody's Fine (Video)Please give - paula galvinThis film is not due to be released until mid-May but was shown last night at Cineworld as part of the JDIFF so i thought I would get ahead of the posse and be the first to review it!! It is directed by Nicole Holofcene, a Sundance regular and is an intruiging and realistic look at New York life. Kate and Alex are a contentedly-married,middle class couple more ... |
 | Burn After Reading (Film)loved it - paula galvinI have never seen a Coen brothers film before so saw this with no inkling of what to expect and I absolutely loved it.It's good,laugh out loud,raucous and rowdy comedy.There is absolutely no subtlety here,it's full on and in your face. John Malkovitch is a C.I.A agent (or ex-)with an explosive temper,an unhealthy drinking habit and an absolutely thundering more ... |
 | I've Loved You So Long (Film)Subtly,stunningly superb. - paula galvinThis is a beautiful film with perfect performances and a script which gives us time to make up our own minds about the characters. Kirsten Scott Thomas(looking uncharacteristically shabby,down at heel and down in the mouth) is leaving prison after a fifteen year stretch.She is going to stay with her sister Lea who has in the meantime,married and adopted two more ... |
 | Micmacs (Film)An exhilirating tour de force!! - paula galvinJean Pierre Jaunet has brought his usual stunning visual flair and darkly comic view of humanity to this fairy tale for adults.One can see how Jaunet perfected his craft in making advertisements and music videos as each shot is impeccably executed and memorable. Basil has not had the best start in life,his Dad stepped on a land mine,his mum was carted off more ... |
 | Up In The Air (Film)uplifting! - paula galvinRyan Bingham is an efficient man,efficient in his job;he is a career transition counsellor(he fires people for firms),efficient in his lifestyle choices and efficient to the point of minimalism in his commitments to family and relationships(he has none) He owns a sterile apartment in Omaha,Nebraska and spends 322 days a year "up in the air"he has clocked up more ... |
 | A Single Man (Film)singularly uninteresting!!!! - paula galvinI had been really looking forward to this film as I am (along with millions of others!) a fan of the lovely Colin Firth and love to see Julianne Mooore playing ladies in the 60s and 50s in America (as she did so beautifully in "The hours" "Savage Grace" and another one in which her husband was a closet gay!)I was also vaguely thrilled at the idea of a more ... |
 | Precious (Film)a film with integrity - paula galvinPrecious is a film with a big heart,a great deal of integrity,lots of stark realism but with an ultimately redemptive message. It tells the story of Claireece Precious Jones ,a morbidly obese sixteen-year old who is pregnant with her second child(as a result of being raped by her father) and living with her foul-mouthed,venom-spitting mother(played by more ... |
 | Brothers (2009) (Film)Curiously unaffecting!!! - paula galvinNormally when a director chooses to re-do an earlier film,it is because he/she has something different or original to say.Sadly this is not the case with Jim Sheridan's "Brothers" whose re-hash of Susanne Bier's"Brodre" is a little like the feeling of excess after the Christmas celebrations.You wonder what all the fuss was about. Two brothers,one a war more ... |
 | It's Complicated (Video)An uncomplicated,good old-fashioned laugh! - paula galvinYes,the plot is probably highly unlikely.Yes Alec Baldwin is rather too smarmy and cheesey but I (for one) loved this movie.It is rarely that I want a movie to continue but this one I did I just loved it and had a load of good old belly laughs(always a good thing in this depressing month!!) Jane and Jake have been divorced for ten years.Jake is with a more ... |
 | Treeless Mountain (Film)Heartbreakingly beautiful. - paula galvinThis film is heart-breakingly,devastatingly poignant and beautiful.It tells the story of two little sisters,Binand Jin whose mother takes off to find their father.She leaves them a red plastic piggy bank and tells them that when it is full,she will be back.They are left in the care of an aunt,who is fond of her rice wine,shows absolutely no inclination to more ... |
 | Did You Hear About The Morgans? (Video)charmless,witless,endless - paula galvinThis was the longest one hundred and three minutes of my life.Who told Hugh Grant he had charm or Sarah jessica that she could act?Who thought they would be good together.?Their obvious lack of chemistry is only one of the many failings of this awful film.Add to this a hopeless,improbable script,no jokes,no laughs and ponderous direction and yes,youvè got more ... |
 | Nine (Film)an extravagant waste... - paula galvinThis film is an extravaganga...of cliches,of banalities,of well-worn storylines and (frankly!) jaded stars. Guido Contini is a director of films at his Cinecitta teatro in Rome.His new film is due to start shooting in two or three days time and after his two last films being flops,the press are eager to see what this one is about .Guido doesn't know because more ... |
 | Last Chance Harvey (Video)Gently moving. - paula galvinThis is a gently moving film about two middle-aged people who had given up on love.Harvey Shine(played with a certain flair by Dustin Hoffman) is a disappointed and disgruntled songwriter whose career has taken a serious nose-dive and he is reallly superfluous to the current demands of the music industry. Kate is a market researcher at Heathrow Airport .She more ... |
 | Love Actually (Video)cloyingly sweet - paula galvinThere are so many deeply,deeply irritating characters in this sickeningly sweet film that I would be hard pressed to decide which to smack first!Would it be the horribly precocious son of the Liam Neeson character who falls for a girl in his school(he's eleven for Chrissakes,an age when most young fellas loathe the female of the species.Would it be the more ... |
 | Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter (CD)truly love it!! - paula galvinThis is a superb album, beautifully crafted with amazing other worldly sounds that will have the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.Hawley's voice is even more mellifluous than on previous albums and there is a haunting breadth to it which makes it easily his most mature and thoughtful to date. He used a Tibetan prayer bowl and crystal chimes to more ... |
 | A Beautiful Mind (Video)A brilliant depiction of mental illness. - paula galvinThis was going to be a difficult task for any director and screenwriter but thankfully Ron Howard and Akira Goldsman have managed to do it successfully.They have brilliantly captured the slow and painful descent into mental breakdown and then complete dissociation with the world that characterises schizophrenia. John Forbes Nash(Russell Crowe) is a superb more ... |
 | An Education (Film)All style and no substance. - paula galvinThis film is beautifully photographed,styled ,directed and acted.There are some funny moments too but ultimately it is too predictable,too much a pastiche of other films and books that one is left feeling rather cheated. "An Education" is based on the memoirs of Lynn Barber,a journalist known for her incisive interviewing techniques and tells the more ... |
 | Fish Tank (Film)shocking and in your face! - paula galvinYou cannot escape the realism of this film;there are no soft touches or angles or people.They are hard,with a capital H .This family spells dysfunction without the "funk" The film takes place on a high rise ,low rent,low morals ,low self-esteem estate in Essex.It tells the story of Mia,a foul-mouthed,aggressive,bullying girl who loves to dance and more ... |
 | Rabbit Proof Fence (Video)Powerful. - paula galvinThis is a beautifully-made film which relies neither on sloppy sentimentality nor polemics.It tells the true story of three indigenous Australian girls who used the fence to walk 1500 miles back to their parents in Jigalong.The fence had been constructed in 1901 to keep rabbits and other agricultural pests away. The film takes place during what was probably more ... |
 | Breaking and Entering (Film)Not enthralling. - mgalvin25You will be entertained but not enthralled by this somehat implausible tale of East meets West,a sort of menopausal Romeo and Juliet set in the seedy underworld of King's Cross. Jude Law plays a successfully innovative architect who is redeveloping the area around King's Cross with his partner,Martin Freeman(an interesting deviation for him as a rather more ... |
 | The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (Film)simply beautiful - paula galvinThis is a superb piece of writing and directing by Rebecca Miller,a simply beautifully crafted film which never veers towards Hollywood-esque histrionics or glib answers Robin Penn Wright plays the "Pippa" of the title,a gracious,charming wife and hostess to the publisher Herb Lee(Alan Arkin,wonderful as always).They have moved to a suburban more ... |
 | Savage Grace (Film)savage and with no grace - mgalvin25This is a deeply disturbing film about a very wayward,promiscuous family with no real love at their core and with a heightened sense of how they can truly hurt,humiliate and embarrass their nearest and dearest. Julianne Moore is as always brilliant as the socialite,Barbara Daly who is married to the heir to the Bakelite dynasty,Brooks,played with more ... |
 | Nights In Rodanthe (Film)cringe worthy - mgalvin25How did they get it so hopelessly wrong here,the same pair who played so brilliantly in "Unfaithful" based on a writer 's work who seems to know his stuff i.e.Nicholas Sparks(The Notebook), a seemingly good plot,all the elements that make for tension,a deserted house,a storm,two people looking for love but with about as much excitement or frisson more ... |
 | Prime (Film)a great laugh - mgalvin25I have seen awful reviews of "Prime" but I must say I thoroughly enjoyed it.It tells the story of Rafi(Thurman) a recent divorcee who is looking for love/companionship/etc and is encouraged in this by her psychotherapist(Streep) When Rafi meets a handsome,eligible Dave aged only 23,her psychotherapist continues to offer support.however when it more ... |
 | Looking For Eric (Film)- mgalvin25Maybe it's because I am not a soccer fan,maybe it's because I do not understand the obsession with Manchester United,maybe its because I am a woman.....but for whatever reason or myriad reasons,I did not like this film at all. Okay,there are some funny moments particularly when Eric(Bishop) was in the company of his workmates but for the most part,"it more ... |
 | Is Anybody There? (Film)Poignant - mgalvin25This is a beautiful and gently moving film about an unlikely but nonetheless affecting relationship between Edward(Bill Milner) whose parents run an old peoples home and Clarence(Michael Caine),one of its inmates. Most of those in the home are in the grip of Alzheimers and there are some fantastically good parts played by such stalwarts of British film as more ... |
 | Coraline 3D (Film)Deliciously Dark ! - paula galvinAt one hour forty minutes ,this is the longest stop-motion film to date,but the storyline and the animation are so enthralling that it will seem more like the blink of an eye. Coraline has moved to a crumbling Victorian building in the countryside so her parents can write about such delights as the joys of mulching.They are cerebral types who don't have more ... |
 | The Women (Video)Pointless!!!!!!!!!! - mgalvin25What was Diane English thinking about when she put together a cast of talented stars ,gave them the most dull,lifeless and unconvincing lines to spout ,killed any potential for comedy and created the most wooden and stereotypical of characters? This film is insulting to women;it shows us a group of supposedly successful career women,alledged friends whose more ... |
 | Hannah Montana: The Movie (Film)surprisingly sweet!! - mgalvin25Went to this film under severe duress and pressure from my nine-year-old daughter.Have never seen the television series but had it mentally filed under the same "Odious American Tweenies" as those awful male blond twins who live in a hotel. I viewed this as an opportunity to have a few zzzzzzzzzzz's but surprisingly,found myself actually enjoying more ... |
 | Two Lovers (Film)Beautifully crafted,beautifully restrained film. - mgalvin25The film begins and ends with Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix)in Sheepshead Bay creek,Brighton Beach contemplating suicide.Leonard is a deeply troubled youg man,who has ended a relationship and is finding ordinary life difficult to cope with.His parents,wanting only the best for him,try to fix him up with the daughter of business associates and he gets on more ... |
 | Let The Right One In (Film)Let the right one in - mgalvin25This is a difficult one to define;part horror/part love-story with elements of dark comedy and a little bit of a pi** take on the whole vampire genre. It is terribly bleak,terribly slow and very Swedish. It tells the story of Oskar,who lives a rather sad and lonely existence with his divorcee mother.He is mercilessly bullied at school by Conny and his more ... |
 | Doubt (Film)undoubtedly good - mgalvin25This film is without a shadow of a doubt(sorry the title does lend itself to this somewhat!!!) a powerful and beautifully acted one. A new priest ,Father Flynn ,comes to a middle-class suburb in the Bronx.He appears to be a humane man,a man who wants to bring the church out of the dark ages and shake it up a little.He is seen giving his first sermon,watched more ... |
 | Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Film)barcelona stars! - mgalvin25The real star of this film is Barcelona and the unhurried pace of the Spanish lifestlyle,long lavish meals,beautiful wines,Spanish guitars and Gaudi's soaringly brilliant architecture. The film itself is about as sustantial as the foam on a cappucino but it looks marvellous. It tells the tale of two American friends who are on a holiday,one studying the more ... |
 | The Class (Film)utterly believable! - mgalvin25Laurent Cantet's Cannes Palme D'Or winner gives us a truly credible view of a class of 14 and 15 year olds in an underpriveledged area of Paris being taught by a teacher who,whilst having their best interests at heart,is often angered ,frustrated and generally pi**ed off by their behaviour. Francois Begaudeau is the teacher(he wrote a non-fiction bestseller more ... |
 | Frost Nixon (Film)a tour de foce - mgalvin25Two men,both proud ambitious and yearning public sympathy ,meet for a series of televised interviews.One of these is David Frost,a genial chat show host with a penchant for fast cars,planes and society women.The other is Richard Milhouse Nixon,the disgraced ex-President of the United States. Nixon is deeply suspicious of Frost,whom he and the American media more ... |
 | Slumdog Millionaire (Film)simply beautiful - paula galvinThis film is beautifully scripted,acted and directed in a superbly restrained way;it does not sentimentalise the protagonist,nor does it demean him.It is a film with a heart and soul. The story begins with Jamal,a slumdog ,who is on his way to becoming a millionaire but is thought to have cheated and ends up being tortured by a vicious (and probably very more ... |
 | Revolutionary Road (Film)a dismal disappointment - paula galvinRichard Yates novel of a complex relationship between two intelligent,aspiring people whose marriage is failing to live up to their earlier promises and expectations was always going to be difficult to translate to the big screen. The novel carefully depicts the psychological journeys of both Frank and April Wheeeler who,in their own ways are struggling to more ... |
 | Bride Wars (Film)Unlikely and unlikeable - paula galvinI always thought of Kate Hudson as a deliciously kooky actress,likeable and funny and glamorous so I thought that her paired with the more serious but equally likeable Anne Hathaway had the makings of an interesting and different sort of chick flick. How wrong I was and how deluded were the scriptwriter ,director and producer? This film is awful,it has no more ... |
 | P.S., I Love You (Film)why oh why......?? - mgalvin25Why did they make this film,why don't they get Irish actors to play Irish parts,why is it nigh impossible to make a good romantic comedy?? This film ticks every cliche in the book and more besides. I watched it over christmas,maybe i was eating too many chocolates and mince pies but it actually made me feel quite queasy,from the young bereft widow trying to more ... |
 | Four Christmases (Film)high jinks and laughs - mgalvin25This is really quite a funny movie,at times hilariously so (and unexpectedly for a Hollywood offering). It tells the story of Brad and Kate,(Vaughan and Witherspoon) a couple who really are living the good life, unfettered by kids or family, and on their way to an exotic location for the Christmas holidays. A fog strikes and they are stuck in America(and more ... |
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