USA

REVIEW: Warm Bodies

Writer-director Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness) does a pretty excellent job of adapting Isaac Marion’s novel, Warm Bodies, for the big screen. Nicholas Hoult (best remembered as the young lad… Read More
Flight

Denzel Washington is great playing a commercial pilot who’s got what it takes to fly a broken plane upside down, but can’t keep his drink and drug habit under control.… Read More
REVIEW: Flight

Robert Zemeckis, the Oscar-winning director of Forrest Gump and Back To The Future, returns to live action for the first time in more than a decade, directing his first R… Read More
Once Upon a Time in the West

After completing his “Dollars Trilogy”, Sergio Leone was done with the Western, until Paramount offered him a huge budget and the opportunity to work with his favourite actor, Henry Fonda.… Read More
A Foreign Affair

Screening at the Hong Kong Film Archive as part of mini retrospective showcasing the collaborations between Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich, I went into this with no other information and… Read More
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Sergio Leone’s third and final chapter in his loose “dollars trilogy” with Clint Eastwood is also the first of two back-to-back masterpieces of the genre from the king of the… Read More
Seven Psychopaths

Irish writer-director Martin McDonagh follows up his hugely entertaining debut, In Bruges, by moving to Hollywood and attempting a larger, more ambitiously plotted tale of hit men, dog ‘nappers and… Read More
Texas Chainsaw 3D

Opening with a swift recap of the events of the 1974 original film, this latest entry reveals that an infant member of the cannibalistic Sawyer family survived and has now… Read More
Beasts of the Southern Wild

Writer-director Benh Zeitlin delivers one of the best American Indies in recent memory, bolstered by a knockout central performance from 6-year-old Quavenzhane Wallis. Read my full review here. Read More
REVIEW: Beasts of the Southern Wild

A full year after it emerged as the buzz title from Sundance 2012, Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild finally reaches Hong Kong, buoyed up by 4 Academy Award… Read More
Rio Bravo

In preparation for a piece I’m writing for the HK Film Archive, I’m re-visiting a number of classic Westerns this week. After John Ford’s The Searchers, next on my list… Read More
Lincoln

Steven Spielberg assembles an incredible cast of noted character performers for this dense, stately yet thoroughly rewarding history lesson. As a Brit, my knowledge of the American Civil War is… Read More
The Searchers

First watched this as a teenager and failed to get too much from it beyond the spectacle of Monument Valley. The new HD restoration makes the film worth re-watching for… Read More
The Bay

Barry Levinson, the Oscar-winning director of Rain Man and Bugsy, re-emerges with his first film in what feels like a decade, and it’s a found-footage style horror movie about a… Read More
Movie 43

The recent trend of holiday-themed ensemble movies takes a sharp left turn into gross-out comedy territory in this sketch-based mess that sees all number of familiar faces play fiercely against… Read More
The Hidden

One of those movies that always caught my eye in the video store, but for one reason or another I never got around to actually watching. Michael Nouri plays the… Read More
Lifeboat

In the midst of World War II, Alfred Hitchcock directed this high-concept chamber piece for 20th Century Fox, based on a specially-commissioned treatment from John Steinbeck. After their cruise ship… Read More
Contact

Robert Zemeckis follows up his Forrest Gump Oscar success with this ambitious attempt to reconcile the age-old debate between Science and Religion. Jodie Foster stands on the side of Science… Read More