TheRetroCritic

I know what you're thinking: " Ruby Sparks ? Wait, isn't it that Stranger Than Fiction rom-com knockoff?" Yes, yes it is. Complete with white people problems and lots of 'em! Right off the bat, Ruby Sparks is every Woody Allen/Nora Ephron rom-com you've ever seen: shrinks, stereotypical neurotic writers, cookie hippie relatives... It's good, don't get me wrong, but you've seen it all before. Same goes for the movie's surreal "hook" involving Zoe Kazan's Sparks, a fictional character written by Paul Dano's writer Calvin, who inexplicably comes to life one morning. What follows is a rollercoaster ride of emotions and forced quirkiness which finally develops into a kind of 500 Days Of Summer meets Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind -type bittersweet tale of the impact relationships have on us and how we screw them up, basically. It's cute, it's sweet, it's all-over-the-place, it's heartbreaking,

Shrek had a good run. And for a character I never actually liked all that much, it's amazing the series kept me watching until now. Never a fan I nonetheless looked forward to the antics of the cartoon gang, at least early on. Although it feels like Puss In Boots should have been made way earlier, say between Shrek 2 and 3, when the joke was still fresh, it seems Antonio Banderas' furry alter-ego still has enough charm left in him to warrant a solo effort. Luckily, Puss In Boots is a breath of fresh air. Forget the tired, endless pop culture references, forget the Fat Bastard-sounding ogre, forget that mouthy Donkey, forget the shitty pop songs: this is where it's at. By going for a vastly different vibe, focusing more on the characters, the story and the action, Puss In Boots proves itself to be an infinitely more rewarding experience than, say, the last two Shrek movies. Sure, the film retains the lighthearted feel of the original franchise but Puss is an infini

Sex, gender, horror and betrayal have all been recurring themes in Pedro Almodovar's works for a long time but never have all these been put together in quite such an arresting and original way as in The Skin I Live In, a film which mixes sci-fi, surrealism and Frankenstein -style madness into a unique creation to say the least, one you're not likely to forget any time soon. The Hitchcockian flair Almodovar has often demonstrated has somehow matured into a meticulous manipulation of both content and viewer. Here's a story which is told to us unchronologically, with the filmmaker handing out information on characters and plot little by little, crumb by crumb until everything builds up to one of the best twists in any film which will leave you wanting to rush back into the cinema straight after the end credits have rolled. The horror of the unfolding events never quite sinks in until the very last shot and characters you perceived a certain way change radically so that y