TheRetroCritic

Or, as it should be called: "Look Ma I'm in a European Movie!", The American is an odd creation in that it feels like a French or German thriller produced by Steven Soderbergh with Clooney in the middle of it all. Which is not to say it has no value: it's actually surprisingly tense and gripping even if not much at all actually happens. Clooney once again gives a fair but hardly earth-shattering dramatic performance and makes me wish, once again, that I was watching him in another gloriously wacky Coen Brothers movie. That said, he does well here and clearly enjoys the quirks of being in a European movie (Violante Placido is pretty much naked the entire time). Story-wise: he makes a weapon for some ominous hit-woman, falls in love with a prostitute, speaks to a priest for some reason...and a whole bunch of inevitable yet perplexing stuff happens right at the end. The American won't change your life but occasionally it does surprise you with a nea

This cliché-ridden thriller co-penned by Luc Besson may not be great poetry, it may not have one drop of originality flowing through its veins and it may not be particularly memorable...but it does have Liam Neeson kicking major ass in a way rarely seen from him since Darkman . The film itself has the same plot as, say, every B movie thriller ever made: ex badass loses daughter to gangsters, has to get her back, goes on rampage. If you've seen any Steven Seagal film, Commando or even Edge of Darkness , then you'll know the score. And as clichéd and predictable as it is, it's all worth it to see Neeson electrocute a guy to death and deliver Clint Eastwood-style tough guy lines with an effortless grumble. Brainless but strangely satisfying fast-food action cinema. 

James Franco stars in this decent TV movie about the life of troubled Hollywood icon James Dean. The casting of Franco is perfect and his portrayal is entertaining to say the least. The film itself is the usual biopic template with Dean's daddy issues and his climbing success steadily developed throughout. The film looks great and although it romanticizes a lot of Dean's life, that style feels strangely appropriate. Perhaps the melodramatic nature of Dean's work ( Rebel Without a Cause , East of Eden ) makes it a logical choice and adds a tragic feel to the whole thing. For such a short life as a subject, the film does really well to keep us hooked and although there's the usual name-dropping inevitable with biopics (Martin Landau!) it doesn't overdo it and sticks to the important stuff. Not bad, definitely worth checking out.

Remember Deliverance ? Sure you do. Well Winter's Bone is kind of like living in that world and trying to make sense of your life through communicating with all the creeps and weirdos around you. This is a very simple story told very well. At the heart of it are excellent performances and a subtly haunting overall atmosphere. As we follow our main character through her desperate journey to find her (MIA) father, we slowly come to realise that everyone around her is not what they seem. Every creep has a heart and every seemingly good person is...frankly creepy making her search for anything ressembling sympathy, trust or help a bit of a nightmare to say the least. Overall, Winter's Bone is a great-looking, detailed (yet never cluttered), dark and somewhat depressing little story but one that's definitely worth checking out.

As my endless search for the funniest and best bad movie around continues, I find myself sitting for an hour waiting for some rubbish-looking octopus to show up in a spy movie set in a submarine.  And although the wait is obviously not worth it, there is at least enough silliness involved here to keep me entertained. You've essentially got two movies in one here: a watchable spy TV movie starring a Daniel Craig lookalike as a Russian terrorist and an awfully boring horror B-movie about a giant octopus messing around with a submarine filled with forgettable characters. Putting these two films together, shockingly, doesn't work and you'll soon find yourself not caring about the monster and just wishing you were watching the spy movie instead. Dire special effects, terrible but fun over (and under) acting, evil Daniel Craig dressed-up like an old lady, Carolyn Lowery's slutty "scientist", the line: "She's holding, baby!": there

Colin Firth excels once more with this new, highly lauded effort and provides us with yet another pitch-perfect, smart performance. The film itself is confident, entertaining, well made and amusing if not quite as Earth-shattering as the critics claim. Then again it's Oscar season so why wouldn't they exaggerate a tad? Truthfully, there's not much to this film. Here we have the usual template for a character study: man has problem, gets someone to solve it, problem solved. The journey is very pleasant though and there are good performances all around, especially from Firth and Rush. The film only slightly falters when it attempts to be too cute, which happens a few times and isn't completely necessary as the situation highlighted here is whimsical enough without piling on the "lols". Not much more to say about that one really: it's good, a tad forgettable and of course overrated but good. It's never quite clear what the film is trying to conve

Blaming Twilight entirely for the recent burst of corny teen nonsense (shriek! abs!) is easy but one mustn't forget all the Hannah Montanas and High School Musicals which helped kick start the new trend of (shriek! abs!) pseudo-romantic teen movies. Yes Dear John , I'm pointing at you too. You wartime-set, letter sending...bastard. Anyway, so one could say Twilight is partly to blame for the spread of (shriek! abs!) naivety throughout modern cinema but the real culprit really is Disney. And with the company now proud owner of the rights to Marvel films, god help us all... And so we get to Zac Efron (shirek! abs!). I managed to avoid 17 Again but I have to say the trailer for Charlie St Cloud was unintentionally funny enough to spark my interest. The High School Musical alumni's puppet-like stare and Mentos-selling grin might just provide some welcome comedy! Charlie St Cloud, indeed, was pretty funny. But also pretty harmless. As a film I was expecting something n

Another year, another extended Chanel advert. Unfortunately, unlike Coco Before Chanel , this doesn't have much to work with. What we get is not so much a Chanel biopic as a vague Stravinski biopic awkwardly stuck inside a sexy Chanel bubble. The main problem is that, really, the film has nothing interesting to say: Chanel and Stravinski had an affair...they had sex...buy our perfume! This is literally it. Having said that, Jan Kounen does a remarkable job making such an empty narrative interesting. The cinematography is stylish and well crafted and the score is beautiful. A terrific scene involving a Stravinski concert going awry is definitely a highlight. There's good performances here. Anna Mouglalis' over-cool but genuinely manipulative and really pretty dislikable Chanel is a lot of fun and Mads Mikkelsen conveys a lot with the shameful 5 lines he was given to work with (!). His performance, although practically silent, is nevertheless the most compelling in the e

I have to say after all this talk of Hitchcock this and Hitchcock that I was expecting more than a "guy-in-a-box" concept movie. To give the film credit, for a film set in a coffin it does a good job keeping you entertained throughout. Loved the opening titles...and that's all I can say really. Overall Buried was pretty...pedestrian in its writing, acting and overall storytelling. Didn't think Ryan Reynolds was particularly convincing and a lot of his panting, screaming and heavy breathing felt forced and strangely comical at times. I also felt that the whole Irak setting and terrorist plot was obvious, clumsy and clichéd. Sure the film is a metaphor of the war etc. but it really didn't need to be. It should have just been about a guy in a box, with no recollection of how he got in, trying to call for help only to, at the end, get out and find that he's somewhere he never expected. Like a good episode of the Twilight Zone ! The bad guy on the phone felt s