TheRetroCritic

With the current political climate the way it is, there couldn't have been a better time to release The Post , Steven Spielberg's dramatic account of when The Washington's Post released leaked documents exposing a massive cover-up linked to the Vietnam War in the early 70's. Meryl Streep plays Katharine Graham, who became the owner of The Washington Post following her husband's death, and Tom Hanks is the newspaper's editor in chief Ben Bradlee. The latter is looking to elevate The Post beyond dealing with relatively trivial stories and constantly reacting to other publications' breaking news. When an ex-military analyst leaks documents to The New York Times proving current and past Presidents knew the Vietnam War was a disaster and still sent troops despite it being a lost cause, Richard Nixon's administration attempts to intimidate The Washington Post into not releasing more files. As Bradlee and his team rush to gather the rest of the leaked doc

Denzel Washington stars in this remake of The Manchurian Candidate which sees a group of soldiers come home after the war only to find that they all start having the same nightmare which makes them suspect that some kind of brainwashing happened along the way. After a bizarre encounter with Jeffrey Wright's soldier, who has pretty much lost it completely, Washington decides to try and make contact with Liev Schreiber's co-veteran, who has since moved on to working in politics. Under the supervision of his controlling mother, played by Meryl Streep, Shreiber is leading a campaign to become the new Vice President. But he slowly starts to remember the nightmares Washington mentions which paint him not as a war hero but as something else entirely. What follows is a thriller not so much focused on action as it is focused on the core mystery. The film is directed by Jonathan Demme ( Silence Of The Lambs ) and he handles the growing paranoia well despite the post-Gulf War settin

Upon hearing that a movie adaptation of Lemony Snicket's A Series Of Unfortunate Events starring Jim Carrey was in the works, I was excited to say the least. In case you don't already know: A Series Of Unfortunate Events is awesome. The books, I mean. The film... slightly less. Which is not to say that it's bad in any way or that I don't like it, quite the opposite. It's just that the film's overall more lighthearted approach took a lot out of what claimed to be a dark, super-downbeat tale of how unfair, cruel and miserable the world can be to innocents who deserve better. The film's admittedly clever opening, which tricks us into watching a ridiculously cute, colourful and happy cartoon before slapping us in the face with a rather gloomy Jude Law voice over and warning us about the unpleasantness of the story about to follow, is perfect and captures the spirit of the books really well. While characters in the film refer to some horrible things t

Time to go Into The Woods ! And home before dark.

If you go watch Into The Woods today... You might leave with mixed feelings. Adapting Stephen Sondheim's musical to the big screen was always going to be a challenge seeing as the whole thing's like one big song sung by loads of main characters, each of them doing their own thing at the same time around a purposely convoluted plot. As the film is an hour shorter than the play, a lot of songs and plot threads were always going to get the chop and this could have easily destroyed a film with a lot of potential. Luckily, director Rob Marshall has his share of experience making movie musicals ( Chicago , Nine ) so he keeps the film afloat through succesfully capturing the essence of the stage play and getting the best out of his all-star cast. The songs are as endearing and catchy as ever from the long opening ensemble number "Prologue: Into The Woods" to the heartbreaking "Stay With Me" and the upbeat "Giants In The Sky", not to mention The Wo