Movies

Movies about parents struggling to deal with a gravely ill child, who faces a real likelihood of dying, are not meant to be magical, or uplifting, or even comically adroit. But this movie by actor/director Valérie Donzelli (Juliette), and also starring Jérémie Elkaïm (Roméo Benaïm), with whom she has a child, is Continue Reading

This is a romantic comedy that desperately wants you to love it wholeheartedly. From the quirkiness of the Meet Cute (where boy meets girl) where Violet (Emily Blunt) dressed as Princess Diana at a costumed New Year’s Eve party locks eyes across the room with a pink bunny costume-clad Tom Continue Reading

    At last a bigger-than-Ben Hur blockbuster bristling with intelligence, wit and humanity. I have to admit I was sceptical going in that it would be. For one thing, the movie had the malodorous stench of hype laying heavily across it. Secondly, snug within the giddy chaos of all Continue Reading

French cinema has a remarkable gift for crafting understated movies that, despite their under-the-radar approach to storytelling, manage to explore the depth and totality of human experience in a way that Hollywood can only dream about. Delicacy is a worthy heir to this innate French sensibility for subtle yet powerful narratives. Continue Reading

I have long suffered from blockbuster phobia. Too many times I have believed the hype, bravely ventured into the popcorn strewn, choc top infested local multiplex only to find my hopes dashed on rocks so inane they feel like hollow tubes of polystyrene as they crush beneath me. So burned Continue Reading

Expectation can be a curious animal. One one hand it can fill you with joyful anticipation, your mind and pulse racing as you consider how wonderful the show you’re about to watch/the album you’re about to listen to/the book you’re about to read etc will be. The possibilities seem limitless, Continue Reading

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is the sort of movie I am supposed to love. It has the handsome but geeky married fisheries expert, Dr Alfred Jones (the ever delectable Ewan McGregor) whose marriage died long ago, who deserves a second chance at love. The driven but likeable investment consultant, Continue Reading

    To paraphrase Dickens, old age can be the best of times, it can be the worst of times. And so it is for the members of an intrepid group of of British seniors, previously strangers saved for one married couple, who journey to India on the promise of Continue Reading