As a tale of loss and love, of obsession and champagne and fraud and violence and frenetic dancing, The Great Gatsby had all the potential for a stunning 21st century, One Percenter update. Luhrmann ALMOST went there with the soundtrack, which is current, blingy, basey and hip-hop. Unfortunately for the rest of the stuff, if…
Read moreInception
OK, so clearly there’s not been an awful lot of movie-watching going on, what with the World Cup and all on our very doorstep. Hence another look at what’s coming at us down the pipe. Inception looks awesome. Mind-shifting thriller. Tick. Ellen Page. Tick. Joseph Gordon Levitt. Tick. Music by Hans Zimmer. Tick. Christopher Nolan…
Read moreBody of Lies
Body of Lies is a strange film that’s handicapped to a degree by the fact that its two towering leads – diCaprio and Crowe – conduct most of their interactions telephonically. DiCaprio plays Roger Ferris, a CIA operative in Iraq who’s distinguished from his fellow countrymen by actually liking the Middle East and Middle Easterners…
Read moreRevolutionary Road
Sam Mendes. Kate Winslow. See? I am not always low brow. In Revolutionary Road, the lovers of Titanic grow up and settle in the suburban precursor to American Beauty. It’s all picket fences, and grey commutes and cigarettes and martinis and shagging the secretary / next-door-neighbour. Prison with tupperware and a manicured lawn. April (Winslow)…
Read moreBlood Diamond
Maybe it’s Leonardo month on DSTV, but this week’s Sunday Night Movie was Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond. Set in the shocking chaos of a West African civil war, a poor fisherman (Djimon Hounsou) is enslaved by rebel forces and made to pan for the diamonds that essentially are funding the insurrection. Having found a diamond the size…
Read moreThe Departed: Art Meets Life
Martin Scorsese’s excellent The Departed was on TV the other night. Set in Boston, the violent tale revolves around a gangster (played smarmy by local boy Matt Damon) who infiltrates the police department and a cop (aced flat and hard by Leonardo DiCaprio) who infiltrates the gangs. When it becomes clear that there’s a mole in each…
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