Category Archives: Film

The Leisure Seekers. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Helen Mirren, Donald Sutherland, Christian McKay, Janel Moloney, Dana Ivey, Dick Gregory, Leander Suleiman, Ahmed Lucan, Gabriella Cila, David Silverman, Lucy Catherine Haskill, Joshua Hoover, Kirsty Mitchell.

We all have that final dream within us, that if the moment comes when we are told there is no hope, that we fight to make hope ours, we go out of the way to remind people that once upon a time, we were incredible and that we should go out the same way, right to the end and the final breath, we must go out the same way we came into the world, as The Leisure Seekers, of always learning, always striving to improve, of seeing hope as our friend.

The Leisure Seekers. Film Review. full post

(462 words, estimated 1:51 mins reading time)

Rampage. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Naomi Harris, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Malin Ackerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, Marley Shelton, P.J. Byrne, Demetrius Grosse, Jack Quaid, Breanne Hill, Matt Gerald, Will Yun Lee, Bruce Blackshear, Jason Liles.

The arcade game to which this film takes its name and part of its premise, has all but been lost to the depths of time, a classic of the back street shops that held deep fascination for those who were brought up in an era when gaming was social, your attention divided between the now retro classic, the music and infectious beat and doing your best in front of a crowded room and the urging of friends behind your shoulder to beat the score set by local and undefeated champion of the local arcade.

Rampage. Film Review. full post

(401 words, estimated 1:36 mins reading time)

A Quiet Place. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Emily Blunt, John Krasinski, Noah Jupe, Millicent Simmonds, Leon Russom, Cade Woodward, Doris McCarthy.

We make too much noise, the world is permanently awake through the need to be heard, to have our ideas, our wishes and dreams explored and sung from the highest possible place and to have it echo through other’s ears. We are getting louder, as a species we are dominant in the sound that we create and soon even that quiet place of contemplation we seek, is not going to be a haven of tranquillity, it is going to be a prison in which we realise we have squandered a great gift.

A Quiet Place. Film Review. full post

(485 words, estimated 1:56 mins reading time)

Ghost Stories. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Andy Nyman, Martin Freeman, Paul Whitehouse, Alex Lawther, Paul Warren, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Nicholas Burns, Louise Atkins, Lesley Harcourt, Amy Doyle, Deborah Wastell, Daniel Hill, Christine Dalby, Jill Halfpenny, Billy Sneddon, Maggie McCarthy, Joe Osborne, Maria Major, Ramzan Miah, Benji Ming, Emily Carding, Leonard Byrne, Macie Allen, Ryan Oliva, Samuel Bottomly, Jake Davies, Oliver Woollford, Callum Goulden, Mike Aarons, Derren Brown, Anthony Davis.

Ghost Stories. Film Review. full post

(551 words, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

Blockers. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating *

Cast: Leslie Mann, John Cena, Romana Young, Kathryn Newton, Ike Barinholtz, Gina Gershon, June Diane Raphael, Gary Cole, Miles Robbins, Geraldine Viswanathan, Graham Phillips, Gideon Adlon, Hannibal Burgess, Colton Dunn, Sarayu Blue, Jake Picking, Jimmy Bellinger.

Think of all the times you have been somewhere and you have felt the excruciating wrench in your stomach which says, you made a wrong choice bud, you messed up pretty good, and the final demand of, well perhaps it cannot get any worse. There have been many moments of those in cinema, there will be a plethora, a veritable feast of cringe more in the big screen’s future but few arguably will surely be seen in the light of day, be buffeted the cold wind of slapped foreheads, than the intensely unlikeable Blockers.

Blockers. Film Review. full post

(454 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Pacific Rim Uprising. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Burn Gorman, Charlie Day, Tian Jing, Zin Zhang, Adria Arjona, Rinko Kikuchi, Karen Brar, Wesley Wong, Ivanna Sakhno, Mackenyu, Lily Ji, Shyrley Rodriguez, Rahart Adams, Levi Meaden, Dustin Clare, Chen Zitong.

There are films that come out of the imagination in which the viewer is perfectly aware of the debt they owe to other cinematic releases, of the plot line and the likelihood of the character’s chances of survival, of the overall plot line, whether it be paper thin or elaborately complex in the writer’s eyes, such films are bread and butter, they are the popcorn and the go to safety net in which to feel the thrill but not ask too many questions afterwards.

Pacific Rim Uprising. Film Review. full post

(493 words, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Unsane. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Sarah Stiles, Marc Kudish, Amy Irving, Colin Woodell, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Linda Mauze, Zach Cherry, Polly McKie, Jay Pharoah, Raúl Castillo, Juno Temple, Michael Mihm, Robert Kelly, Natalie Gold, Sol Marino Crespo, Will Brill, Stephen Maier, Matthew R. Staley, Matt Mancini, Emily Happe, Gibson Frazier, Erin Wilhelmi, Aimee Mullins, Joseph Reidy, Erika Rolfsrud, Elizabeth Goodman.

Unsane. Film Review. full post

(529 words, estimated 2:07 mins reading time)

Black Panther. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, Florence Kasumba, John Kani, Stan Lee.

 

It has taken time to get the film right, to put into place a mainstream film in which, not with-standing the excellent Wesley Snipes led Blade trilogy of films, has cast a superhero in which the cinematic experience is one of overwhelming joy, of learning the lessons shared with positive enlightenment and one that does not bow to the demands of absolute anger, Black Panther is a film in which the rise of the proud and the noble who have fought every inch of the way for such a moment will relish, and quite rightly so.

Black Panther. Film Review. full post

(532 words, estimated 2:08 mins reading time)

Tomb Raider (2018). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristen Scott Thomas, Derek Jacobi, Billy Postlethwaite, Josef Altin, Jaime Winstone, Samuel Mak, Sky Yang, Civic Chung, Maisy De Freitas, Emily Carey, Nick Frost.

 

When the action on screen is more enjoyable than the overall story; that is the time in which to surrender the plot and just get out of the film what you can. It happens more often than you might think but rarely in such a brazen way in which the reboot of Tomb Raider has foisted upon the world and if it wasn’t for the admittedly spectacular stunts pulled off in part by Alicia Vikander, the whole film could be seen as a dramatic failure, only kept alive by the fandom of the indomitable presence that Lara Croft has had on the games industry across three decades.

Tomb Raider (2018). Film Review. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

I, Tonya, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Julianne Nicholson, Paul Walter Hauser, Bobby Cannavale, Bojana Novakovic, Caitlin Carver, Maizie Smith, Mckenna Grace, Joshua Mikel.

Life is a circus that is often played out to the tune of someone else’s calling, rebel in any shape of form, become a thorn in the side of authority, and you end up paying the heaviest of penalties, whether you deserve them or not. To rebel against the system is everyone’s right, find your own tune to dance to, but when it goes wrong, there is nothing you can do but blame yourself.

I, Tonya, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(577 words, estimated 2:18 mins reading time)