Category Archives: Film

Borg V McEnroe. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast:  Stellan Skarsgard, Shia LaBeouf, Bjorn Granath, Sverrir Gudnason, David Bamber, Tuva Novotny, Robert Emms, Jane Perry, Colin Stinton, Leo Borg, Scott Arthur, Tom Datnow, Claes Ljungmark, Ian Blackman.

Sport has changed, in many ways it has become sterile, predictable and staid, the problem can be placed at the door of many reasons, some will point the finger at the amount of money flowing into the game of football, motor racing, tennis and all those mass spectator sports in between, the amount of airtime afforded, especially in Europe to football, others will perhaps suggest that the problem lays at the door of personality and rivalry. So little of either, so few names that are willing to go beyond the rehearsed answers, so few that are not ruled by emotion rather than the P.R exercise, sport in many ways was so much more thrilling and dramatic before wall to wall coverage on television.

Borg V McEnroe. Film Review. full post

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

Flatliners (2017). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev, James Norton, Kiersey Clemons, Kiefer Sutherland, Madison Brydges, Jacob Soley, Anna Arden, Miguel Anthony, Jenny Raven, Beau Mirchoff, Charlotte McKinney, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Steve Byers.

The obsession to remake a film is perhaps arguably getting out of hand, it is the current vogue that is spiralling ever onwards and not always for the better. There are some that slip through and the appeal is surprisingly endearing, they grab the attention and add a notch of interest to the cinematic bedpost. However, mostly it an experiment for artistic sake only, to see how another director might envision the response of a character differently or how another person might be used as better plot device.

Flatliners (2017). Film Review. full post

(390 words, estimated 1:34 mins reading time)

American Assassin. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Shiva Negar, Taylor Litsch, David Suchet, Navid Negahban, Scott Adkins, Charlotte Vega.

It becomes a bone in which to gnaw upon when you feel certain parts of cinema toiling away at the rehash button and not finding a way to remark upon the state of the world without being able to demonise and sacrifice the high ideals in which it really should find itself producing. It is a bone that has worn thin in many ways and whilst the opening five minutes of American Assassin has brought the idea of localised terror up to date, the sense in which perhaps the general public should be careful and wary of; it is soon becomes almost a chore in which to continue with.

American Assassin. Film Review. full post

(431 words, estimated 1:43 mins reading time)

Mother!. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * *

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brian Gleeson, Domhnall Gleeson, Stephen McHattie, Kristen Wiig.

It really isn’t saying a lot about a film when you start thinking to yourself as you reflect and muse upon what you have seen, that you ponder that at least it wasn’t as bad as Noah. The story of creation told in a very modern way, in an approach that actually makes more sense for those who might have found something far better to attend than religious studies on a Monday morning, or even those to whom the imagination runs a lot deeper than what we are persuaded to do when considering passages from the Bible.

Mother!. Film Review. full post

(459 words, estimated 1:50 mins reading time)

Going Down With Cassini And Two Mad Men.

We can touch

the brink

of Heaven

and send the machine

to plummet

into the heart of Saturn,

to break our bondage

and be more than just humanity

as Cassini

sends clouds scattering,

yet

we can descend

so low,

to plough the very depths

of Hell

as we think

that

the madness of machine

Armageddon

is somehow suitable

a threat

to contain

two mad men.

 

Ian D. Hall 2017

Going Down With Cassini And Two Mad Men. full post

(72 words, estimated 17 secs reading time)

IT, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, Nicholas Hamilton, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Owen Teague, Jackson Robert Scott, Stephen Bogart, Stuart Hughes, Geoffrey Pounsett, Pip Dwyer, Molly Atkinson, Steven Williams, Elizabeth Saunders, Megan Charpentier, Joe Bostick, Ari Cohen, Anthony Ulc, Javier Botet, Katie Lunman, Carter Musselman, Tatum Lee, Edie Inksetter, Neil Crone, Sonia Gascón, Janet Porter.

 

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

(619 words, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)

Wind River, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Kelsey Asbille, Julia Jones, Teo Briones, Apesanahkwat, Graham Greene, Tantoo Cardinal, Eric Lange, Gil Birmingham, Althea Sam, Tokala Clifford, Martin Sensmeier, Tyler Laracca, Austin R. Grant, Ian Bohen, Hugh Dillon, Matthew Del Negro, James Jordan, Jon Bernthal, Blake Robbins, Norman Lenhart.

 

Wind River, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(555 words, estimated 2:13 mins reading time)

The Limehouse Golem, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, Eddie Marsan, Douglas Booth, Sam Reid, Maria Valverde, Daniel Mays, Henry Goodman, Adam Brown, Morgan Watkins, Damien Thomas, Peter Sullivan, Amelia Crouch, Simon Meacock, Siobhán Cullen, Keeley Forsyth, Mark Tandy, Michael Jenn, David Macey, Craig Thomas Lambert, Levi Heaton, Clive Russell, David Bamber.

 

The Limehouse Golem, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(592 words, estimated 2:22 mins reading time)

Logan Lucky. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Seth MacFarlane, Katherine Waterson, John Eyez, Dwight Yoakum, Jeff Gordan, Sebastian Stan, Farrah Mackenzie, Rebecca Koon, Charles Halford, David Denman, Jim O’ Heir, Jack Quaid, Brian Gleeson.

It feels awkward to pull upon a thread which involves Channing Tatum, an actor who can spellbind an audience as Burt Gurney in Hail, Ceasar!, and show absolute aloofness and brilliant cinematic reserve when required in Foxcatcher, and yet to whom will willingly fall back to alleged type on films such as Magic Mike, Jupiter Ascending and White House Down.

Logan Lucky. Film Review. full post

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

American Made. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tom Cruise, Domhnall Gleeson, Sarah Wright, Caleb Landry Jones, Jesse Plemons, Jayma Mays, Connor Trinneer, William Mark McCullough, Benito Martinez, Jed Rees.

 

American Made. Film Review. full post

(503 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)