Category Archives: Film

Captain Fantastic, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Viggo Mortensen, George Mackay, Samantha Isler, Annalise Basso, Nicholas Hamilton, Shree Crooks, Charlie Shotwell, Trin Miller, Kathryn Hahn, Steve Zahn, Elijah Stevenson, Teddy Van Ee, Erin Moriarty, Missi Pyle, Frank Langella, Ann Dowd, Rex Young, Galen Osier, Thomas Brophy, Mike Miller, Louis Hobson, Hannah Horton.

It is on the face of it a seemingly small moment in cinema but Matt Ross’ intelligent and superbly argued script for Captain Fantastic captures the point of individualism and socialism in a world that only wants you to be a drone, a consumer, a person to whom history means nothing and whose appetite for the material and the edible is verging on obese and dangerously unhealthy. It is with a touch of grace that Captain Fantastic turns that rotten ideology on its head and offers a different view on how to live.

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

(452 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Adraina Ugarte, Emma Suárez, Michelle Jenner, Daniel Grao, Rossy de Palma, Inma Cuesta, Dario Grandinetti, Nathalie Poza, Pilar Castro, Susi Sánchez, Augustin Almodóvar, Blanca Parés, Mariam Bachir, Tomás del Estal, Joaquín Notario, Ramón Aguirre.

We may make the decisions that guide us, or at least we may think we do, but ultimately at the end fate may have other ideas and no matter how much try, we cannot be in control of what happens to us or those we hold close.

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

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

Café Society, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

Cast: Jessie Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Ken Stott, Blake Lively, Sheryl Lee, Jeannie Berlin, Todd Weeks, Paul Schackman, Richard Portnow, Sari Lennick, Stephen Kunken, Corey Stoll, Edward James Hyland, Anna Camp, Parker Posey, Howard DiMaria, Kat Edmondson.

Life is built upon scandal and gossip, it requires no payment, it needs no encouragement, like a whisper in the dark, rumour and the chit chat between people is enough to send misinformation around the world quicker than a click of the send button on a keyboard; it is what the world skates around the universe upon and everybody at some point in their lives actively takes part.

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

(451 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

War Dogs, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Miles Teller, Jonah Hill, Bradley Cooper, Ana de Armas, Kevin Pollack, David Packouz, Eddie Jemison, Julian Sergi, Edson Jean, Patrick St. Esprit, Jeremy Tardy, Ashley Spillers, J. B. Blanc, Gabriel Spahiu.

War has always been good for the economy, especially those that want to make a killing. It is no secret that the point of war is not to spread peace but to make money and for some bullets and dollars are all that make sense.

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

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

Suicide Squad, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Jai Courtney, Jai Hernandez, Ben Affleck, Ike Barinholtz, Viola Davis, Common, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Cara Delevingne, Joel Kinnaman, Ezra Miller, Karen Fukuhara.

Take the worst of the worst, the real depths of humanity’s struggle with itself and watch the fur fly, the angst become riddled with pain, glory and sabotage and you have the comic book film of the summer, Suicide Squad. A film that carries on the expanding D.C. universe and which at the back of its mind arguably sees it wanting to desperately take on Marvel at its own game.

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

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

Finding Dory, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Ellen DeGeneres, Ed O’Neil, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, Ty Burrell, Diane Keaton, Eugene Levy, Sloane Murray, Idris West, Rob Peterson, Dominic West, Kate McKinnon, Bill Hader, Sigourney Weaver, Alexander Gould, Torbin Xan Bullock, Katherine Ringgold, Lucia Geddes, William Dafoe, Allison Janney.

Some sequels can justifiably be seen as a marketing tool, a chance to take the public down the same road with just enough plot twists to make it feel new and exciting, and too which the money becomes sly as the franchise becomes all consuming. It is perhaps cynical to think of it that way but it is nonetheless an important factor to remember.

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

(426 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)

Star Trek Beyond, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim, Lydia Wilson, Deep Roy, Melissa Roxburgh, Anita Brown, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Greg Grunberg.

As the 50th anniversary of Star Trek looms closer on the horizon, it is fitting that the latest instalment of the rebooted storyline harks back to a day when the heroes of the piece were fighting not only an unknown enemy but also their own conscious and aspirations.

Star Trek Beyond, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(477 words, estimated 1:54 mins reading time)

The Legend Of Tarzan. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Alexander Skarsgård, Christoph Waltz, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, Sidney Ralitsoele, Osy Ikhile, Mens-Sana Tamakloe, Edward Apegyei, Antony Acheampong, Casper Crump, Adam Ganne, Simon Russell Beale, Djimon Hounsou, Miles Jupp, Jim Broadbent, Christopher Benjamin, Ben Chaplin.

It is arguably one of the most distinctive calls in the history of cinema, a simple cry of masculinity and dominance and yet one that is fuelled by the perversity of European culture making claims on the lives and heritage of Africa in the 19th and 20th Century. Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan is rich in its story telling, if not in the very sentiment of abuse it was trying to dispel in his readers at the time.

The Legend Of Tarzan. Film Review. full post

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

Ghostbusters (2016). Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Chris Hemsworth, Andy Garcia, Neil Casey, Ed Begley Jr, Charles Dance, Zach Woods, John Milhiser, Ben Harris, Karan Soni, Bess Rous, Steve Higgins, , Dave Allen, Kate Dippold, Nate Corddry, Daniel Ramis, Michael McDonald, Pat Kiernan, Adam Ray, Davey Jones, Jaime Pacheco, Ryan Levine, Dan Teicher, Ozzy Osbourne, Theodore Shapiro, Eugene Cordero, Michael Kenneth Williams, Matt Walsh, Annie Potts, Cecily Strong, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver.

Ghostbusters (2016). Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(471 words, estimated 1:53 mins reading time)

The Neon Demon, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Elle Fanning, Karl Glusman, Jena Malone, Bella Heathcote, Abbey Lee, Desmond Harrington, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves, Charles Baker, Jamie Clayton.

The world of modelling and fashion is one in which dreams are made but in which nightmares for many come true. Hedonistic, rebellious and cut throat, someone somewhere will want to kill you just for being thinner and younger than them. In a more gruesome reality than in which famed science fiction spectacular Logan’s Run could muster, that to be over twenty is to be written off by the vogue society, demons will always come home to rule the roost.

The Neon Demon, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(425 words, estimated 1:42 mins reading time)