Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Adepero Oduye, Paul Giamatti, Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Chris Chalk, Michael K. Williams, Kelsey Scott, Alfre Woodward, Quvenzhane Wallis, Devyn A. Taylor, Cameron Zeigler, Rob Steinberg, Jay Huguley, Christopher Berry, Bryan Batt, Bill Camp, Dwight Henry, Ruth Negga.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ken Stott, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Benedict Cumberbatch, James Nesbitt, Sylvester McCoy, Lee Pace, Stephen Fry, Luke Evens, Graham McTavish, William Kircher, Stephen Hunter, Dean O’ Gorman, Aiden Turner, John Callen, Peter Hambleton, Jed Brophy, Mark Hadlow, Adam Brown, Mikael Persbrandt, Ryan Gage.
There is no better way to round off an outstanding year in cinema that too return to the Lonely Mountain, through a forest of spiders and a tangle with the web that Elvish Men weave and via one of the finest dialogues captured throughout the whole of the Lord of the Rings trilogies and a journey involving a reluctant thief, a Wizard and a gang of Dwarves than to immerse yourself fully into the world of The Hobbit, The Desolation of Smaug.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacy Keach, Bob Odenkirk, Mary Louise Wilson, Missy Doty, Angela McEwan, Rance Howard, Devin Ratray, Roger Stuckwisch, Tim Driscoll, Glendora Stitt, Elizabeth Moore, Kevin Kunkel, Dennis McCoig, Ronald Vosta, John Reynolds, Jeffrey Yosten, Neal Freudenburg, Eula Freudenburg, Ray Stevens, Lois Nemec, Francisco Mendez, Jose Munoz, Catherine Rae Schutz, Terry Lotrous, Dennis McCave.
If the latter part of 2013 has anything to show for it then the quality of films that have come out in the last six months have been exemplary. None so less as the Alexander Payne film Nebraska.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Annie Buckley, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Bradley Whitford, Ruth Wilson, Melanie Paxson, Victoria Summer, Kathy Baker, Rachel Griffiths, Dendrie Taylor, Kimberly D’Armond.
Saving Mr. Banks is a film that exemplifies the thought that somewhere between novel and film the life of the author is lost in the complexity of producing a cinema hit. The life of the writer, whose soul is poured into the painful birth of producing something that in a lot of cases is a cathartic way of exorcising a childhood memory, is overlooked. Cinema audiences, perhaps comforted in many cases by the end result, neglect the person who gave them the character in the first place.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney, Ed Harris, Orto Ignatiussen, Phaldut Sharma, Amy Warren, Basher Savage.
There are seminal moments in cinema, moments of pure genius that you have to applaud and make note of to tell your grandchildren just how exceptional the film was so they can be inspired to find their own defining film moment. The instant when you knew that all your cinema going days had been but a test for your senses to get acclimatised to for the sheer majesty that is about to hit them in Alfonso and Jonas Cuaron’s mouth-watering, jaw dropping, heart thumping spectacle, Gravity.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Judi Dench, Steve Coogan, Mare Winningham, Michelle Fairley, Neve Gachev, Charlie Murphy, Simone Lahbib, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Charles Edwards. Xavier Atkins, Wunmi Mosaku, Alan Davis.
True stories that are given celluloid treatment usually veer into the realms of films that gloss over certain aspects of life just in case it upsets someone of a particular calling, not so in the case of Philomena. This is a film that doesn’t shy away from the monstrous way in which some girls were treated in Ireland when they became pregnant.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M.Ali, Michael Chernus, David Warshofsky, Corey Johnson, Chris Mulkey, Yul Vazquez, Max Martini, Omar Berdouni, Mohamed Ali, Issak Farah Samatar, Catherine Keener.
It seems that no matter what, Tom Hanks is able to draw the viewer in completely into his world, whether in the imagination of a child but in the body of a grown man, a corporate lawyer who contracts HIV in a time of misunderstanding and fear or as Captain Phillips, a veteran freight captain, he has it all.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Jim Broadbent, Lindsay Duncan, Jeff Goldblum, Olly Alexander, Brice Beaugier, Xavier De Guillebon, Marie-France Alvarez, Denis Sebbah, Charlotte Léo, Lee Breton Michelsen, Sébastien Siroux
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Mario Bello, Terrance Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, Dylan Minnette, Zoe Borde, Erin Gerasimovich, Kyla Drew Simmons, Wayne Duvall, Len Cariou, David Dastmalchian, Jeff Pope.
There is nothing more emotionally complex or disturbing than the chance that your child may be taken from you by a person or person’s unknown. Just the thought of it is enough to give people nightmares and keep their children under close supervision. Denis Villeneuve takes this fear and gives it added depth, unblemished and raw treatment to make the thriller genre stand up and take notice of how these sensitive subjects should be approached in the film Prisoners.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Alec Baldwin, Sally Hawkins, Andrew Dice Clay, Bobby Cannavale, Max Casella, Michael Stuhlbarg, Joy Carlin, Peter Sarsgaard, Richard Conti, Annie McNamara, Daniel Jenks, Glen Caspillo, Tammy Blanchard, Kathy Tong.
Every male director needs his absolute leading lady, every screenwriter needs the one person who can carry a film from start to finish and have the audience utterly absorbed by that person’s story. Woody Allen, long since one of the masters of this art, has perhaps the distinction of being able to bring the very best out of the actors who grace his films. The excellent Diane Keaton stands out in his early works as being a gem of comedy and now as Woody Allen comes to the other side of his long career, the outstanding Cate Blanchett gives one of the finest performances of her life in the superb Blue Jasmine.