Tag Archives: Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T.

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Michael Keaton, Emma Stone, Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Andrea Risborough, Zach Galifianakis, Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Shamos, Kenny Chin, Jamahl Garrison-Lowe, Katherine O’ Sullivan, Damian Young, Keenan Shimizu, Akiro Ito, Natalie Gold, Merritt Weaver, Michael Siberry, Clark Middleton, Amy Ryan, William Youmans, Paula Pell, David Fierro, Hudson Flynn, Warren Kelly, Joel Marsh Garland.

Some films are just so perfect that the ideology behind them, the message they are meant to represent, doesn’t matter. What matters is the substance, the overall feel in which they leave the audience fulfilled and more content than being told they could eat whatever they wanted over the festive period, it wouldn’t show up as weight gained on the scales at home.

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

(650 words, estimated 2:36 mins reading time)

Exodus: Gods And Kings, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul, Ben Mendelsohn, Maria Valverde, Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, Hiam Abbass, Isaac Andrews, Ewen Bremner, Indira Varma, Golshifteh Farahani, Ghassan Massoud, Tara Fitzgerald, Dar Salim, Andrew Tarbet, Ken Bones, Hal Hewetson.

For the more sceptical age we find ourselves in, where the world has become more polarised in its disbelief’s as it has in its religious fervour, there is surely room for more interpretation of a contentious event than ever before.

Exodus: Gods And Kings, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(605 words, estimated 2:25 mins reading time)

Big Eyes, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Danny Huston, Krysten Ritter, Jason Schwartzman, Terrance Stamp, Jon Polito, James Saito, Guido Furlani, Madeleine Arthur, Delaney Raye.

True life is a far stranger ideal than fiction could ever hope to emulate and perhaps one of the most complex of lives and relationships of the 20^th Century was between the supremely talented Margaret Keane and her plagiarist, obscenely greedy and mentally abusive ex-husband, Walter Keane.

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

(579 words, estimated 2:19 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Nicole Kidman, Michael Gambon, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Peter Capaldi, Imelda Staunton, Matt Lucas, Madeline Harris, Samuel Joslin, Matt King, Tim Downie, Geoffrey Palmer, Jim Broadbent, Michael Bond, Alice Lowe, Simon Farnaby, Dominic Coleman, Will Smith, Javier Martez.

In even the most unassuming of people, there is the potential for greatness and joy. The tales of Paddington Bear are amongst the most loved in children’s literature television, and yet the stories are so well imagined and presented, that like all the best characters from British Literature they appeal right across the age spectrum and the latest incarnation for the cinema is just as enjoyable and just as much fun as an audience member could ever hope for.

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

(595 words, estimated 2:23 mins reading time)

The Hobbit, The Battle Of The Five Armies, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Luke Evans, Richard Armitage, Lee Pace, Cate Blanchett, Orlando Bloom, Benedict Cumberbatch, Evangeline Lilly, Billy Connolly, Graham McTavish, Ken Stott, Ian Holm, Sylvester McCoy, Ryan Gage, Peter Hambleton, Jed Brophy, William Kircher, Adam Brown, Aiden Turner, Manu Bennett, Hugo Weaving, Dean O’ Gorman, Christopher Lee, James Nesbitt, Stephen Fry, Mikael Persbrandt.

The Hobbit, The Battle Of The Five Armies, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(666 words, estimated 2:40 mins reading time)

St. Vincent, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Bill Murray, Melissa McCarthy, Naomi Watts, Chris O’ Dowd, Terrance Howard, Jaeden Lieberher, Kimberly Quinn, Lenny Venito, Nate Corddry, Dario Barosso, Donna Mitchell, Ann Dowd, Scott Adsit, Reg E. Cathey, Deirdre O’Connell.

Vincent is a man whose life seems to be one of which has gone the way of so many in cities and rural areas in America. The dream that once encapsulated that arguably captured all that was good in the land of the free has soured and gone past its sell-by date, all there is to look forward to for many is the daily existence granted by fate in which the daily struggle is just another excuse to be kicked in the face by a country that has forgotten them.

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

(690 words, estimated 2:46 mins reading time)

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

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank, Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter, Jo Harvey Allen, Barry Corbin, David Dencik, William Fichtner, Evan Jones, Caroline Lagerfelt, John Lithgow, Tim Blake Nelson, Jesse Plemons, James Spader, Hailee Steinfeld, Meryl Streep.

Some films just have the ability to leave an audience member completely unnerved by the message of stark truth that they can feel as though have been hit several times with a jack hammer across the stomach and yet have them pleading for more.

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

(695 words, estimated 2:47 mins reading time)

What We Do In The Shadows, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Jemaine Clement, Taika Waititi, Jonathan Brugh, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stuart Rutherford, Ben Fransham, Jackie van Beek, Elena Stejko, Jason Hoyte, Karen O’Leary, Mike Minogue, Brad Harding, Rhys Darby.

The Mockumentary is one that really divides opinion. There are those that adore the thought of being able to see the ordinary person on the street satirised and lampooned and there are those that find it the lowest form of cerebral wit; however, satire is only truly funny when the foot is being kicked upwards, when it starts kicking downwards that’s when cruelty is allowed to fester and the undeserving get left behind. Satire is at its best when it is aimed at the aloof and genuinely disturbing.

What We Do In The Shadows, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part One, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Donald Sutherland, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Natalie Dormer, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Willow Shields, Sam Claflin, Mahershala Ali, Jeffrey Wright, Paula Malcomson.

The revolution has begun, the Mockingjay stands aloft against a tyrannical elite and Katniss Everdeen is pouting firmly against all the odds and yet something does not sit well in the third film in The Hunger Games series, the bloated sense of being overfed and swollen resonates deep within the heart of Mockingjay Part One.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part One, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

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

The Imitation Game, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Stone, Charles Dance, Alan Leech, Tuppence Middleton, Rory Kinnear, Steven Waddington, Tom Goodman Hill, Matthew Beard, James Northcote, Alex Lawther, Jack Bannon.

Alan Turing was a hero of the British war effort in World War Two. His name is now lauded, researched and cheered for his significant part in saving many millions of lives during the darkest of days that shrouded Europe in a blanket of hate. It was due to fear and mistrust though that eventually saw the Professor take his own life in the cruellest of circumstances under a decade later.

The Imitation Game, Film Review. Picturehouse@F.A.C.T., Liverpool. full post

(630 words, estimated 2:31 mins reading time)