The Forest (15A) Horror films aren’t my preferred genre. You can be brave in a cinema seat in the middle of the day with a bag of popcorn in your hand but when you’re out at the coal shed that night and a squawking cat upsets a bin-lid you’re liable to jump a foot in…
The Oscar ceremonies are taking place on February 28 this year but I don’t think I’ll be booking my seat, despite all the Irish nominations for Room and Brooklyn, etc. Spike Lee and Will Smith are boycotting the event because of the virtual exclusion of black performers this year. This isn’t the only prejudice it’s…
Oddball and the Penguins (G) Foxes are killing baby penguins on their colony on Middle Island, which is off the coast of the south-western Australian town of Warrnambool. There used to be thousands of penguins there. Now they’re in danger of extinction, the predatory foxes making their way across the shallow channel from the mainland…
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (G) We’ve had dinosaurs ruling the Earth. We’ve had robotoid cowboys on a virtual reality game show. We’ve even, for God’s sake, had vampires from outer space. But what filmgoers really needed was, yes, an episode of American Idol featuring a trio of singing chipmunks. This is what’s…
Point Break (12A) Patrick Swayze, who died of cancer at the age of 57 in 2009, was by all accounts a very nice guy. He had three major hits in a stop-go career: Ghost, Dirty Dancing and Point Break. They’ve now re-made the latter and given it the proverbial ‘big treatment’. It deals with a…
The dangers inherent in sport are something we’re all increasingly aware of, not only in boxing and rugby but also American football, despite the amount of protective headgear the players wear. The subject takes on a dark complexion in Concussion (12A), based on a true story. Will Smith plays Dr Bennet Omalu, a Nigerian pathologist…
Cometh the man, cometh the moment. Ever since Leonardo DiCaprio was nominated for an Oscar for his touching portrayal of Johnny Depp’s mentally-handicapped brother in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape in 1993 I’ve been wondering when the erstwhile Boy Wonder of cinema would slough off that bothersome tag. He’s threatened to do so in a raft…
The Revenant (16)
Joy (12A) A few short years ago, Jennifer Lawrence was just another ‘wannabe’. Today, she’s one of Hollywood’s most high-profile (and sought-after) stars. How has she essayed such a seismic shift so suddenly, going from jobbing actress to prestigious A-lister? She isn’t quite sure herself. “It’s a bit like a job promotion,” she says. “You…
The poor, they say, we will always have with us. And it seems we’ll always have Rocky Balboa with us as well. How many incarnations has Sylvester Stallone’s ever-resilient pugilist had since his first appearance on our screens in 1976? In Creed he plays the mentor of a boxer called Apollo Creed whose father died…