Can friends who become lovers preserve their friendship or are the two circumstances mutually exclusive? This was a theme that was explored to some acclaim in When Harry Met Sally. Here it acquires a somewhat different spin. Wallace (Daniel Radcliffe) is a medical student drop-out who's trying to recover from being rejected by his girlfriend.…

"He who searches for God," they say, "has already found him." Or in the words of Christopher Plummer from this whimsical movie: "The pursuit of happiness isn't as important as the happiness of pursuit." Hector (Simon Pegg) is a London psychiatrist.  Like T.S. Eliot's Prufrock, he has his life measured out in coffee spoons. He's good…

The depiction of Our Lady in films has usually been in a secondary capacity to that of Jesus for obvious reasons but there have been a few where she has indeed occupied centre stage, as it were. This was most apparent in The Song of Bernadette (1943) which featured Linda Darnell as the Virgin Mary. This…

Planes: Fire and Rescue (G)

A round-up of summer screenings

A story of passion for music and life

Robert Mitchum once remarked that it was only when he was informed Rin Tin Tin was getting more fan mail than he was that he realised how insane the movie business really was. For those of you too young to remember Rin Tin Tin, he was Hollywood's most famous dog 'star' in the Fifties. Pudsey…

Thereís no fool like an old fool. When Susan Sarandon appeared in Thelma & Louise in 1991 she pushed back the boundaries of the 'buddy buddy' genre by transferring the emphasis from men (where it had primarily resided before) to women. But now, 23 years on, she's tried to re-heat that particular souffle in a…

The Fault in Our Stars (12A) It’s not always a good idea to meet your idols, as they say: the gilt has a habit of rubbing off on your fingers. This is the experience of 18-year-old cancer victim Hazel (Shailene Woodley) after she has an underwhelming rendezvous with Peter van Houten (Willem Dafoe), the ill-mannered author of…

A tale excellently acted and directed