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

An exercise in offensiveness

A fitfully engrossing film

A film constantly on the verge of being interesting

Blended (12A) When a couple in a romantic comedy despise each other in the opening scene of a film it’s a pretty safe bet they’re going to fall head over heels in love before the end. This is just one of the unsurprising ‘surprises’ in Blended, which has so many clichéd scenarios it could have been…