All Film Reviews

A story of a tribe of Amazons in the age of swords and chariots. The film opens with the tribe holding physical contests to select a new queen. Since there are no men in the tribe, they hire men from another nation once a year. After the queen is crowned, the Amazons go to meet a group of Greek soldiers for their annual mating. The king of the Greeks pretends to be a captain and has sex with the queen. Much to the queen's dismay, she quite enjoys having sex with a man. The king recommends to the queen a certain way back home, not knowing there is another tribe of male warriors waiting in ambush. On the way back to their homes, the Amazons are attacked, and they drive off the men. Once home, they decide to pillage the villages of the tribe that ambushed them. The queen bears a male child, who she thinks is left out to die, as male children are not wanted by the Amazons. The queen arranges for another meeting with the Greeks to mate again and also kill them in revenge for their ...

From Scott Cooper, the critically-acclaimed writer and director of Crazy Heart, comes a gripping and gritty drama about family, fate, circumstance, and justice. Russell Baze (Christian Bale) has a rough life: he works a dead-end blue collar job at the local steel mill by day, and cares for his terminally ill father by night. When Russell's brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) returns home from serving time in Iraq, he gets lured into one of the most ruthless crime rings in the Northeast and mysteriously disappears. The police fail to crack the case, so - with nothing left to lose - Russell takes matters into his own hands, putting his life on the line to seek justice for his brother. The impressive cast of Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson are rounded out by Casey Affleck, Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana and Sam Shepard.

In 1970s Iran, Marjane 'Marji' Statrapi watches events through her young eyes and her idealistic family of a long dream being fulfilled of the hated Shah's defeat in the Iranian Revolution of 1979. However as Marji grows up, she witnesses first hand how the new Iran, now ruled by Islamic fundamentalists, has become a repressive tyranny on its own.

After taking a bullet to the head, Salander is under close supervision in a hospital and is set to face trial for attempted murder on her eventual release. With the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his researchers at Millennium magazine, Salander must prove her innocence. In doing this she plays against powerful enemies and her own past.

Bridget Jones’s Diary is a romantic love story comedy from the best selling novel of the same name by Helen Fielding. A chaotic Jones meets a snobbish lawer named Marc and soon he enters into her world of imperfections.

Set in 79 A.D., POMPEII tells the epic story of Milo, a slave turned invincible gladiator who finds himself in a race against time to save his true love Cassia, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant who has been unwillingly betrothed to a corrupt Roman Senator. As Mount Vesuvius erupts in a torrent of blazing lava, Milo must fight his way out of the arena in order to save his beloved as the once magnificent Pompeii crumbles around him.

Based on the best-selling novel by Dennis Lehane, Clint Eastwood's flawless movie adaption of 'Mystic River' is now easily one of my new favourite films.

Here is one of those films that will instantly absorb you in. It's a haunting thriller, undeniably bleak and depressing, well written and acted out brilliantly by an impressive cast. Essentially, it is a murder mystery with a great deal of surrounding tragedy. It all starts when three schoolboy friends Jimmy Markam (Sean Penn), Sean Devine (Kevin Bacon), and Dave Boyle (Tim Robbins) are playing in the street. Jimmy, the leader and the 'tough' one of the group gets his two pals to write their names in wet cement where the pavement is being repaired. Two men pull over in a car, posing as policeman and abduct Dave, the 'frail' and 'weak' boy of the trio. Dave is abused for four days but eventually escapes. This tragic episode forever changes the lives of all three.

In the present day, Jimmy's 19 year daughter is brutally murdered and the three men are suddenly reconnected in life. Dave is a suspect and Sean is now a policeman who is determined to solve the case before Jimmy, now an ex-con, decides to take the law into his own hands.

'Mystic River' is nothing sort of a masterpiece. It's hard for me to imagine any of other actors who could better the performances of the men in this film. In particular, Tim Robbins is brilliant as the tormented male who is still damaged by the childhood rapes that he suffered all those years ago. He deservedly won the best actor award when this movie was released in 2003 to receive much critical acclaim itself including two academy award wins. This is now my favourite Clint Eastwood movie, if you have to see it, you'd be a fool to miss out what is my idea of a perfect film.

Highly recommended!

'Babel' is a slow paced, slightly melancholy film that follows four different stories and the links between them. It is a lot more coherent to watch than '21 Grams' which was made by the same director and makes this more enjoyable as a result. The stories are a touch aimless at times and the endings, whilst linking up well, aren't very powerful. But I guess life is like that, you have events that have a major impact and then you keep on going, plus we are a lot more connected than we first realise. I guess that is what this film is trying to put across. The performances were excellent, especially Chieko, the japanese deaf-mute girl, where you really feel her frustrations and vulnerability and Brad Pitt who is better than I thought he'd be. The soundtrack, which is quite sparse, allowing the atmosphere of the film to permeate through, was moving when it had to be and was far enough in the background when most appropriate. The ending piece of music was especially moving and added perfectly to the final scene. This is a good film and worth a watch, it has no definite beginning, middle and end, but that in no way detracts from the various stories and their impact, although I feel that may have disappointed other reviewers here. Give it a view and decided for yourself, especially if you like the feel of '21 Grams' but not the convoluted or confusing storyline.

This is a very good movie, but was made unnecessarily complicated and confusing by the way the plot alternates between characters and different moments in time. I am not new to facing this technique, which has been used extensively by one of my favorite directors, Quentin Tarantino, and some of the writers I enjoy most, Stephen King and Mario Vargas Llosa. However, in the Tarantino movies and the King books I found enough information to make it relatively easy to follow the events and time periods to which they refer to. I found extremely hard to do this in "21 Grams", as happened when I read the great novel "Conversation in the Cathedral" by Vargas Llosa. After the first thirty minutes in the movie, it all starts to make sense and I was able to enjoy the movie. However, this production could have received five stars instead of four if the beginning was not so tangled.
Paul (Sean Penn) is dying and needs a heart transplant urgently, while his wife Mary is trying to get pregnant before it is too late. Jack (Benicio Del Toro) is an ex-alcoholic and ex-convict, who has recently been fired from his job in a Country Club because of his appearance. When Jack accidentally runs over a man and his two kids, Paul gets his transplant, and the destiny of the two men and the widow become inexorably intertwined. From this point on, we witness the emotions and actions of the survivor, the victim and the man who cannot help feeling guilty.
It is interesting that Del Toro received an academy nomination for this movie and Sean Penn did not. In my opinion, the latter shines brighter and his talent lead to justly winning an Oscar for "Mystic River". "21 Grams" is a movie that deserves to be seen, and I hope that if you find yourself frustrated at the beginning because it is hard to follow, you will hang in there until everything makes sense. I know you will not be disappointed.

Despite their different family backgrounds, four friends grew up together in the wearisome years of the 70s. But as time goes by, each of them takes a different life paths. After enrolling in college, Sang-taek and Jung-ho return to visit Dong-su(Jang Dong-Geon) and Jun-seok(Yu Oh-Seong), only to find one of them in jail and the other on drugs. Slowly life take difficult turns where friends become rivals in the crime world...

Also Known As:	Memory Island, Those Were the Days, Chin Goo
Director:	Gwak Gyeong-Taek
Country of Origin:	South Korea
Genre:	Drama, Action
Language:	Korean
Subtitles:	Korean
Sound:	DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Release Date:	Feb 24, 2014
Publisher:	Contents Zone
Product Made In:	South Korea
Aspect Ratio:	1.85:1
Case:	Lenticular

Region Code: A, NTSC
 Special Features:
- Audio Commentaries
- Interviews
- Behind the Story
- Location
- Dialect
- Deleted Scenes
- Outtakes
- Marketing
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spot

Paul Greengrass' Captain Phillips is the story of a 2009 incident that most people probably still remember, when a group of Somali pirates boarded an American cargo freighter, the Maersk Alabama, and after failing to gain control of the ship, took its captain, Richard Phillips, hostage, resulting in the US Navy mounting an intense rescue operation to recover Captain Phillips. Directed by Greengrass (United 93, The Bourne Ultimatum) from a script by Billy Ray (Breach, The Hunger Games) based on a book written by Phillips and Stephan Talty about the incident, Captain Phillips is a well-crafted, tense docu-drama that captures the intensity of the events as they played out, from the moment the Maersk Alabama first sees the approaching pirate crafts to the moment when Navy Seals make their assault, ending the situation with deadly finality and the successful rescue.

More than anything else, the core of Captain Phillips is the contest of wills that takes place between Phillips (a finely nuanced performance by veteran Tom Hanks) and the pirate leader Muse (an amazingly intense performance by first-time actor Barkhad Abdi). Phillips is determined to do everything he can to keep the pirates from gaining control of the ship and to keep his crew from being captured and held hostage, while