Film

Winter’s Bone

Posted 2:47am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Tom Ainge-Roy

Directed by Debra Granik. 4/5 Winter’s Bone isn’t by any stretch of the imagination a feel-good movie. That said, those of you who can stomach the ceaselessly grey skies, endlessly bleak atmosphere and uncomfortable realism of an American South steeped in meth addiction are in for a Read more...

The King’s Speech

Posted 2:45am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Sarah Baillie

Directed by Tom Hooper. 5/5 So yeah, The King's Speech won Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor and Screenplay at the Academy Awards last week; I guess it deserves a mention in the hallowed pages of Critic. Not just another “historical drama” (a genre which can be boring), the film Read more...

In A Better World

Posted 2:44am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Nicole Muriel

Directed by Susanne Bier. 4.5/5 Danish drama In a Better World won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe this year for Best Foreign Language Film. With the action divided between small-town Denmark and an African refugee camp, it follows the lives of two children, Christian (William Jøhnk Read more...

Love Birds

Posted 2:39am Tuesday 8th March 2011 by Hamish Gavin

Directed by Paul Murphy. 3/5 Love Birds continues the recent New Zealand trend of lighthearted genre films. Since Sione’s Wedding we’ve had No.2, Boy, Paul Murphy’s Second Hand Wedding and now Love Birds, also directed by Murphy. Starring Rhys Darby and Sally Hawkins, Love Birds Read more...

The Fighter

Posted 4:13am Monday 28th February 2011 by Mike Jensen

Directed by David O. Russell. Hoyts, Rialto 5/5 I went to see The Fighter knowing only that it was a boxing film, that Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale were its stars, and that it was a nominee for an Oscar for Best Picture. Other than that, I had no idea what to expect. So as I watched the Read more...

Black Swan

Posted 4:09am Monday 28th February 2011 by Alec Dawson

Directed by Arren Aronofsky. Hoyts, Rialto 4/5 Darren Aronofsky, who set back the drug consumption of a generation by several years with Requiem for a Dream, has now turned his camera on ballet in Black Swan. Aronofsky certainly did enough to convince me, with my limited knowledge of the art form, Read more...

127 Hours

Posted 4:08am Monday 28th February 2011 by Matt Chapman

Directed by Danny Boyle. Hoyts, Rialto 4/5 How far would you go to survive when you have no hope left? Such is the question that director Danny Boyle raises with his latest film, 127 Hours. Boyle, best known for directing Slumdog Millionaire, chronicles the true-life ordeal of climber Aron Read more...

Soul Kitchen

Posted 4:36am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Edwin Ouellette

Directed by Fatih Akin Rialto 3.5/5 Okay, I know. The title alone might make Soul Kitchen sound like a cross between a lame Snoop Dogg flick and Hell’s Kitchen, but don’t let that ruin your appetite for Fatih Akin’s latest lighthearted comedy. Besides, where Read more...

Step Up 3D

Posted 4:34am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Nicole Muriel

Directed by John Chu Hoyts 1.5/5 The opening sequence of this third installment of the Step Up series is one of those candid camera interview montages, with the characters talking about what dance means to them. They’re speaking from the heart: there’s no doubt the Read more...

Skin

Posted 4:33am Monday 23rd August 2010 by Sarah Baillie

Directed Anthony Fabian Rialto 4/5 kin is a biographical film about the life of Sandra Laing, a ‘coloured’ child born to white parents during the apartheid era in South Africa. Despite her skin being distinctly darker than her parents, an unusual phenomenon, Sandra Read more...