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Posts from the ‘Review’ Category

Middle Men (2009)

Directed by: George Gallo

1 star

If not exactly hot on the heels of The Social Network, then at least tepidly so, comes Middle Men.  In fact it was made earlier than the Facebook story, but did so little box-office business that it escaped most people’s notice. Read more

The Eagle (2010)

Directed by: Kevin Macdonald

3 stars

Marcus Flavius Aquila (Channing Tatum) is a young Roman commander with a big chip on his shoulder: 20 years earlier, his father had been an officer in the Ninth Legion which disappeared in the north of Britain, losing the legion’s precious golden eagle standard in the process. Invalided out of the army after some heroics of his own, Marcus heads north accompanied by a British slave, Esca (Jamie Bell, of Billy Elliot fame), to learn what happened to the legion, recover the eagle and with it his family’s honour. Read more

Animal Kingdom (2010)

Directed by: David Michôd

3 stars

In 1980s Melbourne, seventeen year-old J moves in with his grandmother and her brood of bank-robbing and homicidal sons, when his mother overdoses on heroin (J continues to watch a TV game show as the medics try to revive her). Read more

The Good, The Bad, The Weird (2008)

Directed by: Jee-Woon Kim

3 stars

Frenetic comic-book violence far-east style, with a plot based on The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, but borrowing from Once Upon A Time In The West, Mad Max 2 and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Read more

Meek’s Cutoff (2010)

Directed by: Kelly Reichardt

4 stars

A party of settlers (six adults, one child, assorted livestock) take their wagons across 1840s Oregon, led by their eponymous guide, Stephen Meek.  We first see them making their way across a river, and this seems like a hardship – the three women are shown wading waist-deep through the water, with bundles held precariously on their heads.  But this is the last time they see fresh water in this movie and, as one type of barren landscape gives way to another, we recall the river as a cool, live-giving dream.  Read more