<i>Conan the Barbarian</i> is not all that barbaric, despite all the limb-severing and so forth.
In <i>Retribution</i>, the national film fund has backed another ‘crisis of masculinity’ film, argues <b>Gillian Schutte.</b>
Two movies this week deal with the way the past can haunt the present, and both in the context of countries with a history of political violence.
<em>The Tree of Life </em>seems to linger lovingly over itself, especially its own awed pondering.
The Out in Africa film festival is now staggered throughout the year, and <i>Leave It on the Floor</i> is the festival offering currently on show.
What an odd movie <i>The Beaver</i> is. Not just that title, in which most Americans would hear the echo of porno-slang, but also its very idea.
<i>Biutiful</i> is sometimes beautiful – and sometimes exasperating, questionable and absurd.
<i>Win Win</i> proves that a quirky approach does not necessarily save a film from irritating banality.
<i>Transformers: Dark of the Moon</i> should be on Ritalin, or whatever it is they give hyperactive kids nowadays.
<i>Green Lantern</i> features a host of old clichés, has a weak story, and doesn’t look terribly good either.
This month sees the publication of a selection of Shaun de Waal’s movie reviews.. Here he writes about the business of film criticism.
If the technology in <i>Source Code</i> is anything to go by, you, too, could be possessed by Jake Gyllenhaal in the near future.
<em>The Adjustment Bureau</em>, the new Matt Damon vehicle, is all <em>deus ex machina </em>and not much else.
<i>X-Men: First Class</i> has enough action to keep the fight fans happy, and sufficient use of special effects to beguile the sensation-seeking eye.
Joe Wright’s self-conscious assassin movie <em>Hanna</em> is too boring to be a proper thriller and too goofily hectic for anything grander than that.
<b>Shaun de Waal</b> wonders if he would be able to last through the whole <i>Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides</i>.
<i>The Way Back</i> is heartfelt and well executed, but falls down on a lack of personal intensity.
A very good film, slightly overpraised, has been remade as a slightly good film, very overpraised.
Films like this put <b>Shaun de Waal</b> in a state of mind guaranteed only to generate maudlin laments for the decline of Western civilisation.
No image available
/ 7 December 2010
Arts editor <b>Lisa van Wyk</b> peeks through the looking glass at the blockbusters that made 2010.
ON CIRCUIT: <i> The Bank Job</i>, <i>Drillbit Taylor</i> and <i>Journey to the Centre of the Earth</i> are reviewed.