Jude law

Feig is at the top of his game in this riotous crowd-pleaser.

Much like what it portrays, with the war movie there is always a thin line between success and failure. There will always be those that fail to hit the target when victory was so surely within reach. Intention is undermined by incompetence.

Wes Anderson’s films evoke an unusual feeling, entirely separate from any other filmmaker working today and impossible to imitate. That style is refined still further in Anderson’s newest, ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’, which may well be his most mature film made to date.

More than perhaps any other director, the work of Ernst Lubitsch has been the most noticeable influence on Wes Anderson’s style. Though the great German-American writer-director, most prolific in the 1930s and 1940s, was never quite so aesthetically bold in the look of his sets, he too was preoccupied with meticulous staging for comedy within his chosen locales, be they the titular Shop Around the Corner or the Parisian hotel of Ninotchka; The Grand Budapest Hotel is set in a fictional European country, the Republic of Zubrowka, another Lubitsch trait from works like The Merry Widow and The Love Parade, though The Shop Around the Corner happens to be set in the city Anderson’s mountaintop lodging house takes its name from. He garnered the descriptor of ‘the Lubitsch touch’ thanks to the moving sincerity that always made itself evident within even his more broad comedic premises, and Anderson’s own best work is that in which a recognisable humanism always makes itself known and potent even within the stylised stiltedness through which most of his characters are written and performed.

Chances are if you’ve seen a movie in the last 10 years, you’ve heard a Hans Zimmer score. Zimmer, a German composer and music producer, is responsible for over 100 scores since the mid-1980s. He’s one of the most popular composers today, scoring for major directors like Ron Howard, Christopher Nolan, and Guy Ritchie. Most …

As one monthly theme begins, another ends. The former is, of course, Sound on Sight’s monthlong dedication to all films that scare, terrify, or spook us in conjunction with October being the scariest month of the year. (That’s a scientific fact, folks.) The latter is our look at the works of Wong Kar-Wai, inspired by …

t is with a significant pang of regret in 2013 that we bid a fond adieu to director Steven Soderbergh, but at lerast we have the smnall placebo of two remaining films from the incredibly profligate director, beginning with his penultimate film Side Effects. If you’ll excuse the pun I don’t wish to get too ‘side’tracked but I think there are a few crucial items to consider before we delve into the movie itself, a concluding episode to his career which is as expected a superb contemporary drama which springboards into other areas with the dexterous ease of a state drilled East German Olympic gymnast, namely what on earth could drive such a prolific and endlessly inventive cinematic soul into potential big-screen retirement?

Side Effects Directed by Steven Soderbergh Written by Scott V. Burns USA, 2013 What Steven Soderbergh excels in as a filmmaker is in defying expectations. We can spot a Soderbergh film easily enough through his visual markers, whether he’s making a heist film or a lowdown action film or a story set in the world …

Anna Karenina Directed by Joe Wright Written by Tom Stoppard United Kingdom and France, 2012 Joe Wright is, at heart, a flamboyant showman, cut from the same cloth as P.T. Barnum, someone whose florid sensibility is present even in the most down-to-earth literary adaptations, like Pride and Prejudice or Atonement. As such, the deliberately theatrical …

Anna Karenina Written for the screen by Tom Stoppard Directed by Joe Wright UK/France, 2012 For most of its running time, Joe Wright’s version of Anna Karenina takes place within interior confines, with nearly every scene occurring on a set of noticeable stages. There are no attempts to disguise the artificiality of the film’s appearance: …

Anna Karenina Written for the screen by Tom Stoppard Directed by Joe Wright UK/France, 2012 For most of its running time, Joe Wright’s version of Anna Karenina takes place within interior confines, with nearly every scene occurring on a set of noticeable stages. There are no attempts to disguise the artificiality of the film’s appearance: …

360 Written by Peter Morgan Directed by Fernando Meirelles UK/Austria/France/Brazil, 2011 360’s writer Peter Morgan has declared that the film is directly inspired by Reigen, an 1897 play notably adapted to film by Max Ophüls as La ronde in 1950. The title of Morgan’s work, directed by Fernando Meirelles, derives from the 360 degrees of …

  In February, news of an upmost upsetting nature came to light. Barely a month after the second season of Sherlock finished on UK screens, CBS revealed their intention to do a version of the show – Elementary – but based in New York. I’m going to be honest. Quite frankly, the idea may not …

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Written by Michele and Kieran Mulroney Directed by Guy Ritchie USA, 2011 Guy Ritchie’s previous Sherlock Holmes film was marred, especially, by irritating aesthetic choices and an over-reliance on the banter between its leading men. Rather than charming, Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law’s exchanges were instead annoyingly smug, …

Contagion Written by Scott Z. Burns Directed by Steven Soderbergh US, 2011 The big news behind Contagion is its star-studded cast: Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, John Hawkes, Marion Cotillard and Bryan Cranston.  While the performances are exceptional, perhaps lost in the name-dropping is director Steven Soderbergh, who navigates skillfully …

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus Directed by Terry Gilliam A glance at the film posters could almost convince you that a new Harry Potter was upon us. The troubled final film of Heath Ledger prior to his premature death in February of last year has finally been released after a Herculean effort on the part of the …