Shifting awkwardly from solid crime-busting drama to cartoonish, ultra-violent action film, Gangster Squad doesn’t know if it wants to be The Untouchables or Dick Tracy. Allegedly based on fact, the film depicts the nefarious empire of gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn) a vicious New York hood and former boxer who, in the late 40’s, set up his own chapter of
Read moreAs a 3d animated film about a bullied kid combating creatures rising from the grave, Paranorman is like a less gothic cousin to Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. Norman (voiced by Kodi Smit-McPhee) is an introverted kid who, like Hayley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, sees dead people. His abilities make him an outcast at home and at school but also
Read moreHitchcock, is a prosaic but still engrossing biopic of the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock (played here by Anthony Hopkins). Based on the critically acclaimed Stephen Rebello book “Alfred Hitchcock and the making of Psycho”, the film doesn’t provide an overview of Hitchcock’s life but instead focuses on a pivotal segment of it, in this case the making of what is
Read moreThe lengthy right-wing revenge fantasy Jack Reacher brings to the screen the violent antics of a character who has appeared in 17 novels by author Lee Child. In the title role, Tom Cruise plays a former soldier now drifter who goes from town to town having adventures just like Bill Bixby in The Incredible Hulk. In this film he’s called
Read moreThis Friday on Built For Speed we play cover versions (and a few lesser known original versions) of some of our favourite songs. There’ll be tracks from Placebo, The Pixies, You Am I and many more. We also take a look at Ang Lee’s adaptation of the best selling novel Life of Pi. On a slightly different note we review low
Read moreAdaptations of massively popular contemporary novels are dubious prospects as evidenced by the dreary film version of The Da Vinci Code. So it was with some trepidation I settled in for Ang Lee’s movie version of Yann Martel’s biblically themed adventure novel Life of Pi. I hadn’t read the novel but from the trailer I feared its story of one
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