Plex invites you to an evening at the flicks. Back row. Popcorn and ice cream. Pearl and Dean. If you want to know what we think about new releases, you’re in the right place. Read the review, watch the film and then rate it yourself – see what our cine-literate community has to say.
There are few constants in life; the changing of the seasons, the relentless progression of time and family are but a few. Judd Apatow has always concerned himself with the latter; thematically it’s central to much of his work, but here, as with Knocked Up to which This is 40 acts as a sequel of sorts, he casts real life wife Leslie Mann as main protagonist Debbie and delightful daughters Maude and Iris as her progeny.
Films such as Bulletboy, Kidulthood and Ill Manners were dramas which compellingly portrayed modern London gang culture in a gritty social realist style. Gangs of Tooting Broadway aims at being an addition to this sub-genre but, in style and substance, it more closely resembles a late night edition of Hollyoaks.
Two years ago Senna, which profiled the Brazilian F1 champion, far exceeded box office expectations when it captured the imagination of people with absolutely no interest in racing. McCullin similarly profiles an extraordinary talent who is not as well-known to the general public as he should be and the film deserves to reach as big an audience.
Following a number of thematically similar documentaries (see: Deliver Us From Evil, Hand of God), Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God delves into the root of the Church sex abuse scandal to the first known public protests in the US. Director Alex Gibney not only exposes the sickening abuse of power seen in the priesthood but also reveals the twisted and utterly astounding ways in which the highest echelons of the Vatican protect and abet its criminals.
What is it with choirs these days? No longer just about singing, they’ve become agents of redemption. I blame that Gareth Malone. With his original series The Choir, the BBC’s Sarah Lancaster vehicle All the Small Things and then all his other uplifting choral series, choirs and their life-changing potential have hardly been off our TV screens since 2007. And now Song for Marion takes them to the big screen, to tug at our heartstrings again, though this time with a trio of terrific acting performances that keep sentimentality relatively in check.
Wreck-It Ralph's opening four minutes hit me with an intense sensation of nostalgia. The iconography on display in these scenes spoke directly to my youth, when the only way to get a premium video gaming experience was in an arcade. Within the first handful of scenes, from the charmingly retro graphic of Fix-It Felix Jr. to the bustling scenes of a busy 1980s arcade scene, steadily dwindling to nothing with the passage of time, Wreck-It Ralph had pulled me in. I felt the child-like elation of re-living the awe experienced when entering a busy arcade, overwhelmed by the choice and variety of games on offer, and then the bitter decline of age as that variety gave way to dance-mat simulators and first person shooters.
