Film Reviews by AER

Unusual low-budget with big stars, Werner Herzog's story of a San Diego murder centres around a convincing and demented turn from Michael Shannon. Having murdered his mother, th emad man holes up in his house taking two mysterious hostages. Sadly, this suffers in the telling, with a fragmented approach that offers events in flashback and from different POVs. At times it's very abstract too. It's a stuttering film that would have benefitted from a straighter approach. I can't fault the acting and the script though. Great to see Udo Kier in a large supporting role.

I really wanted to like Proxima given its interesting concept of an astronaut's relationship with her child as they prepare for a year's separation. A miscast Eva Green plays the astronaut and Matt Dillon is the mission commander. It's filled with plot inconsistencies and a lack of depth. It's a shame that much of this lies on the surface. Matt Dillon is also saddled with a badly-fitted role. His astronaut is sexist and fairly unlikeable. It's a shame as the training exercises are interesting to watch and the hardware is very cool. It's well-made but somehow slight and unconvincing. Shame as the subject matter betrays something a little more interesting.

Intriguing American indie about the rare cultural phenomenon of the broadcast disturbance. A video archivist gets obsessed with finding out the origins of a series of broadcasts breakins that took place in the late 80s and mid 90s. Some brilliant twists along the way, and an air of creepiness. There's something not quite right about the actors though, I couldn't get immersed. And the score was OTT. Interesting but not a groundbreaker.

This very funny story is about a poison pen letter case in 1920s Sussex. It's only when the film occasionally veers away from the humour does it falter. The cast is very funny and it's all very Brit-com. Enjoyable and worth a look if you can handle all the very blue language.

Well I didn't know John Travolta and Stephen Dorff had another good film in them, but this standard crime thriller is very watchable. It's mostly predictable and is largely on the surface this still stands head and shoulders above most DTV films of its type. The director clearly has aspirations to be taken seriously and he has been gifted great performances by the entire cast from Shiloh Fernandez and Kevin Dillon to bit part players. It's way better than I hoped for. Unlike other low-budget films that put all the action in the trailer and really sex it up and misrepresent the goods, this has lots of cool car chases and shoot outs. A diamond in the ruff. Just don't go in expecting originality.

At least this sequel had a few tricks and twists up its sleeve than Guillermo del Toro's noisy and tedious first film. However, this one is still full of boring non-characters and a crap script to ruin everything, This and never-ending CGI-heavy action sequences. These films would work better as animation movies because as film-real spectacles they don't convince, I mean how could they?

Uninvolving and ridiculous thriller with unlikely plot turns and huge lapses in logic. Nothing makes sound sense when you stop for a minute to recap on what you've just seen. Nothing adds up and it's all for nothing. I hate these kind of thrillers.

One of Disney's biggest ever flops isn't actually that bad. Seen in isolation without any context or outside the release schedule, this unfashionable sci-fi film is very weird and creative. The plot is rather standard but that's perhaps because it's based on a very old book by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The tale of a 18th century explorer who gets teleported to Mars is a very interesting concept - but on the whole the story doesn't offer much new. It's the standard Avatar, Dances With Wolves, The Last Samurai style plot of the outsider that leads a lesser tribe against an opressor. Much of the cast are saddled with thankless support roles / voice work pity the mighty Art Malik as a bumped-up extra in one short scene. Lots of the scenes are action packed and there's lots to look at - it's fun but it's not very memorable.

I am laughing at how the other reviewer took this film so literally. Besides that, this movie is a lot of fun - it follows a bored psychiatrist that meets a completely insane red head and follows his lead just for kicks. After pointing him at a few situations to get the mad man out of his shell, the psychiatrist both joins in the mayhem and takes a back seat to see what will happen next. It's a road movie of sorts that takes you to some messed up places. The ending is great. I'd never heard of this film before and I can't even remember adding to my cinema paradiso list. I've already recommended it to my ginger mates.

With strong female leads,THE END WE START FROM is loose-limbed like the book it's based upon. The crisis of the world in peril is seen sparingly and abruptly in the background and this makes the film more interesting than many of the pack of end of the world movies and TV shows doing the rounds. Strong performances make up for a simple and thin plot throughline. This more abstract and painterly than other films in the genre, yet I found it was all the more effective for it. There's food for thought here, but it needed to be louder and a bit more dramatic to be memorable and hit home more astutely with it's world in peril message.

I saw GO back when it was released at the cinema and I thought it was great. All these years later I decided to revisit it. Of course, it's dated, very of its time but the sheer levels of comedic mayhem and the wrought script make this worthwhile, still. The superb cast keep you glued to the screen - and it's interesting to see actors who were hot and upcoming at the time - Sarah Polley and Timothy Olyphant are probably the most prolific (still) these days as many have faded from view for various reasons like Katie Holmes for instance. Special mention to William Fichtner as a very creepy cop who comes top of the pile in a real rogues gallery of brilliant movie characters. It's very 90s but hey, I don't mind.

Fast-paced, very funny, dated humour at times, and entertaining after all these years. Was this Doug Liman's second film as director after Swingers?

I enjoyed this American romcom a lot more than I thought I would. The first 90 minutes or so is very funny, with some funny twists and turns. I was almost thinking of it as a romantic version of Magnolia or Todd Solondz's Happiness. The cast is great and the script very sharp, however, the last 20 minutes resorts to crass formula where characters conform to cliche and it all goes a bit corny and limp (and vaguely creepy in more than one plot strand). So whilst this is better than the majority of American comedies, I wish it had kept its nerve and its sweetness to go the distance. There's also too many plotholes for this to be fully effective - it would've been better to leave a few plotthreads untied...

Close but no cigar my friend. Corny, creepy vs funny and sharp....

I vaguely remember when this came out on the cinema and I really wanted to see it - I think I may have seen it sometime over the years but I can't remember. I think this is possibly Sam Raimi's worst film by a long chalk. Bad SFX (even for the 80s), a terrible script, lazy plot, very very bad acting from everybody concerned, even the cat. If you are looking for evidence that Comic Book Superhero Movies were once written off as crap then look no further - this is Exhibit A. Even the worst MCU/DC isn't as bad as this. Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, and Colin Friels have never been worse. Only Larry Drake is worth a look, as well as a cool Bruce Campbell walk-on at the end.

Very sh*t.

For the first half, Argylle is very entertaining and fun to watch. However a twist around the halfway mark bins anything interesting and sets a course towards generic SFX-laden action. Not all is lost though, a few action sequences stand out but on the whole, this could've been way better if it stuck to its guns and knew where its strengths lay. Sam Rockwell, Bryce Dallas Howard and Bryan Cranston are all good, so the most undemanding viewer might find some things to enjoy.

5 out of 10

Perhaps one of the finest films about Auschwitz. It's a question of what makes us a monster and what makes us human - and that its possible to be both. It's an astonishing film that everyone should see and all the more pertinent given the current political climate. 10/10