Movie Review: Goodbye June (2025)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Kate Winslet  

Starring: Kate Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Toni Collette, Helen Mirren, Timothy Spall, Johnny Flynn  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: In England, elderly cancer patient June (Helen Mirren) is hospitalized just before Christmas, and doctors determine that her death is near. Her family gathers, including husband Bernie (Timothy Spall), daughters Julia (Kate Winslet), Molly (Andrea Riseborough), and Helen (Toni Collette), and son Connor (Johnny Flynn). The responsible Julia and highly strung Molly are barely on speaking terms, while Helen is into new age mysticism and Connor suffers from anxieties. From her hospital death bed, June tries to bring the family together.

What Works Well: In her directorial debut, Kate Winslet tries to inject a few flashes of style into the sappy and mundane material, but is hampered by a limited number of sets (most of the drama takes place around June's hospital bed). The stellar cast members do deliver steady performances, and each family member gets a few moments to shine. A bit of spiky humour breaks through the gloom.

What Does Not Work As Well: Quite inferior to similar families-waiting-for-death dramas like Two Weeks, Blackbird, and His Three Daughters, here the characters are stereotypes, the emotions superficial, conflicts are contrived, and the public hospital is remarkably tidy, empty, and attentive. Seemingly intractable years-long disputes are resolved by saccharine soliloquies ("I envy you" is matched by "I work so hard") before being sealed with a hug. The running time is a solid 20 minutes too long, and to triple underline "harried mom" and "circle of life" tropes, most scenes are cluttered with gaggles of children being shuffled in and out of cars and strollers.

Key Quote:

June: Maybe if I'm lucky I'll come back as snow.

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Movie Review: The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

Genre: Crime Mystery Dramedy 

Director: Chris Columbus  

Starring: Helen Mirren, Ben Kingsley, Pierce Brosnan, Celia Imrie, Naomi Ackie  

Running Time: 118 minutes  

Synopsis: At the Coopers Chase retirement home in England, residents Elizabeth (Helen Mirren), Ron (Pierce Brosnan), and Ibrahim (Ben Kingsley) form an amateur club to solve cold murder cases. Elizabeth has mysterious connections in the enforcement world, Ron is a former trade unionist, and Ibrahim is a retired professor. They are soon joined by new resident Joyce (Celia Imrie), a retired nurse. A controversial plan to redevelop Coopers Chase and evict the residents seems to result in a murder, and the amateur sleuths team up with police constable Donna De Freitas (Naomi Ackie) to delve into the case.

What Works Well: This is a lighthearted Agatha Christie-adjacent mystery, riding on effortless star charisma and picturesque English countryside settings. The whodunnit elements are carefully crafted, with enough peripheral but essential characters and motivations to sustain the guessing game. The sub-plots encompass a cold case involving a woman stabbed and thrown from a window, Ron's son (a former boxing contender reduced to shadowy jobs), a falling-out between business partners, a Polish handyman, and another elderly resident (and former law enforcement official) now in a coma.

What Does Not Work As Well: Lighthearted also borders on lightweight and frivolous, and the few attempts to introduce a bit of jeopardy (Elizabeth has a couple of threatening encounters) don't convince. Fun and entertaining, but never more than that.

Key Quote:

Joyce (excited): Now we've got a real case to solve, isn't that wonderful!...obviously, RIP and all that.

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Movie Review: 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

Genre: Science Fiction Drama 

Director: Peter Hyams 

Starring: Roy Scheider, Helen Mirren, John Lithgow, Bob Balaban, Keir Dullea 

Running Time: 116 minutes 

Synopsis: Nine years after the spaceship Discovery inexplicably malfunctioned near Jupiter, Dr. Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) joins the Leonov Soviet mission to uncover what happened. He is accompanied by American scientists Curnow (John Lithgow) and Chandra (Bob Balaban), while the Leonov is commanded by Tanya Kirbuk (Helen Mirren). Once near Jupiter, they detect organic signals from the moon Europa, and Floyd starts to understand what happened to Discovery's commander David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and its on-board computer system HAL 9000 (voice of Douglas Rain). Back on Earth, a geopolitical conflict threatens to erupt into a catastrophic war.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke's sequel book stands on its own merits, with slick special effects, a strong cast, a sense of purpose, and extrapolated Cold War tensions spilling into space. Director and writer Peter Hyams keeps the sci-fi drama more traditionally approachable and less mystical, and does well in building tension through compact episodes towards an existential final act. Keir Dullea reprises the role of Bowman through brief but essential interventions, and HAL 9000 earns a poignant artificial intelligence arch.

What Does Not Work As Well: The exclamatory final message borders on hokey, and although cerebral, 2010 never threatens to reach the inspirational levels of 2001.

Conclusion: A proficient nuts and bolts underpinning for a space opus.



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Movie Review: The Duke (2020)

A heist comedy-drama, The Duke is a charming character study about an eccentric-with-a-cause stumbling into high-profile thievery.

In 1961, sixty year old Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent) is on trial in London for stealing Goya's Duke of Wellington portrait. Flashbacks reveal the events of the previous 6 months.

Kempton lives in Newcastle with his wife Dorothy (Helen Mirren) and son Jackie (Fionn Whitehead). He is an unemployable anti-authoritarian windbag, and argues vehemently that seniors should be exempt from paying the television license fee. The long-suffering and exasperated Dorothy supports the family by working as a housecleaner.

The Wellington painting is the latest attraction at London's National Gallery. Kempton heads down to the capital to raise awareness for his campaign, and returns home with the stolen painting. Jackie helps him stash it in a dresser. With the authorities short on clues, Kempton starts sending letters offering to return the painting in return for a seniors' television licence fee exemption, but family complications disrupt his agenda.

Inspired by real events, The Duke is a laid-back, chuckle-full truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story. The British production is helmed with a light touch by director Roger Michell, and the production design recreates a working class 1960s Newcastle suburb in all its shabby glory. Writers Richard Bean and Clive Coleman recognize the character of Kempton Bunton as their ace attraction, and Jim Broadbent excels in portraying a man who was probably insufferable in real life, but jovial company for a 96 minute movie.

After establishing that Kempton is heading to court and pleading not guilty, the first half flashback briskly sets the stage by establishing the environment, the Bunton household dynamics, and the tension between husband and wife, all while the television and newspapers trumpet the arrival of Goya's painting at the National Gallery. Helen Mirren's Dorothy is the window into Kempton's world, her frustration and embarrassment always close to the boiling point as she carries the load of keeping food on the table while he tilts at windmills.

The second half is mostly set within the courtroom, as Kempton stands trial but uses the stage to push his anti-television license agenda with boisterous charisma. What looks like a clear-cut case of theft takes a few good twists and turns, and Kempton enshrines himself as a working class folk hero, Michell capturing the shifting dynamics through the reactions of court staff and the rowdy public gallery. The Duke is a feel-good story, proudly scrappy at the edges.



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Movie Review: Gosford Park (2001)

A comedy of manners combined with a frivolous mystery, Gosford Park is overstuffed with ill-defined characters floundering for a purpose.

In rural England of 1932, the high-society family and friends of the wealthy William McCordle (Michael Gambon) and his wife Lady Sylvia (Kristin Scott Thomas) gather at an estate for a pheasant shoot. The attendees include Hollywood film producer Morris Weissman (Bob Balaban) and actor Ivor Novello (Jeremy Northam). The house is run by the butler Jennings (Alan Bates) and housekeeper Mrs. Wilson (Helen Mirren), overseeing a large group of servants including housemaid Elsie (Emily Watson).

Many of the attendees have reasons to dislike each other, and William is threatening to cut-off the income of several family members with stressed finances. His targets include Lady Sylvia's aunt Constance (Maggie Smith), who is accompanied by her bright but inexperienced maid Mary (Kelly Macdonald). Other servants in attendance include valets Robert Parks (Clive Owen) and Henry Denton (Ryan Phillippe). Midway through the gathering a murder is committed, and Inspector Thompson (Stephen Fry) gets involved.

Directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes, Gosford Park is intended as an observational exercise focusing on the upstairs/downstairs social structure of England between the wars. With dialogue consisting of nothing but gossip, inane small talk, and snippets of conversations, the film drifts without power then starts to sink under the weight of about 28 characters vying for space. With incoherent introductions buried under a torrent of names and titles, it's impossible to map out who is who. Unsurprisingly, all the characters remain essentially undefined or at best caricatures.

On the margins, talk emerges of a dark past involving illegitimate children and an orphanage, and a murder occurs. But Fellowes and Altman don't really care about the mystery elements: the crime generates about as much concern as one of the pheasants shot out of the sky. The subsequent investigation is dismissive, Inspector Thompson walking in from an Agatha Christie novel then walking out again having achieved nothing.

The set designs and costumes are impressive, and the strictly hierarchical class structure of money, titles, shallowness, and gossip upstairs, contrasted with servants (with their own hierarchy), hard work, and more gossip downstairs, is notionally interesting. But in this house, both levels are overflowing with uninteresting and irrelevant people irritating each other for an agonizingly long 137 minutes.



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Movie Review: The Leisure Seeker (2017)

A road trip drama and comedy about love in the twilight of life, The Leisure Seeker provides poignant observations on enduring couplehood.

In Massachusetts, elderly married couple John and Ella Spencer (Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren) jump into their 1970s vintage RV, nicknamed Leisure Seeker, and embark on an unannounced road trip. Their adult son Will (Christian McKay) is frantic with worry, but his sister Jane (Janel Moloney) is more understanding.

John is a retired literature professor and big fan of Ernest Hemingway. He is also suffering from creeping dementia and significant memory lapses. Ella is mentally sharp but battling her own health problems. She uses the road trip to help John remember and celebrate his family, with a visit to Hemingway's house in the Florida Keys as an ultimate goal. Despite the deep love between John and Ella, unexpected revelations and continued health challenges will test their bond.

Combining wry pragmatism, feistiness, humour and no shortage of frustration, The Leisure Seeker examines a long-term marriage driving towards its conclusion. Director and co-writer Paolo Virzi ponders late-age resiliency when faced with undeniable mental and physical decay, and tests the limits of dedication when fundamentals are eroding beyond repair. John often forgets where he is and who Ella is, and as the present reality detaches from their core, she struggles to cradle the idea of who they were.

And yet John demonstrates sparks of his old self, with almost infuriating frequency, to both cultivate hope and amplify the agony of his deterioration. Themes of patience, forgiveness, finality, continued emotional and physical dependence and a determination to maintain control converge to provide the film with a warm heart.

The narrative is enhanced by a pleasing and vivid summertime aesthetic. Luca Bigazzi's cinematography captures east coast beauty as seen from backroads twisting through quaint landscapes, RV campsites at their most idyllic, sparkling water and expansive blue skies contributing an impressive backdrop.

The Leisure Seeker clocks in at 112 minutes and would have benefitted from a 10 minute trim, a few scenes serving to only repeat and emphasize points already made. Will and Jane as adult children worried about their parents are left hanging, tidbits of their frustrations introduced but insufficiently developed.

In the front seats, Donald Sutherland and Helen Mirren easily ride out any of the film's weaknesses. The two veterans are immediately at ease with each other, and courageously embody long-term devotion strained by intrusive failings.

Smoothly navigating the last stretch of twisty road, The Leisure Seeker combines age and beauty.

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Movie Review: The Long Good Friday (1980)

A crime drama, The Long Good Friday offers a deep and character-rich story set in London at the cusp of massive change. Doses of jarring violence add plenty of verve.

It's Easter in London. Mobster boss Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) has kept the peace in gangland for the past 10 years and is eager to venture into respectable investments. With his partner Victoria (Helen Mirren) and chief fixer Jeff (Derek Thompson), they invite New Jersey Mafia financier Charlie (Eddie Constantine) to discuss a massive docklands redevelopment project, which also involves corrupt and frequently drunk city councillor Harris (Bryan Marshall).

But on the same day of the meeting with Charlie, Harold's people and businesses are targeted in coordinated attacks. His trusted lieutenant and closest friend Colin (Paul Freeman) is killed at a swimming pool, his Rolls Royce bombed in front of a church, and two other businesses attacked. Police detective Parky (Dave King), who is on Harold's payroll, is of little help. With Charlie's commitment wavering, Harold and Victoria have to quickly uncover who is behind the attacks and stop the carnage.

A gritty exploration of the overlap between crime, business and politics, The Long Good Friday mixes ambition with startling violence. Written by Barrie Keeffe and directed by John Mackenzie, this is an uncompromising dive into a sordid world: gangsters in suits, police officers on the take, and vendettas on London's streets. And when the time comes to reveal the brutality of men like Harold Shand, The Long Good Friday is unblinking. Rivals are strung-up upside down next to sides of beef, and the gaping wounds of traitors splurt blood.

At the heart of the story, the pugnacious Harold Shand is a remarkable character. Scrappy and visionary in equal measures, he carries echoes of his country and city at the cusp of colossal change. Just as Shand is looking to capitalize on his achievements by forging a more reputable legacy,  England is growing into a union with Europe and London offers swaths of opportunity in the form of waterfront redevelopment. The audacious projects Harold describes in the film came true in the 30 years following the film's release.

Emphasizing the deep desire for transition into respectable capitalism, here the Mafia is a potential investment partner. When explosions start rocking Harold's world, the New Jersey representatives are repelled: they are seeking a future of wealth through business, not bombs.

Bob Hoskins found his breakout role as Shand, and Mackenzie uses the actor to great effect. The cameras frequently linger on Hoskins' face, combustibility and intelligence vying for space as Shand assesses the latest setback and plans his next counterpunch. Helen Mirren is marginally underutilized, and the rest of the cast consists of robust character actors bringing London's underworld to life.

Despite the strength of Harold's conviction and dreams of a different future for man and country, political realities are a force to be reckoned with. This is still England of 1980, where Northern Ireland Troubles cast a long shadow over the nation. In an impressive display of breadth, The Long Good Friday seamlessly encompasses that conflict, Harold confronted with a final, mammoth and unexpected challenge on his difficult journey from the business of crime to the business of business.

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Movie Review: Collateral Beauty (2016)

A drama with touches of humour addressing the consequences of personal loss and profound grief, Collateral Beauty is well meaning but excessively sententious.

In New York City, marketing executive Howard (Will Smith) is still in a deep depression two years after the death of his daughter. To try and cope with his grief he writes angry letters to the abstract concepts of Death, Love and Time. His business partners Whit (Edward Norton), Clare (Kate Winslet) and Simon (Michael Peña) are facing a deadline to sell the company, but cannot seal the deal without Howard, the majority shareholder.

In desperation the partners decide to hire struggling theatre actors to engage with Howard, either to snap him out of his funk or prove he is incapable of functioning. Brigitte (Helen Mirren), Amy (Keira Knightley) and Raffi (Jacob Latimore) agree to impersonate Death, Love and Time respectively. Howard does take the initiative to join a support group managed by Madeleine (Naomie Harris), while the hired actors learn that Whit, Clare and Simon are facing personal issues of their own.

Death is part of life, love persists despite everything, and time is precious and should not be wasted are universal themes straight from the bottom shelf of simplistic self-help pop-psychology. Collateral Beauty wears these concepts with utmost reverence, and weaves around them a saccharin story befitting the excessively maudlin mood.

The clunky plot is an excuse to construct the rickety device of actors impersonating abstract concepts and ambushing Howard in street-level interventions. And it's no surprise whatsoever when backstories are introduced for Whit, Clare and Simon to double down on the sappiness of Howard's ordeal and give the hired actors more people to fix, Hollywood style.

But it's not all totally bad. Director David Frankel, working from a spec script by Allan Loeb, has an embarrassment of acting riches at his disposal, and makes reasonably good use of the talented cast given the emotional immaturity of the material. The shortish running-time of 97 minutes is shared equally among the many of stars on display, and most of them get at least a couple of scenes to shine. Helen Mirren appears to have the most fun as a never-will-be actress romping through the role of Death.

The perfectly sparkling locations featuring New York City decked out for Christmas fit perfectly within the film's simplistically magical ethos, but Loeb's dialogue exchanges needed at least one more thorough polish to scrub away the many awkward artificialities.

Collateral Beauty tries to achieve a whimsical fairytale vibe, but lands firmly on the wrong side of cloying.

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Movie Review: The Queen (2006)

A royal family drama inspired by events in the days following the death of Princess Diana, The Queen is an exceptional study of leadership in conflict.

In May 1997, young and energetic Tony Blair (Michael Sheen) is elected as Britain's new Prime Minister. His first meeting with Queen Elizabeth II (Helen Mirren) is rather stiff. On August 31, the enormously popular Diana, Princess of Wales, the former wife of the Queen's son Prince Charles (Alex Jennings), is killed in a car crash in Paris.

With Blair eloquently eulogizing Diana as the People's Princess, a great outpouring of public grief follows, most visible through an ever-growing sea of condolence flowers placed at the Buckingham Palace gates.The Royal family decide to remain at their Balmoral summer residence, and the Queen refuses to acknowledge Diana's death in any way. Behind the scenes Charles prods Blair to intervene, but egged on by her gruff husband Prince Philip (James Cromwell) and the equally out of touch Queen Mother (Sylvia Syms), the Queen will not easily be swayed by Blair's charms.

Written by Peter Morgan and directed by Stephen Frears, The Queen is a fictionalized account of what turned into a surprising crisis for the monarchy. In its entire storied history Britain had simply never dealt with the death of popular princess who had publicly shunned the royal family. Stitching together the publicly known sequence of events, The Queen infiltrates the private rooms of the royal family and the prime minister's house and offices to fill in the blanks. In the process Morgan humanizes the people behind the titles, bringing them down to the real world where exceptionally difficult decisions have to be made.

The film offers up Tony Blair wearing a Newcastle United jersey at home, listening to wife Cherie (Helen McCrory) going on about her anti-monarchist ideas and preparing family meals. And at Balmoral, Prince Philip, besides affectionately calling the Queen "cabbage", expresses 19th century haughty, classist and borderline homophobic attitudes, completely detached from modern British society. And when the Queen turns to her mother, the advice is even more stick-to-your-guns tone deaf.

The narrative is built on remarkable tension generated by two diametrically opposite impressions of the same woman. By 1997 the Queen regarded Diana as a publicity-seeking traitor and adulteress, allowing her to comfortably fall back on stiff-upper-lip traditions of grieving in private and showing no emotion. Helen Mirren is at her best embodying a woman guided by 45 years on the throne, convinced to her core she knows what is right.

Except that for the British public Diana was the commoner who tasted royal life and turned away in disgust, and used her celebrity to globally champion important social causes from AIDS treatment to the abolition of landmines. Frears uses television coverage from the days after Diana's death to capture the unprecedented outpouring of national grief.

Bridging the divide becomes a matter of national urgency. The Queen's cold stance stoked anti-monarchist sentiments, as the absent and aloof royals became a symbol of everything that went wrong in Diana's life. The Queen presents Blair and Prince Charles as much more attuned to what the nation needed, and grappling with the dilemma of changing the deep-seated opinion of the reigning monarch.

In a series of brilliantly written phone calls, Blair gathers up the courage to represent the people's wishes, the Queen listens politely and fires back with the supremacy of her traditions. The Queen is a fascinating clash of two leaders who may both be right, and the search for a climbdown free of triumphalism to help a nation grieve.

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Movie Review: White Nights (1985)

A dance drama, White Nights sets up an appealing Cold War premise but is more clunky than smooth in delivering basic plot points.

Celebrated ballet dancer Nikolai 'Kolya' Rodchenko (Mikhail Baryshnikov) defected to the west from the Soviet Union eight years ago. Now while on a flight to Tokyo with his publicist Anne Wyatt (Geraldine Page), an electrical fault forces the plane into an emergency landing at a Siberian military air base. Soviet Colonel Chaiko (Jerzy Skolimowski) seizes Kolya as a criminal and places him in the company of Raymond Greenwood (Gregory Hines), a tap dancer who defected from the United States to the USSR and then married his interpreter Darya (Isabella Rossellini).

Chaiko's plan is to repatriate Kolya and get him to perform again at the Kirov ballet in Leningrad as a Soviet propaganda victory. To this end Kolya's previous lover and dance partner Galina Ivanova (Helen Mirren) is deployed to convince him to recommit to his homeland. But Kolya will not give up on freedom, and builds a strong bond with Raymond and Darya to try and plot an escape.

Directed by Taylor Hackford, White Nights earns points for an imaginative story, tapping into the Cold War's cultural front as well as Baryshnikov's own real-life story (he defected in 1974). And the quest to integrate ballet into a dramatic narrative works much better here than in Herbert Ross' hopelessly melodramatic The Turning Point.

The title refers to the constant daylight during the summer months in Russia's northern reaches, and the first half of the film, set in the harsh Siberian landscape, is a surreal waking nightmare for Kolya. From the crash landing back in the country from which he escaped, to tangling with Chaiko and then finally meeting Raymond, a black American confined to a vaudeville stage in Siberia, Hackford adroitly creates a world standing on its head for the sophisticated New York-based dance superstar.

The juxtaposition of Raymond and Kolya is at the the heart of the film. Other than providing an opportunity for ballet and tap dancing to share the centre stage spotlight, Raymond offers an alternative view of the American Dream as seen by a black man who outgrew the cute tap dancing kid label and was forced into military service in a war he did not believe in. Raymond's disillusionment festered into a full grown abandonment of his homeland, although his espousal of communist beliefs is never portrayed as anything other than shallow.

Most of the film's other details don't work too well. The sputtering memory of a relationship between Kolya and Galina is stranded in a repetitive loop, and the thriller elements that creep into the final act are unnecessary and quite unconvincing. The performances are constrained by Baryshnikov and Hines, dancers mostly masquerading as actors. And in her first American film, Isabella Rossellini struggles in a bland role.

White Nights maintains sufficient forward momentum to make it across the Cold War demarcation line, but much like a night full of light, not all the elements fit quite right.

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Movie Review: Trumbo (2015)

A biographical drama, Trumbo is a sharply written story of career survival set during the post-World War Two Red Scare.

It's the late 1940s, and Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) is one of Hollywood's leading screenwriters. He is also a proud member of the Communist party, along with several other prominent film industry figures, including fellow writer Arlen Hird (Louis C.K.). Dalton is happily married to Cleo (Diane Lane) and his children include the precocious Nikola (Elle Fanning). With the Cold War taking hold, a wave of anti-communist sentiment sweeps from Washington DC to Hollywood, fanned by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren).

As a matter of principle Dalton and his fellow communists refuse to cooperate with the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). Convicted for contempt of Congress, Dalton serves time in prison, and is placed on the notorious "Hollywood 10" blacklist, barred from working for any studio. Meanwhile, other communist sympathisers including Edward G. Robinson (Michael Stuhlbarg) do testify to save their careers. Once released Dalton has to find a way to make a living, and Frank King (John Goodman), head of low-budget King Brothers Productions, offers a lifeline of endless uncredited work.

Directed by Jay Roach and written by John McNamara, Trumbo is fascinating, witty and often quite funny. Both a character study and a cautionary tale about social paranoia, the film sparkles with the cantankerous yet phenomenally smart and articulate personality of Trumbo, and the remarkable post-war U-turn when communism was transformed in the public consciousness from great ally capable of defeating fascism to a feared existential menace.

The film does not shy away from presenting Trumbo as a man full of faults and contradictions. He enjoys his success, living on a large farm with all the luxuries afforded to the fortunate by capitalism. And when the strain of making a living through round-the-clock writing becomes nearly unbearable, Trumbo lashes out at his family members, hurting those he is trying to support.

And yet intellectually he never betrays his beliefs, and finds the unlikely path to expose the witch hunt by undermining it from within. Uneducated and fear-mongering campaigns devoid of evidence wilt when exposed to the light, and Trumbo's work ethic eventually forces the hypocrisy into the open

Trumbo boasts a remarkably talented cast in top form. Bryan Cranston delivers a career-defining performance, embracing the writer's flawed humanity and happily occupying the inconsistency of a proud communist enjoying all the riches that a life of celebrity has to offer. The character of Arlen Hird is an amalgam of other communist writers, and Louis C.K. portrays the more idealistic stream of left wing thinking, more willing to resist the system rather than work within it.

Helen Mirren makes the smug Hedda Hopper an obnoxious and hate-worthy gossip, a representation of self-appointed thought police, pouring gasoline on the flames of public fear and wielding disproportionate power. John Goodman as Frank King introduces bombastic levity, and his scenes add a whole new dimension to Trumbo, providing insight into the wondrous world of successful low-budget studios. Diane Lane, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Elle Fanning all make notable contributions.

Trumbo succeeds as a portrait of a remarkable man and even more so as a critical commentary on the lunacy of fear-driven social agendas.

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Movie Review: Caligula (1979)

One of the more insane cinematic experiences to ever make it onto the screen, Caligula is a stylized historical epic with a stellar cast and a furtive sideline of hardcore pornography.

In the first century AD, Caligula (Malcolm McDowell) is a prince awaiting his destiny. He frolics with his sister Drusilla (Teresa Ann Savoy) and is aware that the head of the Praetorian Guard Macro (Guido Mannari) may be a rival for power. Caligula's great uncle, the half-crazed Emperor Tiberius (Peter O'Toole), is left without an ally when his closest confidant Nerva (John Gielgud) commits suicide. Macro soon helps Caligula dispose of the ailing Tiberius and the Prince ascends to Emperor.

Caligula moves quickly to eliminate perceived threats from Macro and his younger step brother Gemellus (Bruno Brive), elevating Chaerea (Paolo Bonacelli ) to the leadership of the Guard and installing Longinus (John Steiner) as his chief of staff. Prevented from marrying his true love Drusilla, Caligula instead selects Caesonia (Helen Mirren) as his bride-to-be provided she can provide him with an heir. Increasingly erratic in his behavior and then wracked by illness and personal loss, Caligula descends into a fog of madness fuelled by violence and debauchery.

An American-Italian co-production independently backed with a huge budget by Bob Guccione and his adult Penthouse magazine empire, Caligula is a grand-scale oddity. Undeniably compelling and gaudily artistic, the film presents a contorted tale of a young man's lust for power and subsequent implosion. Some of the narrative is inspired by history and most of it is imagination, and certainly the skimpy costumes and lavish sets are what a porn czar would want a godless empire to look like. Guccione's sheer audacity in going ahead and creating his vision is laudable.

The film went through a chaotic production cycle featuring multiple dueling visions, and was finally released without a recognized screenwriter, director or editor. It started life with celebrated writer Gore Vidal penning the script, but he clashed with director Tinto Brass and eventually disavowed the project. Brass himself then locked horns with Guccione, with Brass finally reduced to a Principal Photographer credit but only after delivering an initial partial cut. Guccione took control of the rest of the editing, a process credited to "the production".

Most controversially Guccione secretly recruited a few Penthouse pets and smuggled them onto the sets after hours. Along with Giancarlo Lui they filmed several scenes of explicit hardcore sex, and Guccione inserted that footage into the final cut (a hefty 156 minutes). He then proceeded to independently release the film by renting theatres and self-promoting the film, fanning the marketing machine by fighting high profile censorship battles wherever they materialized.

Given the background it is remarkable that the film works at any level. But while the barbaric violence, in-your-face nudity and unsimulated sex will offend many if not most, Caligula holds together enough to register as a controversial art piece. The themes of absolute power corrupting absolutely and the ruling elite of a pagan empire convulsing with conspiracies and corruption are hammered home with manic intensity.

Some of the scenes and visuals are unforgettable. The public wall of death machine is nightmare inducing, as is Caligula interfering in the post-wedding ceremony of an innocent couple. The full-scale indoor Roman vessel at over 50 metres long, 10 metres high and complete with 120 oars adds to the sense of lunacy, especially as a backdrop to a full fledged orgy.

Arriving as it did at the peak of the porno chic era, Caligula perhaps unsurprisingly attracted a cast of top talent. McDowell, O'Toole, Gielgud and Mirren were not aware that Guccione had plans to insert hardcore clips into his epic; they nevertheless signed up for a film produced by Penthouse and featuring full frontal nudity in almost every other scene. McDowell lets loose with a fearless performance that perfectly fits the psychosis milieu. O'Toole has just two early scenes, but they are substantive and pivotal in setting the context.

Sir John Gielgud infuses a sense of resignation to the inevitable before his character Nerva chooses his own departure time. Mirren, already a respected Shakespearean stage actress, manages to bring a quiet civility to the role of Caesonia while also participating in a softcore threesome with McDowell and Savoy.

A demented landmark, Caligula matches its subject matter in its abject insanity.

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Movie Review: Hitchcock (2012)

A peak inside the mind and private life of one of cinema's greatest ever directors, Hitchcock is a fictionalized account of the period leading up to his career's greatest triumph.

Alfred Hitchcock (Anthony Hopkins) should be basking in the success of 1959's North By Northwest, but instead he is experiencing anxieties about his age, his weight, and finding his next project. Despite the objections of studio bosses, he decides to adapt the book Psycho by Robert Bloch, a horrific story of murder, mutilation and unburied corpses based on real-life murderer Ed Gein. With the studio refusing to fund what appears to be a salacious horror film, Hitchcock and his wife and frequent collaborator Alma (Helen Mirren) take the biggest risk of their lives by mortgaging their house to self-fund the production.

Alma starts to work on the script, while Hitchcock's loyal assistant Peggy (Toni Collette) leads a campaign to buy every copy of the book to increase the shock value of the film. Alma recommends Janet Leigh (Scarlett Johansson) for the lead, and Hitchcock is smitten with his latest blonde leading lady, much to Alma's disgust. Also cast are Vera Miles (Jessica Biel), who previously disappointed Hitchcock by placing her family first, and a tentative Anthony Perkins (James D'Arcy). The pressure on Hitchcock mounts and affects his health, especially once Alma starts to spend a lot of time with screenwriter Whitfield Cook (Danny Huston).

Directed by Sacha Gervasi, Hitchcock is compact and tightly focused on the turmoil that often accompanies the creative process. Running at just 98 minutes, the film packs in the ups and downs of the journey from idea to final film, and reveals plenty about the man by zooming in on a short pivotal period in his life.

Remarkably Hitchcock dissects Psycho without showing a single frame of the celebrated film. The boundary-bashing elements of the film are revealed through clashes with the Motion Picture Production Board, while a stellar highlight is achieved as Hitchcock conducts every frame of the shower scene, alone in the empty theatre lobby outside an early screening.

But this is a film as much about the man as the movie. Hitchcock hints strongly at the director's character weaknesses, including an inability to control his appetite. Perhaps related is a blatantly wandering eye, and a lust to dominate women manifested in a search for an idealized vision of a perfect blonde. In Alma Hitchcock has found and married his perfect life partner, but now looks past her and cannot help but flirt shamelessly with younger women while displaying obsessive and manipulative traits.

The film stops short of veering towards anything darker in Hitchcock's observed behaviour towards women. Gervasi instead chooses the more imaginative route, getting into Hitchcock's head for fantasy scenes of interaction with murderer Gein (Michael Wincott), and suggestions that the financial and artistic stresses triggered suppressed thoughts of violence towards the finally fed-up Alma. And her essential role in Hitchcock's success is a key theme of the film, Alma indeed emerging as the rational creative force balancing his arrogance and showmanship.

Anthony Hopkins grows into the role as the film progresses, capturing Hitchcock's well-known mannerisms. Mirren matches Hopkins as the less showy and more grounded Alma. Scarlett Johansson and Jessica Biel provide adequate support in smallish roles representing different dynamics between Hitchcock and his actresses.

The success of Psycho as a seminal cinematic achievement is now taken for granted. Hitchcock pulls back the shower curtain to reveal the self-doubt, determination and strife holding hands with genius.

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Movie Review: Eye In The Sky (2015)

A taut military drama that delves into the moral grey zone of drone strikes, Eye In The Sky is a riveting spectacle. The realities of modern warfare are captured through the eyes of those with the power of life and death over suspects and innocents alike.

From her base in England, Colonel Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) remotely commands Kenyan special forces in a mission to capture Nairobi-based high-level terrorists, including radicalized British and American citizens. In a wood-paneled meeting room, Katherine's superior Lieutenant General Frank Benson (Alan Rickman) monitors the mission in the company of government officials. In the desert outside Las Vegas, American drone pilot 2nd Lieutenant Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) assisted by Airman First Class Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox) provide "eye in the sky" support capabilities for the mission. Back on the ground in Nairobi, a Kenyan undercover team including Jama Farah (Barkhad Abdi) is closest to the action.

Events on the ground move quickly, and Katherine uncovers a safe house and a terrorist cell actively preparing to deploy two suicide bombers. She makes the decision to switch the mission from "capture" to "kill" with a drone missile strike. But she requires approval for the lethal attack from Benson and the cadre of politicians, prompting a round of hand-wringing about legalities and rules of engagement by British and American politicians across the globe. In the meantime civilians are in the vicinity of the safe house, in particular one young girl who sells bread just outside the house's perimeter wall. Destroying the house may save lives but will also likely mean civilian casualties, and Katherine, Benson, elected officials and the drone pilots are faced with a stark choice.

Directed by Gavin Hood and written by Guy Hibbert, Eye In The Sky is an efficient 102 minutes of gripping war drama. The decision to launch or not to launch a deadly missile strike to thwart a pending double suicide bombing is turned into an agonizing, prolonged and international quest to define what constitutes justifiable murder. A companion piece to Good Kill with elements borrowed from the classic Fail-Safe, Eye In The Sky is all about the dilemma of death: who dies, who lives, the value of an individual life in the cross-hairs, and the trade-off in knowingly hurting an innocent few for the sake of the innocent many.

The missile targets include British and American citizens who have joined the jihadists, and the collateral damage is likely to include Kenyan children; and yet destroying the safe house may prevent a terrorist atrocity. There are no easy answers, and while military commanders like Powell and Benson are quick to demand a decision and apply pressure for decisive military action to be approved, it is the civilian lawyers, politicians and their advisors who will have to make and defend the call, after digesting imperfect information and even less perfect forecasts of bomb damage impacts.

In pushing his points about the cold calculus of a hot war, Hibbert's script does carry some emotions a few notches too far. A couple of the politicians are sacrificed on the altar of buffoonery, while the mood within the drone pilot compound borders on incredulously unprofessional. Meanwhile Katherine Powell does all she can to sway decisions in her favour, and seeks to bend information to create assessments for politicians to swallow.

Helen Mirren is at her perfect best, portraying a soldier parking all humanity aside in a relentless pursuit of her targets. Alan Rickman as Lieutenant General Benson provides potent support in one of his final performances, Benson's higher rank inhabiting the more surreal world of politicians and necessitating a more circumspect approach to prodding for a decision.

Hood achieves contrasting aesthetics, from the chaos of the enemy-controlled neighbourhood in Nairobi where the safe house is uncovered to Powell's war room and Watts' drone command unit, both mostly lit by the glare of computer screens. Meanwhile Benson's surroundings exude government blandness while British and American politicians gallivant across the world selling weapons and making friends with one-party states.

Eye In The Sky plays out in the modern theatre of war, where bombs are controlled from thousands of miles away and missions are tracked in real time in three countries at once. For all the high-tech gadgets, spyware and miniature cameras, it is still innocent civilians who will take the brunt of any explosion, no matter whose finger is on the trigger.

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Movie Review: The Debt (2010)

A decades-spanning action drama set in the world of Mossad agents, The Debt is a powerful story about spies grappling with personal agonies in a world that demands heroes and easy victories.

The film unfolds in two time periods, 1965 and 1997, with the same characters portrayed by different actors. In 1965, Mossad agents Rachel (Jessica Chastain), David (Sam Worthington) and Stefan (Marton Csokas) are sent on a dangerous mission to East Berlin. They are to abduct and bring back to Israel Nazi war criminal Dieter Vogel, more famously known as the Surgeon of Birkenau for his macabre wartime experiments on concentration camp prisoners.

David is a sensitive introvert, while Stefan is the more cocky extrovert. Both men fall in love with the determined and capable Rachel. The trio do find and capture Vogel, but the mission runs into trouble before they can smuggle him out of East Berlin. In captivity at the safe house, the former Nazi turns out to be a formidable foe, but nevertheless, Rachel, David and Stefan eventually return home as heroes, their mission proclaimed a great success. A pregnant Rachel marries Stefan soon afterwards.

In Tel Aviv of 1997, Rachel (Helen Mirren) is being feted on the cocktail circuit. Her daughter Sarah (Romi Aboulafia) has just published a book chronicling the famous 1965 mission. The celebrations are marred when David (Ciarán Hinds) commits suicide by stepping in front of a large truck. Stefan (Tom Wilkinson), now a senior Mossad executive but confined to a wheelchair, reconnects with his ex-wife Rachel. David's suicide is a sure sign that all is not well in the spy world, and Rachel will reluctantly be drawn back into a world of intrigue that she thought was firmly in her past.

Visiting some of the same territory as 2005's Munich, The Debt is a film that demands concentration. Director John Madden jumps around between 1965 and 1997, and adds a brief stop in 1970 for good measure. With six actors portraying the three main characters, this is a film where it is imperative to quickly understand who-is-who, when and where. Madden pulls off the not insignificant trick of keeping the narrative cohesive while simultaneously establishing three unique characters and the psychological luggage they have accumulated over 32 years.

The pay-off for investing in the film's complex structure is immense. Madden and the team of screenwriters (Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman and Peter Straughan) reveal the secrets of the plot slowly, in tantalizing increments, first introducing a sense of lingering unease, then an unresolved dynamic between Rachel, David and Stefan, and finally, a quite stunning secret hiding at the heart of their professional lives. The film works its way towards a simmering conflict that draws in personal achievement, honour, private emotions and national pride, resulting in a delicate balance constructed in 1965 but at risk of collapsing in 1997.

The Debt also pokes away at the deep scars of the holocaust. The character of Vogel emerges as an evil Nazi catalyst for the ages, chillingly adept at matching wits with the Mossad agents despite being shackled. He finds their weaknesses, pushes their buttons, and seeks any advantage, turning what was an already dangerous mission into a journey through psychological hell for Rachel and her colleagues. This added layer of dark human sparring elevates The Debt to a level of intellectual excellence rarely encountered in a spy action drama.

The film's aesthetics are as grim and layered as the subject matter. The Ben Davis cinematography brings to life an East Berlin bathed in dank browns, yellows and greys, the iron curtain firmly closed and controlled by a police state.

Jessica Chastain delivers an amazing performance, conveying the fragility of a new field agent dropped into the real world of danger, falling in love with rugged colleagues, and having to stare down a butcher of men. Her scenes as Rachel overcomes her horror and disgust and pretends to be Vogel's patient at his gynecology practice are simply devastating in their sheer brilliance. In comparison, Helen Mirren as Rachel in 1997 and the likes of Sam Worthington (intense as the younger David) and Tom Wilkinson (a shrewd political operator as the older Stefan) are merely good.

The Debt is a thought-provoking puzzle, a journey through the moral ambiguity of a world where lust for revenge competes with historical wrongs, and the outcome is both right, wrong, and disastrous, depending on perspective.

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Movie Review: Woman In Gold (2015)

Inspired by a true story, Woman In Gold is a drama about an Austrian woman's fight to reclaim precious family paintings seized by the Nazis during World War Two. The film is sincere and engaging, with the flashback scenes packing particular resonance.

It's 1998 in Los Angeles, and the elderly Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) lays her sister Luise to rest. Maria was born and raised by a wealthy Jewish family in Austria, but as a young bride fled to the United States to escape the Nazi occupation. In Luise's belongings Maria finds evidence to suggest that the she may be able to recover precious family paintings, including Gustav Klimt's Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, now called Woman In Gold and claimed by the Austrian government after having been stolen by the Nazis. Adele was Maria's loving aunt, and Klimt a family friend.

Seeking legal advice, Maria turns to young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds), the son of a family friend and himself the grandson of the famous Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg. Initially skeptical, Randy agrees to help upon discovering that the Klimt painting may be worth $100 million. He travels with Maria to Vienna, and they find an ally in Hubertus Czernin (Daniel Brühl), a magazine editor eager for Austria to confront her past. They take Maria's case in front of the Art Restitution board, but Woman In Gold is now considered a national treasure, and the government will make every effort to block Maria from reclaiming the painting of her aunt.

A hybrid of Philomena and what The Monuments Men was trying to be, Woman In Gold largely succeeds in its mission to juxtapose the legal battle for personal restitution with the wider background of the horror unleashed on Austria's Jewish population. Director Simon Curtis finds a harmonious balance between the sepia-toned flashback scenes in Vienna with Maria as a young woman (played with palpable fervency by Tatiana Maslany), and the more modern day legal machinations played out on two continents. The flashbacks carry the emotional punch, capturing a Vienna torn asunder, with many residents welcoming the Nazis while the intelligentsia recoil in horror and the Jews stare at annihilation.

There is less drama in the numerous but brief court scenes. This becomes more the story of lawyer Randy Schoenberg, with Maria frequently reduced to delivering quips for comic relief. Randy's passion starts with a pursuit of possible riches, but after confronting Austrian government intransigence and coming face to face with the Holocaust memorial, he adopts Maria's fight as his own personal quest for a larger justice. To liven up the otherwise staid court battles, there are moments of mild drama involving Maria having to overcome her fear of traveling back to Austria, and Randy's wife (a bright Katie Holmes performance) coming to terms with his new found commitment to a cause.

Helen Mirren sparkles as only she can, and gradually steers the film towards a very personal story of recovery from the grave injustice inflicted upon her family by an evil tide of history. Curtis allows his star free reign to dominate, but then carries the emotions a bit too far into teary eyed nostalgia territory. Reynolds is better when he is likeable and skeptical, and stumbles somewhat when he needs to convey dramatic intensity. The scenes requiring him to be angry or emotional emerge as the weakest parts of the film. The strong cast is rounded out by Charles Dance as Randy's law firm boss and Antje Traue as Adele in the flashbacks, while Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Pryce enjoy bit parts as sympathetic judges.

Woman In Gold may not fully glitter as intended, but it does achieve a steady shine.

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Movie Review: The Pledge (2001)

A thoughtful psychological crime drama, The Pledge plays with a patient mood while grappling with a brutal murder and the search for the mysterious predator.

In Reno, Nevada, police detective Jerry Black (Jack Nicholson) is retiring. On his last working day, the brutalized body of a young blonde girl named Ginny is discovered in a snowy field. Jerry pledges to the victims' mother (Patricia Clarkson) that no matter what, he will bring the murderer to justice. Toby (Benicio del Toro), a dimwitted vagabond aboriginal, is arrested and detective Stan Krolak (Aaron Eckhart) extracts a confession from him, declaring the case closed.

Jerry doubts that Toby is the killer, and after retirement he continues his informal investigation, interviewing Ginny's grandmother Annalise (Vanessa Redgrave); the victim's best friend at school; and the father (Mickey Rourke) of another young blonde girl who met the same fate as Ginny. He gains a vague picture of the killer's car model and colour, and a murky connection between the crimes and porcupines.

Jerry purchases a gas station along the main highway in the rural area where he believes the next murder may happen. As the months pass, he befriends single mom Lori (Robin Wright Penn), who has a young blonde daughter Chrissy (Pauline Roberts) about the same age as the previous victims. Gradually, Jerry starts to encounter men who could be suspects. But Jerry is also hearing voices in his head, and may be starting to lose his grip on reality.

Directed by Sean Penn, The Pledge is an adaptation of the Friedrich Dürrenmatt book. This is a film that takes a deep breath from the surrounding landscape, and focusses on characters, atmosphere and emotion. There is little action that takes place on screen, but plenty that goes on in the thoughts, fears, and hopes of Jerry Black as he tries to fulfill the promise he made to the distraught mother of a young victim.

Penn's pacing is deliberate, but nevertheless engrossing. Within the forgotten back road setting where time is slow, towns are small, cars are old and technology is outdated, the film is packed with tiny unsettling moments, indications that all is not well, neither in the rural community stalked by a vicious child killer, nor in Jerry's mind. Jerry could be suffering from old-age, post-retirement emotional turmoil, the stress of his pledge, or something else altogether more serious. Penn provides hints, but never any clear resolutions. What is for sure is that some danger is lurking and closing in, and Jerry is welcoming, almost eager to face his nemesis. Whether or not he is ready is another question.

While The Pledge unfolds on its own terms towards a rich and rumpled conclusion, it does suffer from almost too much silence, as the details of Jerry's deliberate actions are sacrificed in search of style and a brooding aesthetic.

Jack Nicholson provides a thankfully subdued performance, staying well within himself despite the mounting stress. Jerry Black is a stoic, calculating character, well past the days of running after suspects and now more interested in laying an elaborate trap and waiting for the right time to pounce. Nicholson conveys a man under self-imposed pressure, with his judgement increasingly clouded. He may or may not be using Lori and Chrissy as a lure; he likely does not quite know anymore whether his need for a family is in conflict with the burning desire to solve a crime.

In support, almost every one-scene role is brought to life by a prominent actor. In addition to Clarkson, del Toro, Eckhart, Wright Penn, Rourke and Redgrave, Helen Mirren makes an appearance as a psychiatrist, Harry Dean Stanton is the original owner of the gas station purchased by Jerry, and Sam Shepard is a police detective.

The Pledge weaves a spell and luxuriates in its foggy density, as much a crime mystery as a thought-provoking sojourn to the place where promises become obsessions.

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