DVD & Blu-ray review: The Comedian (15)
Ed, 32, is a disgruntled call-centre worker by day and an angry stand-up comic by night.
August 3, 2013
No Comments
Ed, 32, is a disgruntled call-centre worker by day and an angry stand-up comic by night.
“I knew you had an off switch,†snaps Frank at his robot helper in Jake Schreier’s poignant, low-budget drama, set in the near future. Frank (Frank Langella, excellent) is a former cat burglar living in seclusion.
Tom Cruise may seem like a curious choice to play the 6ft 5in hero of Lee Child’s vigilante novels, but, casting aside, Jack Reacher is a satisfyingly meaty whodunnit which has more in common with the private-eye thrillers of the 1960s and 1970s than it does with Mission: Impossible . Â Â Â Â
Best not to eat anything during David Cronenberg’s queasy, exploding-heads horror from 1981. Hammy, often unsettling, performances abound (Patrick McGoohan in particular) in this wild tale of scanners, a group of psychics who can lock into a person’s nervous system and make their head pop.
Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle says he believes 3D movies have no future – and predicts they will just be a “phase” for the cinema industry.
I admired rather than enjoyed Paul Thomas Anderson’s demanding drama on first viewing, but in the four months since then it’s refused to leave my head.
Finally, thankfully, Twilight comes to an end and it appears, given the sloppy acting, to be a relief for everyone.
If you’re not a Woody Allen fan, subtract one point from the above rating. If you are an Allenite, you’ll still be forced to file To Rome with Love among his minor works.
Woody Allen’s latest very much feels like a bunch of half-baked ideas the auteur has been working on since he started out: a mortician who can only sing opera sublimely in the shower, an ordinary man (Roberto Benigni) who is thrust into the spotlight for no good reason.
After a first hour every bit as dreary as Quantum of Solace, this wildly successful slice of Bond (above) is rescued by Ben Whishaw’s amiable Q and by a bonkers turn (Brando in The Missouri Breaks springs to mind) from Javier Bardem as the vengeful former 00-agent hell-bent on offing M (Judi Dench).