There’s something morbidly fun about the tragic, moody Judy & Punch that sets the whole film apart. A story of struggle, the fallacy of man, weakness in the face of addiction and so many more important themes, this is a film that, for whatever reason, just struck me. Set in Seaside (oddly enough, nowhere by…

The main draw of Becky is the magnificent Lulu Wilson, who marquees a movie and out-acts the cast around her time and time again. The Annabelle: Creation star is a bad-ass, like a foul-mouthed Macauley Culkin, bludgeoning her home invaders with knives and blunt instruments instead of marbles. A father (Community’s Joel McHale, impressively playing…

Sometimes expectations are everything. I’m always wary of a up-and-coming thespian headlining a VOD movie. Last Moment Of Clarity — about a man who becomes obsessed with a movie star who he believes is his fiancee, presumed dead — has an interesting premise, but I was worried the film was a dud, trying to capitalize…

There used to be a time when a shit-eating grin from Bruce Willis meant an epic ass-kicking was coming. But as the 65-year-old former action star meanders his way through direct-to-VOD flick Survive The Night, all he does is grimace and groan. Gone is the prowess of a man we could always expect a smug…

A film that starts with the burglary of precious paintings delves deeper into human emotion and the need for forgiveness than ever imagined. It’s a documentary with elegant strokes, and The Painter and the Thief paints a complex picture of the relationship between an artist and the thief who stole her paintings. Norwegian filmmaker Benjamin…

This lovely British film serves as a love song — quite literally — to the troops, and it’s pretty wonderful. Revolving around the wives of soldiers deployed to Afghanistan, they all come together to form a choir to pass the time. It ends up meaning more to the military — and the women — than…

There are so few things I’ve enjoyed more in my life than Saturday cartoons. Among them, Scooby Doo has been a feel-good fixture in my life for years. The 2002 live-action film was, and still is, one of my favourite kids films and makes me laugh every time. The chemistry between real-life couple Freddie Prinze…

When I first saw these crusty, free-wheeling friends trading witty remarks in the original “Trip” movie a decade ago, I couldn’t believe what I was watching. The delicacies they ate and the beautiful backdrops were only rivaled by the sparring comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon did playing personas of themselves. What began as a…

Intensely interesting auteur Sally Potter creates a story about the ways life could have turned had the protagonist made different choices. The film follows a day in the life of Leo, a destitute man who is taken on errands by his daughter Molly, who struggles to care for him as he continues to lose grip…

The level to which Tom Hardy commits to the magnificent, off-the-wall Capone is most of the reason it works. He hasn’t dug himself into a role this deep since Bronson, and it shows. This isn’t the Capone we’re used to seeing onscreen: The tommy gun wielding, madcap wise guy of old. Instead, we’re given post-prison…