Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Perplexed. I understand where this film lies in the Star Wars movie-verse, and that this obviously means that there will be links to other films. I also understand that there will be all kinds of references to things which mean nothing to me but which will satisfy those who are more immersed in the universe than …

Doctor Strange

Woah. So many things in this film seemed incredibly familiar, which is strange (sorry) since I went into this with zero knowledge of the character and having only seen the teaser trailer. Eschewing a training montage in favour of letting the audience work out that time had passed and skills had been acquired was actually …

The Year of the Alternative Western?

Note: These musings contain mild spoilers for El Ardor (The Burning). It's the darndest thing. I've just watched Gael García Bernal's latest film El Ardor. It's set in the Argentinian rainforest but towards the end I found myself thinking of two other films I'd seen recently - Slow West, starring Michael Fassbender, and The Salvation, …

The Salvation

Beautiful Mads Mikkelsen straps on a holster, loads up his Winchester and primes his cheekbones for a showdown with the guy who done killed his family. It has some gorgeous visuals which make it a pleasure to watch, but beyond that it's actually a formulaic revenge Western with one-dimensional characters, predictable plot and some minimalistic …

10 most anticipated films of Spring 2015

There's usually a bit of a post-Oscar lull in March, and then things start to pick up again. A number of films have been on my radar for quite a while, and several of them are coming up soon. So here are my top 10 most anticipated films from now until the end of June (in order …

Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas

Beautiful Mads Mikkelsen - astride a horse and speaking French for added enjoyment - sets out to right a wrong done unto him. Loosely based on a novella by Heinrich Von Kleist, the themes of vengeance and God's justice for the righteous were lost for me among a lot of trekking around on horses and …

Jagten – The Hunt

The ending to this film stayed with me for quite a while after I'd seen it, and completely over-rode the few doubts I'd had about it at the beginning. The beautiful and most excellent actor Mads Mikkelsen plays a quiet, lonely but amiable kinderga...

En Kongelig Affære – A Royal Affair

Now this is an interesting story, based around actual events. The young sister of the English king George III is married off to an equally young king Christian VII of Denmark. He's a bit disturbed, she's lonely. Mads Mikkelsen is appointed as the ...