The White Tiger review – An entertaining film that charts the rise of the downtrodden, undervalued underdog

India holds a special place in my heart. Having worked for an Indian company for just over three years, I visited the country around five-six times. While The White Tiger is mostly set in Dhanbad and Delhi, in the east and north of India respectively, the ways of life portrayed had many similarities with my beloved Mumbai,...

Pieces of a Woman review – A magnificent performance by Kirby but unnecessarily melodramatic

Watch film - open Letterboxd app - log and rate film. After sleeping on it, I decided to change my initial four star review of Pieces of a Woman to three and a half stars. Those three stars belong to Vanessa Kirby thanks to her powerhouse performance as Martha, the young woman at the centre of...

[Review] And Then There Were None

When I was younger, one of my Christmas traditions was to go through the TV guide and see what films were going to be on. There would be the usual suspects, like an animated or live action version of Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, but there would also be fairly recent releases that I would circle...

So long 2013, hello 2014!

The grand total When I signed up to online film diary Letterboxd in 2012, I originally wrote in my biography section the following: "I always wondered how many films I see in a year so this is my online diary, starting 1st January 2012." I watched 155 films that year and I can now reveal that...

[Review] Stoker

Stoker (2013) Dir: Park Chan-wook Starring: Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode Courtesy of Empire's five-star review, I was itching to see Stoker. While hype surrounding it centres on the fact that it is South Korean director Chan-wook's first English language film, I was more interested by the trio of actors heading it up. So far in...

[Review] The Impossible

The Impossible (2012) Dir: Juan Antonio Bayona Starring: Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, Tom Holland Eight years ago on Boxing Day 2004 I saw the repercussions of one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history unfold from my living room. I was 16-years-old and, though I can't remember exactly, I would probably have been watching the news report on...

So long 2012, hello 2013!

Meeting the delightful Sir Ian McKellen and the legendary Sir Patrick Stewart are undoubtedly my top film-related moments of 2012. Cinema wise, I saw 24 films at the cinema last year, just short of the 25 I saw at the cinema in 2011. As always, there are films that I missed that I wish I...

[Review] The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

791 days since my post on 16th October 2010 revealing the excellent news that plans for The Hobbit had been greenlit, that principal photography would begin in February 2011 and that Peter Jackson would direct, write and produce,  I finally returned to Middle-earth. As Ringers the world over can agree with, to say I was looking forward...

[Review] The Amazing Spider-Man

Batman, Spider-Man, Wolverine... Ask a random person on the street and I’m sure they could name at least three comic book characters if you asked them to. Comic book adaptations are big business at the moment. They have well and truly taken over the big screen, and it seems as if a new one is...

Last weekend’s magnificent seven

With the rain pouring outside, this weekend saw a staggering seven films watched. I say ‘staggering’ because I normally only see one or two a week! This now brings my total amount of films watched this year to 84 – thanks to Letterboxd for making it so easy for me to keep track on what...

[Review] Snow White and the Huntsman

Every now and again, a film comes along where you wish that you could be transported into that world. For some, it’ll be highly stylised like Sin City while for others it’ll be more along the lines of an all-singing, all-dancing Moulin Rouge! where people simply burst into song. For me, it’s normally anything with...

[Review] Prometheus

Relatively speaking, I'm a newcomer to Ridley Scott’s epic sci-fi masterpiece, having only seen Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection for the first time last year about 18 months ago. Since Alien was released over 30 years ago, it has taken me a long time to get round to watching it. The reason why...