Cold Mountain
May 2, 2003
Adapted from Charles Frazier’s book of the same name, Cold Mountain (2003) is an epic odyssey of one man’s struggle to travel back home to the woman he loves set against the backdrop of the American Civil War. Unfairly snubbed at last year’s Academy...
Honey
March 17, 2003
Watching ‘Honey’ is a similar experience to watching a football match with crap teams. Both waste ninety minutes of your life staring at a screen watching talentless people sweating it out. Except with football, the goal celebrations are more entertaining...
Mona Lisa Smile
March 11, 2003
Once upon a time Julia Roberts was the queen of the 90’s romantic comedy who reinvented herself via Steven Soderbergh in 2000 as an Oscar-winning actress. Mona Lisa Smile fails Roberts in both these categories, never once throwing up a surprise...
Charade
February 21, 2003
It’s a cliché to say but they really don’t make movies like Charade (1963) anymore. Jonathan Demme’s remake, The Truth About Charlie (2002) only reinforces this notion with its miscasting of the two leads, Mark Wahlberg and Thandie...
Bad Education
January 18, 2003
The film within a film scenario is given the colourful Almodovar treatment in this stylish, autobiographical noir masterwork. Moving and laced with delicious black humor this has given the great Spanish director his biggest every domestic box office opening...
Roman Holiday Collectors Edition
January 15, 2003
The 1953 romantic classic, Roman Holiday, receives a dust off as it is released in Paramount’s ‘special collector’s edition’ series. The restoration process has really elevated this re-release, it looks great. There have been a...
Under the Tuscan Sun
December 16, 2002
From her screenplay for The Truth About Cats and Dogs (1996) to her directorial debut with Guinevere (1999), Audrey Wells has created films with strong female protagonists. She continues this thematic preoccupation with Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) with...
Jet Lag
November 29, 2002
Jet Lag (2002) is a French romantic comedy in the tradition of Before Sunrise (1995) and the more recent, Lost in Translation (2003). Two strangers en route to their respective destinations are stranded in a city and end up spending their layover time...
Lost in Translation
October 1, 2002
Witty, pleasant and a tremendously funny romantic comedy – yeah, if you were talking about ‘The Return of the King’ but not the words I would use to describe ‘Lost In Translation’, a pathetic attempt at romance in film. Ok...
American Pie: The Wedding
September 1, 2002
Jim takes on his biggest challenge yet in the third American Pie film: getting married. Oh dear. Did a moderately amusing teen comedy really deserve a further two sequels? Well like it or not, the third film is now out on DVD to buy, stacked with extra...
