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Movie review: X+Y
Entertainment

Movie review: X+Y

A loss of focus turns this small English feature from an excellent film into a routine and mediocre one about half-way through, but its opening reels have touches of understated genius about them and it is full of undeniably moving moments.

Movie review: Treasure Island
Entertainment

Movie review: Treasure Island

More theatrical than knuckle-whiteningly dramatic, this NT Live* production of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic 1883 adventure book is nevertheless an eye-poppingly brilliant display of stagecraft with a show-stealing turn from a remote-controlled animatr

'Fifty Shades': Herald's verdict
Entertainment

'Fifty Shades': Herald's verdict

If hype, 'likes' and advanced ticket sales are any indication of success, box offices around the world will get a boost this weekend with the release of the much anticipated adaptation of author EL James' "mummy porn" phenomenon, Fifty Shades of Grey.

Movie review: Me, Myself and Mum
Entertainment

Movie review: Me, Myself and Mum

As french as croissants aux amandes and so extravagantly theatrical that you can practically smell the greasepaint in the cinema, this small and goofy French comedy follows the struggles of a young teenager to come to terms with his sexual identity.

Movie review: Foxcatcher
Entertainment

Movie review: Foxcatcher

There are times in this brilliantly acted and understated psychological drama when it seems very little happens at all, but when the lights go up you're left reeling by the culmination of events that have quietly unfolded.

Movie review: Wild
Entertainment

Movie review: Wild

Fed up with a lack of stimulating female leads in Hollywood, Reese Witherspoon formed a production company and started making her own work. She's created herself a doozy (and a deserved Oscar nomination) playing Cheryl Strayed in Wild.

Movie review: Land Ho!
Entertainment

Movie review: Land Ho!

Unassuming and amiable, this road-trip buddy comedy, which played in the festival last year, belongs squarely in the sub-genre of very-low-budget American indies with untrained actors and improvised dialogue that has been dubbed mumblecore.

Movie review: Still Alice
Entertainment

Movie review: Still Alice

The recent movies that have looked at the impact of dementia - Away From Her, The Savages, Aurora Borealis, A Song For Martin, Lovely, Still - have tended to focus on the effect on those left behind as the light dies.

Movie review: Force Majeure
Entertainment

Movie review: Force Majeure

A searching examination of middle-class complacency and gender roles in an age of us-or-them individualism, this assured Swedish drama is the kind of film that's hard to watch and harder still to tear your eyes away from.