Eleanor Reviews

  *** Upon leaving the cinema, my friend turned to me and said: ‘If I were 12, that would be the best film ever’. Alas, I am not 12 and thus this is not the best film ever, but it is a return to the more light-hearted summer blockbuster (think ‘Independence Day’) as opposed to the rather dark forays of late. Yes, ‘Dark Knight Trilogy’, we’re looking at you. In the not too distant future, Earth is invaded by giant aliens named Kaiju. In a desperate attempt to save mankind, worldwide governments build immense robots, known as Jaegers, whereby two pilots mind-meld with each other and the machine to create the ultimate fighting machine. In one final stand, the Jaegers are assembled in Hong Kong, where our washed-up former-pilot, Raleigh, must climb back into the machine where his brother was killed and defeat the Kaiju once and for all. This is essentially a film about big robots hitting even bigger aliens, and the aliens get bigger as time goes on. Yet, in the hands of Guill

  *** DVD release I wasn’t much taken with Ben Affleck’s Academy Award winning ‘Argo’, but I figured I’d give his previous foray into directing a shot. Not only did Affleck direct and write ‘The Town’, he is also the main character, Doug MacRay, a lifelong robber who goes around with his gang of four terrorising the banks of Charlestown, Boston. MacRay is the leader of the pack, but it’s his sidekick, Coughlin, who is the loose-cannon, charging around hurting and killing without a second thought. After they take a hostage at a bank robbery, the gang become fearful that she saw something and MacRay sets out to put her off the scent. However, the FBI is onto the gang and, in the midst of a blossoming romance and the fraying of lifelong relationships, the foursome plan one last heist… First off, there is nothing original about this film but that doesn’t mean it isn’t enjoyable whilst you’re watching it. MacRay seems to be an extension of the character Affleck played in ‘G

  *** 20 years after they left ‘the Golden Mile’ (consisting of 12 pubs) incomplete, five friends return to their hometown of Newton Haven with the aim of making it to ‘The World’s End’. Leader of the pack is Gary King (Simon Pegg) a veritable man-child dressed obsessed with reliving the past and the night his life should have begun. Joining him are childhood friends, Oliver (Martin Freeman), Steven (Paddy Considine), Peter (Eddie Marsan) and Andy (Nick Frost), Gary’s ex-best friend. As the night progresses, however, old grievances surface, but this is the last of their worries as it becomes evident their home has been overrun by robots. (N.B. Not a spoiler – anyone who has seen the trailer knows this already.) ‘Shaun of the Dead’ had zombies, ‘Hot Fuzz’ had a band of killers, and ‘The World’s End’ has alien robots but the underlying plot thread is much bleaker than anything we’ve encountered in the previous two films. The story is essentially about a man being unable to

  ** DVD release We first meet our leading man, Behmen (Nicholas Cage) and his best friend, Felson (Ron Perlman), running down a sandy dune during the Crusades. Driven by the word of God, they roam the land with their army, killing and plundering until one day they invade a castle filled entirely with women and children. Leaving the army in disgust, Behmen and Felson try to lie low, only to discover that the land has been ravaged by plague (cue some gory close-ups of boils, pustules and rotting corpses). After being captured, they are commissioned to take the Black Witch (Claire Foy), accused of bringing the plague to the land, to a distant abbey where the monks will cleanse her using an ancient book. Behmen and Felson set off, accompanied by a priest, an altar boy, another soldier and a general miscreant, with the witch locked up in a cage. Between point A and point B, however, lay many perils… ‘Season of the Witch’ is really stupid and generally unfulfilling. It’s mi

  ***** DVD release Set in East Berlin in 1984, ‘The Lives of Others’ is a story about a member of the Stasi spying on a playwright and his actress girlfriend, only to become more and more embroiled in their lives. At the beginning of the film we meet Wiesler, top spy and general bad guy, teaching a class of university students by means of a recording which features him torturing a suspect to obtain information. Upon attending the theatre later that day with colleague Grubitz, he spies upon the playwright and is commissioned to spy on him. Setting himself up in the antic above the flat of the playwright, he begins to listen. Without such an outstanding cast, this film could have fallen by the wayside as it is a slow-burner. Nothing ‘decisive’ ever happens – events just build one upon the other as the playwright, Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and his actress girlfriend, Christa-Maria (Martina Gedeck) go about their lives, trying to find a way of expressing their voices unde

**** ‘Despicable Me 2’ picks up where the first left off – with Gru, recently turned good guy, and his three adopted children, Margo, Edith and Agnes living in his Gothic mansion with the minions. Instead of making weapons, Gru has now turned to making jams and jellies in his laboratories and hosting birthday parties. When he’s kidnapped and recruited by the Anti-Villain League (AVL), however, his new found domestic bliss is shattered and he must go undercover with sidekick Lucy to find the one responsible for the destruction of a research base, home to a serum that turns living things into purple killing machines. The first thing to say is that this film is really lovely, and its good natured heart makes it accessible to both children and older viewers. The story is now much more focused on the domestic than the first film, where Gru (the excellent Steve Carell) was attempting to steal the moon, with lots of scenes with the girls, Gru and the minions mooching around in the

**** DVD release/Available on iPlayer until 6 th August 2013 Donald McCullin has taken photographs of some of the worst human conflicts in the last fifty years. Starting off as a fairly amateur photographer at a young age, he captured the gangs that ravaged London in the 50s and 60s, before turning the lens on the international battles from Africa to Vietnam. In this low-key documentary, McCullin discusses the photographs he has taken and the horrors he has seen with frankness and searing honesty. Punctuated with interviews with McCullin himself, the documentary follows his life from taking photos in Finsbury Park to the present day when he takes pictures of the English countryside. At intervals, information about the conflicts McCullin photographed appears on screen, with added footage of soldiers and civil war, with some interviews of McCullin at the actual time. All this alongside the timelessness of the suffering portrayed in his photographs adds up to make a very m

**** DVD release Brian and Mike are two cops patrolling the streets of modern day South Central LA. Good friends and long term partners, the pair have seen lots of ‘action’ working some of the meanest crimes of the age. Working in an area with a level of gang crime, Brian and Mike come up against Mr Big Evil and his gang of Mexican baddies time after time, becoming eager to take the gang off the streets. After making discoveries into cases of human trafficking and drug dealing, the duo enter into something much bigger than either of them can imagine. Film documentary-style, the intimacy offered feels fresh and interesting. Brian (Jake Gyllenhaal) is filming his work routine as part of a course that requires a piece of art and fixes himself and his partner, Mike (Michael Pena) with clip-on cameras, as well as a hand-held recorder that the pair speak into regularly. There is also a camera fitted in their car, which features some of the most engaging scenes of the film as t