Tag Archives: Jason Clarke

10 Great Tom Hardy roles

I was listening to a podcast recently looking back at Christopher Nolan's Inception, and the hosts mused about Tom Hardy, what an impact his presence had on the film, and whether this was his breakout role in Hollywood. There's no doubt that even in an ensemble as well-assembled as this, his presence shone. One of the… Read More

First Man review — The Upright Stuff

Directed by Damien Chazelle | Written by Josh Singer, from a book by James R. Hansen | 141 min What First Man does well it does masterfully: the nuts and bolts and rivets and metal groans of analogue space flight. First Man brings an impressive level of realism to this recreation, with the sound design and herky-jerky… Read More

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes review

Directed by Matt Reeves, Written by Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, from a novel by Pierre Boulle I enjoyed Rise of the Planet of the Apes, released back in 2011. It seemed an unlikely prequel to a 43-year-old film, but as a slab of b-movie entertainment I thought it worked. My biggest beef with… Read More

The Great Gatsby review

Directed by Baz LuhrmannWritten by Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, adapting the F. Scott Fitzgerald novelThe one thing I liked about Moulin Rouge, Luhrmann's last hit feature more than 10 years ago, was how he created this grand period spectacle laced with contemporary music. It was fun identifying the songs being performed by Nicole Kidman and… Read More

Zero Dark Thirty review

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow Written by Mark Boal In the opening scenes of Zero Dark Thirty, following the text that the film is "based on first-hand accounts of actual events," Jason Clarke's CIA agent, the single-named Dan, is interrogating a prisoner at some Black Site, an American ops location without an address, somewhere in Pakistan. They're… Read More

Lawless review

Directed by John HillcoatWritten by Nick Cave from the Matt Bondurant book The Wettest County in the WorldIf you enjoyed the gritty Australian western The Proposition, also conjured by antipodean twosome Hillcoat and Cave, you'll find a similar blood-splattered tonality here, their adaptation of Bondurant's tale of his grandfather and two great-uncles' exploits as moonshiners… Read More