Archive for Dan Hall
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Home Cinema 3 out of 5Blades of Glory - DVD review
15 August 2007Such is his popularity at present that only four words - Will Ferrell does NASCAR – were required to convince Sony to commission his last project, the $150 million making Taladega Nights. And so, treading a similar path, we now have "Will Ferrell does...
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Home Cinema 3.5 out of 5Gone - DVD review
2 August 2007Gone is a low budget Brit thriller that sees a post university backpacking holiday turn into “Dead Calm in the desert” for two 20-something love birds. Evans (best known for his work in series two of Teachers) plays Alex, a ginger Scouser – it’s...
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Home Cinema 3 out of 5Catch a Fire - DVD review
31 July 2007Catch a Fire is the true story of political activist Patrick Chamusso who was sentenced to 24 years in prison after attempting to blow up a South African oil refinery in 1980. Derek “Antwone Fisher” Luke plays Chamusso, a loving husband and father...
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Home Cinema 3 out of 5The Illusionist - DVD review
18 July 2007You wait years for a movie about early nineteenth century magicians to come along and then, hey presto, two turn up at once. Hot on the heels of Christopher Nolan's "The Prestige" comes the big screen adaptation of Steven Millhauser's short story "Eisenheim...
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Home Cinema 2 out of 5Ghost Rider - DVD review
7 July 2007After hearing that his chain-smoking old man is about to die from lung cancer (someone really should warn people that these things aren’t good for them!) motorcycle stunt rider Johnny Blaze (Cage) makes a deal with Mephistopheles (Fonda) to save his...
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Home Cinema 3.5 out of 5The Good Shepherd - DVD review
29 June 2007Edward Wilson (Matt Damon) is a high flyer at Yale University in 1939 when he is recruited to join the American secret service. His hidden life gives him first hand experience of the Second World War and the Soviet expansion into Eastern Europe while...
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5Blood Diamond - DVD review
23 June 2007Set amid the carnage of the Sierra Leone civil war of the late-1990s, Blood Diamond tells the story of Solomon Vandy (Hounsou), a Mende fisherman forced into slavery after his village is decimated by rebel guerrillas. Put to work in the diamond mines,...
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5The Fountain - DVD review
21 June 2007Loved by some and hated by a whole lot of others, Darren Aronofsky’s latest movie is every bit as weird and, some would say, wonderful, as his previous highly original movies, Pi and Requiem for a Dream. Tom (Hugh Jackman) is a scientist trying to find...
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5Hot Fuzz - DVD review
18 June 2007Three years on from their big screen “Rom-Zom-Com” debut, Shaun of the Dead’s Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright are back for another slice of genre busting action in Hot Fuzz, but does it match up to its predecessor? We get watching to find out. Pegg...
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5Apocalypto - DVD review
16 June 2007Three years on from The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson returns to the director’s chair for a brutal action thriller set against the backdrop of the fall of the Mayan empire. When a savage tribe decimates a peaceful village, Jaguar Paw (Youngblood)...
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5Infamous - DVD review
14 June 2007Following directly in the footsteps of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar winning turn in 2006, Toby Jones now takes on the role of Truman Capote - the famously eccentric American novelist, playwright and screenwriter - in Infamous. The story begins as...
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Home Cinema 3.5 out of 5Bobby - DVD review
12 June 2007Bobby follows the stories of 22 fictional characters in Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel on the night of June 4th 1968, when Presidential hopeful Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated moments after claiming victory in the crucial California primary....
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5Rocky Balboa - DVD review
28 May 2007Despite looking more like his mum than the Italian Stallion we remember from his Oscar-winning 1976 debut, Sly Stallone is back for his sixth, and final, outing as Rocky Balboa. Having hung up his gloves in the early-90s, Rock now spends his days regaling...
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Home Cinema 3.5 out of 5Babel - DVD review
25 May 2007The third collaboration between Director Alejandro González Iñárritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga (Amores Perros, 21 Grams) is a multi-stranded epic, spanning three continents. A rifle shot in the African desert sparks a chain of events linking a group...
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Home Cinema 4.5 out of 5The Last King of Scotland - DVD review
23 May 2007Based on Giles Foden’s best selling novel, The Last King of Scotland is an enthralling political thriller set amid the destruction of Idi Amin’s (Whitaker) murderous reign as Ugandan president during the 1970s. A mixture of fact and fiction, the story...
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5London to Brighton - DVD review
17 May 2007Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) is a prostitute, forced by Derek (Johnnie Harris) her bullying pimp to find a child to satisfy a ruthless gangland boss’ sexual appetite. When things turn nasty, Kelly escapes with 11-year-old Joanne (Georgia Groome) to the...
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Home Cinema 2 out of 5Smokin' Aces - DVD review
16 May 2007From the creator of gritty undercover cop thriller Narc, comes a furiously bloody action flick set in the murky underworld of the Las Vegas mafia. When Buddy “Aces” Israel (Piven), a magician and small-time crook, decides to turn state’s evidence...
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Home Cinema 3.5 out of 5Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - DVD review
11 May 2007Deemed “unfilmable” since its release in 1985, Patrick Süskind’s best-selling novel finally makes its big-screen debut after a decade in development hell that saw both Ridley Scott and Tim Burton pass on the project after showing early interest....
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Home Cinema 3.5 out of 5Black Book - DVD review
7 May 2007Dutch director Paul Verhoeven's oddball career has given us classics such as Robocop and Basic Instinct, but also howlers like Showgirls. We're happy to say that Black Book is in the first camp. A beautiful Jewish singer, Rachel (Carice van Houten) is...
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Home Cinema 3 out of 5Miss Potter - DVD review
25 April 2007Just the sight of the name in the title may have some people clicking quickly to another review but, thankfully, this Potter film has nothing to do with the four-eyed dope that has blighted our Christmas schedules for the last 6 years. Miss Potter is...
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Home Cinema 1 out of 5Eragon - DVD review
19 April 2007Eragon is a lifeless fantasy adventure based on 15-year-old Christopher Paolini’s phenomenally successful novel, the first book in his epic “Inheritance Trilogy”. Newcomer Ed Speleers plays the titular character, a young farm boy from the mystical...
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Home Cinema 3 out of 5Flushed Away - DVD review
11 April 2007Aardman, the Bristol-based team behind Wallace and Gromit, join up with animation giants DreamWorks (Shrek) for their third big-screen adventure. Leading a strong list of A-List stars Hugh Jackman plays Roddy, a pet rat from a luxurious Kensington apartment...
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Home Cinema 2.5 out of 5Tenacious D: In The Pick Of Destiny - DVD review
6 April 2007Tenacious D - the folk-rock band created by Jack Black and Kyle Gass on HBO’s comedy sketch programme “The Mr. Show” - make a premature leap to the big screen in this meandering comedy written by the film’s stars. Rebelling against his puritanical...
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Home Cinema 4 out of 5Jackass number two - DVD review
2 April 2007Four years on from their first big screen outing, the Jackass crew are back for another 95 minutes of bone crunching, testicle crushing mayhem. Dispensing with any pretence of a plot the gung-ho gang launch themselves into a string of uproarious skits...
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Home Cinema 3.5 out of 5The Heart of the Game - DVD review
28 March 2007Acclaimed documentary from first time director Ward Serrill that follows a high school girls basketball team and their unconventional coach Bill Resler over a seven-year period. The story begins with Resler’s first season in charge of the Roosevelt...