Film Review | Selma
★★★★★
In some ways, the absence of “I Have a Dream” from Selma, incredibly only the first feature film to give the biopic treatment to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, is symbolic of the film as a whole. It’s the four words the civil right leader is most known for, but director Ava DuVernay is interested in far more than just compelling oratory.
Selma focuses its gaze on a three-month period in 1965 when King (David Oyelowo) led a dangerous campaign to secure equal voting rights for African-American citizens. The first act sets up the shrewd tactics necessary to induce change; Having campaigned in Albany for nine months with no results, it’s decided that Selma is the place to stage the protest, the county already a fervent breeding ground of racial inequality and therefore more likely to garner media attention. While the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) work diligently to force President Lyndon B. Johnson (an effective Tom Wilkinson) into action, the film also offers up an examination of how the civil rights movement affected its leader, both at home and as a man.
Film Review | The Lone Ranger
Director Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger gallops into cinemas this week, delivering lively and enjoyable blockbuster entertainment even if it lacks the freshness and swagger of his Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).
Read my review at Flicks and the City here.
Film Trailer | The Lone Ranger
The action-packed trailers for next year’s big summer blockbusters just keep on coming this week, with the latest film to offer up some new footage being The Pirates of the Caribbean director Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger (2013). A brief teaser trailer debuted all the way back in October, and now we have a full two-minute look at this big screen Hollywood re-imagining of the popular 1950s American television series. For the previously uninitiated, The Lone Ranger will see former Texas ranger John Reid (Armie Hammer) join forces with native American ‘spirit warrior Tonto’ (Verbinski regular Johnny Depp) as the two work together to fight corruption in the dangerous canyons and plains of the Wild West.
Watch the trailer for The Lone Ranger at CineVue here.
Film Trailer | The Lone Ranger
It would seem that Gore Verbinski enjoys working with Johnny Depp almost as much as Tim Burton does. Having collaborated on The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise as well as Rango (2011), the pair have re-teamed once more for The Lone Ranger (2013), a re-imagining of the 1950s television series. Earlier this week, the first official poster was revealed and now we have a slightly blurred teaser trailer of the Jerry Bruckheimer produced blockbuster for your viewing pleasure. The Lone Ranger will follow the exploits of former Texas Ranger John Reid (Armie Hammer) as seen through the eyes of Native American spirit warrior Tonto (Depp) as the unlikely heroes work together to combat the corruption surrounding the rise of rail-roads.
Watch the trailer for The Lone Ranger at CineVue here.
Film Review | Fury
Next week, Samuel L. Jackson will be hitting UK screens as Nick Fury in Marvel’s Avengers Assemble (2012), to which many minds may wander when they learn that he is also starring this week in Fury (The Samaritan, 2012). This is no Marvel spin-off however; Jackson stars as Foley, an ex-con eager for redemption in this Canadian thriller directed and co-written by David Weaver. Fury offers up an intriguing examination of its issues, but all too often lacks the panache that could have made it truly memorable.
Read the rest of this review on CineVue here.
AMONymous 