Eleanor Reviews

**** Best friends Dale and Tucker escape to the woods to renovate an old wood cabin and relax with a few beers. At the same time, a group of college kids descend upon the wood for a camping trip, but when Dale and Tucker rescue one of the party from drowning, the peaceful holiday descends into blood shed.   This hilarious horror-comedy plays upon all the clichés and tropes we know from countless horror films: a cabin in the woods; a group of gormless, good-looking college kids; a tale of a previous grisly murder; and hillbillies, and cleverly subverts them. Hillbillies Dale and Tucker (Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk) are not the murderous, deranged individuals of Deliverance and others of the same ilk, rather ordinary working men wanting to escape on holiday and decorate their newly acquired holiday home. In a twist of fate, it's the college kids who have the murderous side, aiming to rescue their friend, Allison (Katrina Bowden), by whatever means necessary. Cue impal...

***** For the first eleven years of Riley’s life, she has been happy, all thanks to Joy. However, when her family decide to move to San Francisco, Riley must learn to cope with the increased activity of the other voices in her head: Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear. It is rare to come across a film as innovative and compelling as Inside Out ; the pure creativity and originality on display here further cements Pixar’s reputation as a studio at the top of its game. The premise of the story appears a daunting one, and a topic that did not, for me, translate well in the trailer, but I urge you not to be perturbed and to seek this out. Inside Riley’s head, inside all our heads, is a Headquarters, wherein five emotions live: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear, all characterised by various vibrant colours and forms. Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) has been used to being in charge in Headquarters, overseeing Riley’s Core Memories and Personality Islands, but in moving house, Ril...

***/**** (3.5 stars) DVD Release Socially awkward and abused by his alcoholic father, Andrew feels as though he’s finally been accepted when he and two other boys develop strange powers after finding an unidentified object. With so many super-power films to choose from, and a never-ending line of heroes to cheer on, it’s refreshing to come across a film that looks at the negative sides of these powers, and the effect it can have on individuals, in this case a group of three young men. At the heart of the story is Andrew (an excellent Dane DeHaan), a social outsider with a troubled home life. As his powers develop, he grows in confidence and starts to enjoy himself – he is the ultimate sympathetic character, given a chance at redemption but thwarted by his age and emotions. Given that the main characters are high-schoolers, their aims are based far more on their sexual desires and immediate pressures as opposed to notions of saving the world, which is indeed refreshing, ...

**** Haunted by events some thirty years earlier, an aged Sherlock Holmes looks back upon his life and ponders his final case. It is hard to imagine anyone other than Ian McKellen taking on the role of the aged sleuth and pulling it off with the finesse that he can. Each movement is idiosyncratic, each raise of the eyebrow nuanced, and the moments of silence in which he stares into space are as mesmerising as any speech. Indeed, one of the most powerful moments of the film is when Holmes, stumped during an argument, merely stares directly forward, his mind working away behind his intense eyes. Aged to look 93 by excellent prosthetics and make-up, McKellen spends the majority of the film struggling with his memory as he lives out his retirement in the countryside, minding his bees. It is a quiet, subtle performance, aided by Milo Parker as his protégé, Roger, the intelligent yet stifled son of his housekeeper (Laura Linney). The relationship between these characters is at t...

**** Following on from the events of Jurassic Park , there’s a new dinosaur theme park in town, ‘Jurassic World’. However, with numbers in decline and the ‘wow factor’ now missing from the island, the in-house scientists and management team band together to create a new attraction, one that has far-reaching and bloody consequences. I am no Jurassic Park aficionado, yet I do have fond memories of the first of the franchise: the terrifying moment as the goat was lowered into the pit; the scary raptor chase through the building; and, of course, the moment in which the Rex lifts it’s head and roars as the banners fall down around it. Undoubtedly, it was a true blockbuster. It was not my intention to see this latest dinosaur-based offering, and yet, once seated in the cinema, I ended up rather enjoying myself. For one thing, the film isn’t overly long, and doesn’t hang around giving us hours of back story before actually arriving at the island and showing us some dinosaurs, whi...

***/**** (3.5 stars) Desk-bound CIA agent Susan Cooper is used to being the voice in the ear of Bradley Fine, a top-class agent always on active duty. When Fine’s latest mission is compromised, Cooper must step out from behind the desk and save the world from destruction. Dear readers: You may be wondering why I, a self-confessed lover of films dark, painful and war-based, would venture to see the latest comedy release, especially as I found Bridesmaids , Feig and McCarthy’s breakthrough film, only mildly amusing. Well, it’s true – I was mostly swayed by the promise of some delicious ‘Ben & Jerry’s’ a la parental unit. However, and I even shocked myself, I found myself laughing (out loud!) at Spy , and this is mostly thanks to the excellent Jason Statham, playing Cockney ‘been there, done that’ spy Rick Ford. Sporting polo necks and hideous suit jackets, he steals the show as a spy gone rogue, who inadvertently ends up assisting Cooper (McCarthy) as she rampages acros...

***/**** (3.5 stars) Dorest, 1870. In the depths of the countryside, an orphaned young woman, Bathsheba Everdeen, discovers she is to inherit her uncle’s farm and large fortune. In her new position, she draws the gaze of a variety of men: Sergeant Troy, gallant yet troublesome; Mr. Boldwood, a well-respected and kind man; and Gabriel Oak, her first sweetheart. The trouble with adapting Victorian fiction is that, once you strip away the allure of the lexicon and the authors’ command of the English language, the plots can be really rather… Frustrating? Long-winded? Overly convoluted? A mixture of all of these, perhaps. I have studied many a Victorian novel, from multiple Dickens books, to the dreary Austen, and, indeed, to Thomas Hardy, and in each case, I have always felt that if the characters actually communicated with one another about how they were feeling, these novels would not be half as long. Refreshingly, Hardy does at least suggest why Bathsheba is not forthcoming...