romantic comedy
DVD: Enough SaidMonday, 17 February 2014
Nowhere near enough was said by James Gandolfini before he died at the age of 51 in 2013. His monument is of course Tony Soprano, but in this late role he unveiled a charming doughy side as the bruised romantic lead in Nicole Holofcener’s lo-fi... Read more... |
8 Minutes IdleThursday, 13 February 2014
The makers of 8 Minutes Idle have a kickstarter campaign to thank for the cinema release of their offbeat comedy, which was made in 2012 but has sat on the shelf since. It's a charming (perhaps knowingly so) low-budget romcom, adapted from his novel... Read more... |
Cuban FuryWednesday, 12 February 2014
The British romcom is in crisis. Once a pretty reliable source of charm and laughs, these films channelled the spirit of the UK's reliably brilliant sitcoms through the silver screen. Our romantic comedies can be great because we hold no truck with... Read more... |
That Awkward MomentMonday, 27 January 2014
Who'd have thought that buried deep within the bromance antics of That Awkward Moment, the latest essay in celluloid dude-dom to confirm the notion that guys will be guys, would lurk a Shakespeare comedy? But forsooth, writer-director Tom Gormican's... Read more... |
LFF 2013: Enough SaidThursday, 17 October 2013
James Gandolfini stars as an overweight charmer in the best romantic comedy of the year, written and directed by Nicole Holofcener (Friends With Money). As Albert, Gandolfini – it's one of his last roles, in a film dedicated to “Jim” – brings all... Read more... |
AustenlandThursday, 26 September 2013
There is a life-size cardboard cut-out of Colin Firth in Austenland. He blends in very nicely. The only way you can tell him apart from the other actors in this cloth-eared, cack-handed romantic comedy of paramount awfulness is you can't see... Read more... |
In A World ...Friday, 13 September 2013
If you're going to make a film whose title mocks a particular tone of voice, it helps to have a voice of your own. And that turns out to be one of the many hugely beguiling aspects of In A World ... , the actress Lake Bell's first film trebling as... Read more... |
About TimeWednesday, 04 September 2013
The news that Richard Curtis will not direct any more films after About Time (which he also wrote) was met with sadness in some quarters and undisguised glee in others. Curtis co-wrote Blackadder, Not the Nine O'Clock News and Mr Bean, created Comic... Read more... |
Imeneo, Academy of Ancient Music, Hogwood, Barbican HallThursday, 30 May 2013
There are Handel operas where you wait impatiently for the handful of truly original set-pieces to light up the action, hoping the singers are equal to their challenges. One such is surely Siroe, Re di Persia, bravely staged at the Göttingen Handel... Read more... |
PopulaireThursday, 30 May 2013
Writer-director Régis Roinsard's feature debut is a perky French rom-com which brings together the talented, easy-on-the-eye trio of Déborah François, Romain Duris and Bérénice Bejo. Set in the late 50s it contains oodles of delicious period detail... Read more... |
DVD: Silver Linings PlaybookTuesday, 02 April 2013
David O Russell's multi-Oscar-nominated film is a romcom with a difference, dealing as it does with mental-health issues. Bradley Cooper, more usually found parlaying characters with arrested adolescence, here plays Pat Solitano, a man with a... Read more... |
I Give It a YearWednesday, 06 February 2013
Although I Give It a Year seems to have more than a whiff of a Richard Curtis rom-com about it, don’t be fooled as this is the debut of British writer-director Dan Mazer, the co-writer of the emphatically more outré Brüno and Borat, along with... Read more... |
