Tag Archives: Rose Byrne

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)

15 Apr

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Derek Cianfrance announced himself as a director of real craft and as a writer with a particular flair for character with the brilliantly sombre love story Blue Valentine.  The Place Beyond the Pines reunites Cianfrance with Blue Valentine’s lead Ryan Gosling, a deft decision which elevates this sprawling and unconventional triptych to sumptuous heights.  Hollywood is oft criticised for being staid and unoriginal, obsessed with remakes and never-ending sequels, so it’s a refreshing relief when a film like this comes along and blows off the cobwebs, because The Place Beyond the Pines is  brimming with unabated quality. Continue reading →

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From the Archives: 28 Weeks Later (2007)

16 Feb

By the mid to late 1990s the genre of horror had threatened to become a cruel parody of itself. Wes Craven’s wonderfully tongue-in-cheek self-referential 1996 feature Scream typified the malaise that the genre found itself in. It wasn’t until Danny Boyle’s genre busting 2002 feature 28 Days Later that horror was taken seriously again. Dispensing with outdated zombie movie clichés, Boyle’s measured direction revived and indeed redefined the entire genre. Intelligent, sophisticated and very scary, 28 Days Later served as a lesson and a wake up call to the film industry into how horror could and should be done. As a result, films such as Saw, Wolf Creek and Hostel have all subsequently enjoyed critical and commercial success, and in the case of Saw and Hostel spawned franchises. Given the success and influence of 28 Days, it seems surprising that a sequel has taken five years to emerge.

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