Xavier Samuel

Movie Review: Love & Friendship (2016)

“A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.” — Jane Austen, “Pride and Prejudice,” Chapter VI Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale, “Total Recall”), the main protagonist of Whit Stillman’s (“Damsels in Distress”) period comedy Love & Friendship is determined to get what she wants…

Movie Review: Adore (2013)

Early in 2013, a small film, Adore, based on the novella “The Grandmothers” by Doris Lessing played at the Sundance Film Festival. It screened in limited release in the US in September, and then quietly went to DVD. The film takes on an uncomfortable story of two grown women — the best of childhood friends…

Movie Review: Bait 3D (2012)

On paper, Bait 3D sounds like a hoot and a half. After all, the film was co-written and produced by B-movie extraordinaire Russell Mulcahy, and it’s about a supermarket which gets flooded during a tsunami and invaded by sharks. Alas, however, this Australian-produced shark thriller is underwhelming. Only occasionally showing signs of goodness, the picture…

Movie Review: Anonymous (2011)

Ding! Ding! Ding! It’s time for a brief lesson on the Bard of Avon — William Shakespeare. Born to a working-class family in early 1560s, and, with a sixth-grade formal education, he began as a successful actor in London. Later, ‘Peare branched out to writing plays, specifically comedies and tragedies. His more famous works, considered…

Movie Trailer: Anonymous (2011)

Apparently in some circles (you know, the ones inhabited by “academics and brilliant minds”) there is a raging debate whether the 37 plays and 154 sonnets attributed to William Shakespeare were really written by William Shakespeare. Sounds dry, I know, but I suppose if anyone can make, what on the surface seems uninteresting interesting, Roland…

Movie Review: The Loved Ones (2009)

2009’s The Loved Ones is a delirious Australian mash-up of various movies, including Carrie, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Prom Night. Several critics have also dubbed the film as “Pretty in Pink meets Wolf Creek“, and that’s another fairly accurate analogy of this frightening yet resonant exercise in genre dramatics — it represents an…

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