DVD & Blu Ray: Ted (15)
Mark Wahlberg, since the splendidly silly The Other Guys, has morphed into a comic actor and it’s paying dividends – certainly better than dim actioners such as Max Payne.
November 24, 2012
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Mark Wahlberg, since the splendidly silly The Other Guys, has morphed into a comic actor and it’s paying dividends – certainly better than dim actioners such as Max Payne.
Matthew McConaughey, after his louche turn in Killer Joe, once again excels as an ageing, preening stripper in Steven Soderbergh’s lightweight drama.
The resurrected Dallas is riddled with far too many pretty people (Jesse Metcalfe, Julie Gonzalo) but it’s still the old stagers – Sue Ellen, Bobby Ewing, and, of course, the reptilian JR Ewing (Larry Hagman, still wonderful) – who make these slickly packaged episodes of oil skullduggery compelling.
In Jennifer Westfeldt’s shockingly disagreeable romantic comedy, she manages to reduce Jon Hamm (Don Draper), and Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids), to mere ciphers, with not one decent funny line.
“I was an agent for three years before I realised all models are aliens.” Apart from the odd droll line – and a very amusing Andy Warhol “happening” – a lot of this third instalment feels undercooked, slightly tired, even the perennially perky Will Smith.
Yves Montand is riveting as César, a hyperactive, wealthy scrap-metal merchant who smokes big fat cigars, drives fast and adores the exquisite, younger Rosalie (Romy Schneider).
William Friedkin’s scuzzy redneck thriller only betrays it’s theatrical roots (Killer Joe is based on Tracy Letts’s play) in the final segment, when everything unravels in suitably gruesome fashion –you’ll never view a fried chicken drumstick in the same way again.
This rich, intelligent and moving Danish period drama tells the incredible true story of a German doctor (Mads Mikkelsen) who ministers to the mentally fragile King Frederick VI (Mikkel Boe Foelsgaard) and has an affair with Queen Caroline (Alicia Vikander) in late 18th-century Copenhagen.
Vampires are so ubiquitous at the moment, you half expect one to emerge in Emmerdale.
Bent spoons, country house séances, electrical storms and fraudulent healers feature in this supernatural thriller which, until it unravels halfway through, is rather gripping.