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Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool (Blu-ray Review)

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Starring: Jamie Bell, Annette Bening, Stephen Graham, Julie Walters, Kenneth Cranham
Directed By: Paul McGuigan
Running Time: 105 mins
BBFC Certificate: 15
UK Release Date: March 19th 2018 (UK)

Our Score

In the late 1940s and 1950s Gloria Grahame was a big name Hollywood actress, known for the likes of The Big Heat (1953) and Oklahoma! (1955), as well as winning an Oscar for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). However, her star power soon faltered.

Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool picks up her story in the 1970s, by which time Grahame (Annette Bening) is appearing in theatre in Britain. The older star meets the much younger Peter Turner (Jamie Bell), with a May-December romance developing. Grahame is flattered by the attentions of the younger man, while Turner is impressed by his beau’s celebrity – something that’s beguiling and exotic for a working-class Liverpudlian lad. [Read more…]

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Journey’s End (Cinema Review)

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Starring: Sam Claflin, Paul Bettany, Asa Butterfield, Stephen Graham, Toby Jones, Tom Sturridge, Robert Glenister
Director: Saul Dibb
Running time: 107 mins
BBFC Certificate: 12A

Our Score

In 2014 the 100th anniversary of WWI began, and since then we’ve had a plethora of films, documentaries, tributes and dramas about the Great War. Most have been excellent, some middling, but it’s an exhaustive list, and some would say exhausting. However, this version of RC Sherriff’s play deserves to be seen, tired as you may be with war films. It’s released to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1918 spring offensive, and is a noble addition to the list of films dealing with the great conflict.

It’s a version of Sherriff’s play that sticks to the script – for the most part. There are some added four-letter words which he never wrote, and which add little to the power of the piece. Meanwhile some lines about cricket, Alice in Wonderland and drinking have been cut. However it conveys, like the play and the fine 1988 TV film, the regimen of the men on the front, the nervousness, the routine, sometimes the boredom, and certainly the sheer terror of being in a trench 60 yards away from the German fortifications – “the width of a rugby field”. [Read more…]

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Journey’s End Trailer – Sam Claflin & Asa Butterfield star in the classic World War I tale

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Synopsis: ‘Based on RC Sherriff’s play and novel of the same name JOURNEY’S END is set in March 1918 as C-Company, led by a war-weary Captain Stanhope (Sam Claflin) arrives in northern France to take its turn in the front-line trenches. Told that a German offensive is imminent Stanhope drowns his fears in whisky whilst the officers (Paul Bettany, Stephen Graham, Tom Sturridge) and their cook (Toby Jones) attempt to distract themselves in their dugout with talk of food and life before war.

‘They are joined by Raleigh (Asa Butterfield), a young new officer fresh out of training excited about his first real posting, and a chance to serve under Stanhope. Raleigh’s naivety serves as a stark contrast to the other men’s impending fear as the tension rises and the attack draws ever closer.’

Saul Dibb (Suite Française, The Duchess) directs the movie, which will arrive in UK cinemas February 2nd 2018. Take a look at the trailer below. [Read more…]

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