Ballina Live

Marking the lead debut of minor Judd Apatow stalwart Jay Baruchel, and coming from the writers of the brilliant Hot Tub Time Machine, this lively but choppy comedy has some funny moments, but ultimately lacks the abrasive wit of the former to really...

Edited while under house arrest in Switzerland, The Ghost is a somewhat 'return to form' for Polanski after the misfire of Oliver Twist. A thriller steeped in noir, The Ghost delights in its twists and turns and finds humour in the story despite the...

Jennifer Lopez hasn’t been the lead in a rom-com in yonks and by the look of The Back-Up Plan nothing has changed since she was away. The movie kicks off with the usual rom-com clich?but then something happens - it gets better; only slightly but I...

Bird on a Wire is Tony Palmer's long forgotten and long lost 'fly on the wall' documentary of Leonard Cohen's 1972 European Tour. Starting in the salubrious surroundings of Dublin's National Stadium and ending in Jerusalem, the film interweaves...

Hot Tub Time Machine is a near two hour long piss-take that you'll either be onboard with from the title alone, or frown at before returning to watch the latest Iranian drama about emotionally scarred goat herders. This is, quite possibly, one of...

A mishmash of genres, and indeed specific films, Legion sounds like a lot more fun than it actually turns out to be. Most of this can be laid at the door of a relatively paltry budget given the scale that this story would require, but there are...

Having tackled the high concept with previous cinematic outings Ghost Town and The Invention of Lying, Ricky Gervais and his Office co-creator Stephen Merchant move into more character driven fare, with this heartfelt love letter to the 70s. Hardly...

The swords-and-sandals comeback that Gladiator hastened ten years ago may be dwindling now, but Neil Marshall (The Descent, Doomsday) reckons there is still room for more. His violent and breathless movie certainly packs a punch but the lack of a...

Hype can certainly be a damaging thing, as it can often raise expectations to unrealistic levels. When you have a $300 million movie like Avatar for instance, people expect to be astounded by the scale, and indeed spectacle. A movie with a tenth...

Inherently ridiculous on almost every level, with plot holes that straddle the production like a cheap hooker fighting to be paid, Repo Men is still nowhere as crap as I assumed it would be. That doesn't make it good; it just means Jude Law allowing...

One of the most desperate films to come out of Hollywood in some time, Old Dogs actually marks a career low for both John Travolta and Robin Williams - no mean feat when you consider some of the bile they've churned out over the years. An...

Suffering from exactly the kind of problems as every other Nicolas Sparks adaptation, Dear John nonetheless could've worked if director Hallstrom had paced the movie like a movie - not a book. What he does is give us an overly ponderous hour of...

Credit where credit is due, Drew Barrymore has transferred the best things about her acting work (charm, comic timing and that elusive likeability factor) to her first gig as a director. The former child actress has once again proved the naysayers...

Credit where credit is due, Jim Carrey really grabbed this role by the balls - literally. The limb-flingingly expressive funny man will probably never be any further out of his comfort zone as a man living a lie, then the truth... which evidently...

There have been a lot of pointless remakes and re-imaginings coming out of Hollywood in the last decade, but if there ever was a movie in need of retooling it's 1981's Clash of the Titans - that epic tale of Perseus' adventures was hamstrung by the...

A crime caper with a procrastinating protagonist, Perrier's Bounty may not be nearly as smart as it thinks it is, but it's still a mildly entertaining hour and a half. Written by Mark O'Rowe, who also penned the breakout home-grown hit Intermission,...

Coming from the lens of Taken helmer Pierre Morel, this old fashioned action romp is therefore expected to deliver on two fronts; kick ass hand-to-hand combat courtesy of a hard bastard protagonist, and ropey dialogue. It fails at achieving the...

Shamelessly ripping off the classic Robert De Niro/Charles Grodin 80s film Midnight Run, this is every bit as simplistic as its title implies. Sometimes, when the leads have charm, decent comic timing and genuine chemistry, these screwball romantic...

Initially this strange little film comes off as something you've seen countless times before, as Michael Cera plays a virgin teen obsessed with breaking the seal. But then Cera's intellectual high school student discovers a different side to himself...

Broader than a before picture on an episode of Operation Transformation, this purposely slight, glossy production sees Hollywood's elite and beautiful gang up to make a film with Pretty Woman helmer, Garry Marshall. Your enjoyment of the resulting...