Shakespeare adaptations are hard to pull off. The early attempts by Laurence Olivier are very close to theatre – with traditional costume, adherence to the original text, and dramatic acting. In a phrase: theatre on film. Other adaptations try to re-invent the plays, in an effort to make them more ‘relevant’ to present-day audiences. The […]
Based upon August Wilson’s play of the same name – Wilson here also adapting his own work – Denzel Washington’s third directorial outing impresses as much as it frustrates. At well over two hours long and being set, on the whole, within the confines of a single dwelling, Fences is a slow burner. To that […]
It has been fifty-six years since John Sturges’s Magnificent Seven, itself a wild-west re-imagining of Akira Kurosawa’s critically acclaimed Seven Samurai from 1954. The 2016 update does not deliver, nor even compare with the earlier films however and while it packs the barrel with explosions and big-name Hollywood actors, pacing issues and a reductive good […]