Carol Naylor's REVIEW it...

                                Brooklyn  Film Review.                  "Two countries, two loves, one heart." Brooklyn was based on the 2009 novel by Colm Toibin set around the early 1950s. The plot revolves around the idea of a young Irish girl, Eilis Lacey who leaves Enniscorthy in south-east Ireland for New York searching for a better life. She worked in a shop at weekends for a Miss Kelly, nicknamed Nettles Kelly, a woman who overcharged for stale bread and relished  humiliating her customers and staff. Her sister Rose wrote to Father Flood ( Jim Broadbent ) in Brooklyn who arranges for Eilis ( Saoirse Ronan ) to have a better future. "She doesn't want to be trapped in the humdrum cycle of existence that seems to be inevitable at home." ( Clark Douglas who awarded the film 4 out of 4 stars)  ...

                      The Theory of Everything.        Film Review. "To be told you are going to be dead in two years, and to be still alive now and to have done the things he's done is absolutely amazing." (Lisa Bruce/Producer.) Stephen Hawking is 75. When he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease he was told the maximum life expectancy would be two years from the diagnosis. He was a PhD student in 1963. He beat the odds and probably owes his life to Jane Hawking, his first wife. He is still seeking theories of everything possible to explain our existence. Eddie Redmayne's performance as the physicist Stephen Hawking won him his first Oscar in the Best Actor category for such an outstanding performance: "Eddie's performance is amazing. About half-way through you forget that someone is acting." (Bruce) It's hard to imagine that urchin all those years ago appearing in Oliver wi...

                               The Sea. Film Review. "Solitude is a thing you learn, the knack of being alone. Time is relentless, that helps." This was Stephen Brown's directorial debut based on John Banville's 2005 Booker Prize winning novel. The film is a British-Irish collaboration filmed entirely in Co. Wexford, Ireland and premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival in June 2013. It boasts of renowned actors such as Ciaran Hinds, Sinead Cusack, Charlotte Rampling, Rufus Sewell and Natasha McElhone. The film explores grief and abandonment over three different time lines using frequent flashback techniques to connect with the distant past, the recent past and the present. We see the young Max Morden as a 12 year old during a vacation spent in Ballygarrett, a middle aged Morden (Hinds: Road to Perdition, Harry Potter and the Deathly Harrow Part 2) when his wife Anna ( Sinead Cusack) is diagn...

                       The Two Faces of January. Film Review. "Truth is we're joined at the hips. I get caught, I take you down. You get caught, you turn me in." If you're a fan of Hitchcock or Patricia Highsmith and love psychological thrillers, this film is for you. I'm sure you're familiar with the Ripley books by Highsmith so you'll find similar underlying themes with fraudsters, murders and of course, men on the run! For well-known screenwriter Hossein Amini, this was to prove a successful directorial debut joining the prolific ranks of Clement, Hitchcock and Minghella, reminding us of the thrill and tension, on the edge of your seat tension that is characteristic of this genre. Where Amini excels is in conveying subtle and unspoken tension particularly with the Alpha males sparring over Colette. The cold-hearted stares and the grimaces will give you the creeps followed by the profanities and the scuffle...

Jean Dujardin, playing the famous Hollywood movie star, George Valentin is the artist, an egotistical, silent movie star with the charisma and plenty of the good lucks to attract the interest of the ladies. It's not surprising that his accolades include best actor awards for the Golden Globes, BAFTAs and Academy Awards. I loved his arrogance and his acting which typifies melodrama at its best. Melodrama is one of the features that interested the French director, Michel Hazanavicius in recreating silent movies during the 1920s. The Artist highlights the superficiality of Tinsel town, the glitter and glitz of fame while it lasts. And does it last? Of course not!! The silent movies were becoming tedious and dated, the directors wanted something to excite their public and of course, the public yearned for something modern and exciting. This seems to mean the end of a flourishing career for Valentin whose stubbornness and pride lead him to reject any advancement in cinematography. H...