Larry Oliver Film Reviews

Pictured: Singing for water. Soprano Roxane Coss (Julianne Moore) is given a demand from guerillas in the siege drama 'Bel Canto'. Still courtesy of Vertigo Films (UK) Early in the South America-set siege drama ‘ Bel Canto ’, soprano Roxane Coss (Julianne Moore) confesses that she only took the gig to perform for a Japanese industrialist, Mr Hosokawa (Ken Watanabe) for money. ‘I kept raising the amount in the hope that I would put them off,’ she confesses, crassly. ‘Finally, the money was too much to refuse.’ I wonder if the Oscar winning star of Still Alice made a similar decision. Moore is utterly unconvincing as an opera star. It isn’t the mouth movements that fail to convince. (Renee Fleming is credited as her vocal double.) You cannot see the physical effort below the chin to hit the high notes. The film, adapted from Ann Patchett’s 2001 novel by Anthony Weintraub and the director Paul Weitz ( About A Boy , In Good Company , Little Fockers ) doesn’t hit the high notes...

My foster brother, the hero. Zachary Levi packs lycra as the kidult Billy Batson with Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy in 'Shazam!' a surprisingly good DC comic adaptation like they used to make. Still courtesy of Warner Bros / New Line The majority of DC superheroes are so silly that the decision to take them seriously - to make them distinct from the Marvel Cinematic Universe - seemed like a colossal mistake. You can do it with Batman because he doesn't have superpowers. As for the rest, there is no coherent universe in which they can co-exist, which partly explains why the Green Lantern was absent from the Justice League. To anybody who doesn't watch superhero movies - I would imagine there are a few - the first paragraph won't make sense. I might just as well be babbling. Batman, Superman and perhaps Wonder Woman (with her lasso of truth) have entered into popular culture. As for the rest, you would struggle to name their alter egos. If you asked me for Wonder...

S tevie (Sunny Suljic) is about to get a lesson in teenage wish-fulfillment in Jonah Hill's tale of bro's and skateboards, 'mid90s'. Still courtesy of A24 Films (US) / Altitude Releasing (UK) ' Mid90s ' is the entirely unexpected directorial debut of Jonah Hill. a comedian whose gifts were, until this point, up for debate. Hill struck me as the kind of guy who would shine a torch under his chin to look creepy - 24/7, doesn't matter. He is too sinister to be in family comedies. His purpose in life is to throw Seth Rogen into light relief. When he does voice work, as in the ' How to Train Your Dragon ' movies, you don't notice it's him. I mean seriously, Dreamworks, why not save some cash? Having reached a certain level of fame, he has turned to directing with an anti-nostalgic look at the middle 1990s, when Bill Clinton was in the White House. Hill has watched ' Kids ', the 1995 quasi-realist film about New York street children,...

From the age of twelve until my late teens, I collected film posters. 'Star Wars' started me off in 1978 - trying to get an original Ralph McQuarrie quad. It was also something to do on Saturday nights in South London - using my 'Red Bus Rover' ticket to tour cinemas in Elephant and Castle, Streatham and Croydon. I also pestered cinema staff in East Ham and Barking in East London and in Bromley in Kent. I made a few friends out of the hobby, notably employees at the Odeon, Bromley, and also got my first job out of school there - though a letter to Film Review magazine made me persona non grata . I should have signed it 'Henry Krinkle' as in the case of my first published missive. Generally, I took what the cinema staff offered, though what I was really after were genre film posters like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', 'Alien' and 'The Blues Brothers'. I covered one wall of the bedroom I shared with my brother with nine quads, th...