Woody Allen’s latest, Magic in the Moonlight, sees him return to France for this tale of a magician who falls for the psychic he’s attempting to debunk. It’s one of Allen’s best this century, with a great leading turn by Colin Firth, gorgeous cinematography that exploits the French landscape, and a crackingly plotted script that keeps you guessing.
Inspired by Oxford University’s notorious Bullingdon Club, an elitist society whose past members include David Cameron and Boris Johnson, The Riot Club details the events and fallout of an initiation dinner that gets wildly out of hand. The dinner sequence itself is riveting, and bound to make your blood boil, but it’s bookended by opening and closing acts that slow down the movie unnecessarily.
Liam Neeson continues his late career tough guy reinvention with A Walk Among the Tombstones. This one’s an old fashioned detective thriller, made interesting by its 1999 backdrop. It’s not the most original of films but there’s enough to satisfy fans of the gumshoe genre.
Wish I Was Here, directed by Zach Braff, who funded the film mainly from fan donations, is the most self-indulgent piece of garbage I’ve seen in quite some time. Featuring the year’s most unlikable protagonist, a free-loading failed, narcissistic actor played by Braff himself, this one is unbearable.
By Eric Hillis
Image: Movie of the Week, Magic in the Moonlight
