Film Review: Begin Again (2013)

Writer-director John Carney had a surprise hit in 2007 with his lovely, lo-fi romance Once, in which a man and a woman (Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) fall in love while composing music together. It was a thoroughly charming and winning story - one that was given extra resonance when the two leads fell in love in real life and toured together as The Swell Season - that felt like a scruffy, raw debut album, the kind that people fall madly in love to. If Once was Carney's "Funeral", then Begin Again is his "Neon Bible"; a slicker, more polished sophomore effort that has much the same romanticism that its predecessor had, but lacks that sense of intimacy.

Film Review: Captain Phillips (2013)

Considering that it's a Hollywood film centred around an American merchant vessel being hijacked by Somali pirates, and the efforts of its captain (Tom Hanks) to keep his ship and his crew safe, it's gratifying to see that Captain Phillips isn't purely an exercise in American exceptionalism. There are elements of that inherent to the story, and they only become more pronounced once the Navy are brought in to resolve the situation by whatever means necessary, but there's little triumphalism in Paul Greengrass' (The Bourne Ultimatum) film. Though it has some geo-political resonance, it's primarily an examination of a clash between two captains, Philips and Muse (newcomer Barkhad Abdi) that is firmly grounded - or, perhaps more appropriately, anchored - in their shared humanity.