Beauty and the Beast
This is a confident film that bursts out of the gate strong and barely ever falters.
Rating: 
Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Beauty and the Beast
Tag Archives: Musical
La La Land
Stone plays an aspiring actress, Gosling plays an aspiring jazz musician. Together, they’re mourning the death of their art.
Rating: 
Hoopla Factor: Continue reading La La Land
Bran Nue Dae
It’s a film that deals with Aboriginal issues without resorting to the two easiest knee jerk arguments, either by condemning white people for destroying the indigenous population’s spirit and way of life, or blaming Aborigines for simply not ‘trying harder’ to be more white. It takes a much more original and intelligent route – everyone has work to do, and there’s no one way to do it.
Rating: Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Bran Nue Dae
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tim Burton’s version of the Sondheim stage show is very successful indeed. Judiciously edited to work better on the screen and featuring actors with heretofore unknown skill as singers, Sweeney Todd is a bleak and bloody ride through the gothic London world of the famous barber.
Rating: Hoopla Factor: 
The deliberately two-dimensional special effects create a wonderfully set-like London, and it’s grimy and dirty and oh so bloody. Did I mention that? Blood. Lots of it. It’s really quite insane. Some members of the audience obviously hadn’t expected quite so many buckets of the crimson fluid.
Rating: Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Across the Universe
Those awkward ‘oh no they’re about to sing’ moments seem to be missing from Across the Universe. This could be because of the deliberate blurring of diegetic and non-diegetic aural elements, or simply its use of montage.
Rating: Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Across the Universe
Hairspray
How do you judge a screen musical? If you don’t walk out humming the tunes to yourself (or belting them out loud) has it failed? Hairspray’s a whole lotta fun – bright, colourful and a little dim-witted, like all musicals, though perhaps the song writing department is its major let down.
Rating: 
Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Hairspray
Once
It isn’t often that film critics agree, and even less often that they are moved. Every now and then however, a film wins the hearts of almost everyone – critics included – who sees it, and in 2007 that film is Once.
Rating: Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Once
Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny
Thankfully Kyle Gass is in much better form here than previously. He always seemed kind of flat next to such a scene-stealer, though of course he often had the difficult role of playing it straight next to a hyperactive maniac.
Rating: Hoopla Factor: Continue reading Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny
Rent
There are two types of people in the world – actually, there are many more than two, but for the sake of this argument, just accept there are two and stop being difficult – those who can accept that people Continue reading Rent
The Sound of Music
So the institution known as the hoopla.nu classic movie review is quickly becoming a place for me to have a whinge about those older films that everyone knows and loves. I did it with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Continue reading The Sound of Music