Sam Claflin

Let England Shake

The-riot-club-movie-review-sam-claflin-max-irons-douglas-booth
Universal Studios

MOVIE REVIEW
The Riot Club (2014)

“The Riot Club” wants to mortify and astonish, presenting a bunch of Oxford University’s finest on an apocalyptic privilege-fueled binge through a country pub which leaves no prole uninsulted, no woman unmistreated and one well-meaning innocent on a saline drip for the crime of social climbing. But the satire is surely old news, certainly for anyone primed by the gloriously awful old photo of David Cameron and pals in the preening outfits of the Bullingdon Club, an image that no copyright lawyer can now stake through the heart — the film recreates a version of it, just in case. Most of Lone Scherfig‘s movie is spent shaking the English establishment so warmly by the throat that it summons up Monty Python’s “Upper-Class Twit of the Year” as much as anything else.

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Spoiling the Ship for a Ha’p’orth of Tar

MOVIE REVIEW
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

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Peter Mountain/Disney Enterprises

The “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise returns with its fourth installment “On Stranger Tides” without director Gore Verbinski or stars Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley onboard. In their place we have Rob Marshall at the helm and Penélope Cruz and Ian McShane joining veterans Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush and Kevin McNally. Although screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio — who scripted the first three installments — are also back, “On Stranger Tides” is a bit of a, well, shipwreck.

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