Toby Moses
Toby Moses has been a journalist for five years, working for the Mail on Sunday (don’t judge), the Observer and the Guardian – largely on Sport with a smidgen of technology stuff thrown into the mix. He loves the cinema, probably due to weekends spent with his father seeing child suitable fare like the Das Boot: Director’s Cut, and a video shop down the road which would lend an eight year old Nightmare on Elm Street. He’s currently trying to branch out into screenwriting, so maybe one day it’ll be his offerings being dissected on the site.
Website URL: http://twitter.com/tobymoses
Pierce Brosnan starring in a jaunty, bilingual Danish rom-com rings alarm bells – a piece of casting aimed squarely at luring the mass crowd of fans of the scandi-inspired Mamma Mia to the cinema. But with a film directed by the Oscar winning Susanne Bier there was some hope Love Is All You Need would escape beyond the lame title and questionable choice in actors. It doesn't.
Disability is usually prime Oscar bait, so it was no surprise to see The Sessions receive a nod. However, that it went to Helen Hunt rather than John Hawkes was something of a shock. Hawkes plays Mark O'Brien, a poet, and writer of 'On Seeing a Sex Surrogate' upon which the film is based. O'Brien is a witty, playful, religious poet, unable to move anything apart from his head due to a bout of Polio when he was a child, and trapped for all but three hours a day in his iron lung. He is tended to by a collection of carers, with his local Catholic priest, played straight by William H Macy, always on hand to offer advice and friendship. His life is sent in a new direction when a beautiful, thoughtful young carer Amanda (Annika Marks) comes into his life and stirs sexual feelings in the middle-aged virgin. Rejected by Amanda, Mark is put in touch with 'sexual surrogate' Cheryl Cohen Greene (the Oscar nominated Helen Hunt), a sensitive prostitute/therapist hybrid who encourages him to explore his and her body, along with his own feelings over the course of their eponymous sessions. These are strictly limited to six, presumably to avoid any emotional connection forming between the two parties. Of course, in film as in life things are never so straightforward.
"The Legend Ends" says the marketing for The Dark Knight Rises, so to celebrate the conclusion of Christopher Nolan's superb trilogy, we at LITM are bringing you a whole Batcave's worth of features on the caped crusader and his fight against Gotham's underworld...
When you're rebooting a hugely successful comic book title, directed by a fan favourite you're asking for trouble. To then add the word 'amazing' to the title is truly tempting fate. Luckily for web-heads and film fans alike, Marc Webb doesn't drop the ball creating an engaging, exciting and just about distinct enough retelling of Spider-Man's origin story.
When Sony decided not to pursue a fourth Spider-Man film with fan favourite Sam Raimi there was always going to be a huge interest in who got handed the reins for the £1.5billion franchise. However, when they announced a reboot would be helmed by second time director Marc Webb there was a mixture of anger and bemusement from Spidey fans. Coming off the back of his debut feature, quirkily successful rom-com 500 Days of Summer, how could this sophomore director possibly emulate the success of Raimi's trilogy? Many seemed content to assume the studio execs had seen his surname and decided hiring him was a no-brainer.
