Reviews by Andrea Hopkins
Vine
Andrea Hopkins
So, you've been to see an early evening movie at the Ultimate Picture Palace, and you get out around 8. You're not hungry enough for full dinner, but you'd like a nice glass of wine (or three), some ...
6 years ago
Vine
As You Like It // Corpus Christi College
Andrea Hopkins
This production is unmissable. Run out the door/get online right now and snap up the few remaining tickets. This isn't your run-of-the-mill student production. For one thing, student productions are ...
7 years ago
As You Like It // Corpus Christi College
The Boy [15]
Andrea Hopkins
A thoughtful, clever and supremely creepy chiller. Not for fans of gore-splattered high body count horror movies, this is a well-crafted and plausible psychological study of the effects on a young ...
8 years ago
The Boy [15]
Hail, Caesar! [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Absolutely loved every second of this and will have to go back and see it again tonight to savour all the endorphin-rich movie references. It is odd to see a Cohen brothers film that is pretty much ...
8 years ago
Hail, Caesar! [12A]
The Revenant [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Absolutely awesome and a must-see. Towering performances from DiCaprio,Tom Hardy, Domnall Gleeson and Will Poulter (three of whom are British/Irish). Will make you feel very grateful to have been ...
8 years ago
The Revenant [15]
The Hateful Eight [18]
Andrea Hopkins
Right with you Moviemoghul. It features wonderful actors who produce awesome performances. It's a very talky movie, with seemingly hours of exposition (who in fact did do it?) all in a very ...
8 years ago
The Hateful Eight [18]
The Three Countertenors
Andrea Hopkins
Billed as The Three Counter-tenors, this concert was by another variation of the infinitely adaptable Charivari Agréable, a more familiar Oxford ensemble, this time featuring the awesome vocal ...
8 years ago
The Three Countertenors
The Martian [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Apollo 13 meets Robinson Crusoe, nicely if somewhat naively done. A sharp script with lots of early American utilitarian wisdom and a hugely engaging performance from Matt Damon as the likeable ...
9 years ago
The Martian [12A]
The Turn of the Screw
Andrea Hopkins
A superbly creepy and unsettling production of Benjamin Britten’s 1954 two-act opera based on Henry James’s creepy and unsettling novella The Turn of the Screw. Britten makes of this nuanced and ...
9 years ago
The Turn of the Screw
The Visit [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Well, it scared the crap out of me, though that's not hard, and it was ingeniously constructed and beautifully written. A welcome return to form for the disappointing maestro who set the bar high ...
9 years ago
The Visit [15]
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Moviemoghul, we never saw her body. You and I both know what that means.
9 years ago
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. [12A]
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
What can we say? The Mission Impossible chaps have pulled it off again - an incredibly thrilling, but also deeply engaging movie. Loved it, and will happily see it multiple times. My only ...
9 years ago
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation [12A]
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
There are some very funny moments and lots of cool stuff in this movie, that in my view just about tip the balance in favour of coughing up ten quid to see it. The opening sequence, a car chase ...
9 years ago
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. [12A]
La Fille Mal Gardée
Andrea Hopkins
This is a ballet with an interesting and unusual history. First performed in Bordeaux in 1789, it features no kings or aristocrats of any sort, even in disguise, but robust and jolly peasants whose ...
9 years ago
La Fille Mal Gardée
Ex Machina [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Extraordinary, brilliant, resonant, compelling movie of a sort that sadly we hardly ever see coming out of Hollywood - intricately plotted although tightly focussed on only four characters (why does ...
9 years ago
Ex Machina [15]
Rigoletto
Andrea Hopkins
A hugely enjoyable production of this unsurpassably wonderful opera. Superficially Rigoletto might bear comparison with the recently released movie version of Fifty Shades of Grey – it’s largely ...
9 years ago
Rigoletto
Big Hero 6 [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Very good animation, in some ways wonderfully sweet, but also surprisingly depressing. Well worth a look as an antidote to Hollywood.
9 years ago
Big Hero 6 [PG]
Jupiter Ascending [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Utterly silly and pointless movie, nearly (but not quite) making it into the 'so-bad-it's-good' category. A colossal waste of very expensive talent - Mila Kunis, so wonderful in sharp contemporary ...
9 years ago
Jupiter Ascending [12A]
Mr Turner [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
What a breath of fresh air - a movie that is totally not Hollywood! This means: there is no narrative arc, there are no explanations of anything, and if you weren't already familiar with the DNB ...
9 years ago
Mr Turner [12A]
X-Men: Days of Future Past [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
The fun thing about fantasy films with time-travel plot-lines is that you can undo the mistakes of your predecessors. The first batch of X-Men movies came to a premature end with the third movie, ...
10 years ago
X-Men: Days of Future Past [12A]
Karma
Andrea Hopkins
We eat in this restaurant at least once a week. The menu is sufficiently varied that we can have fun trying new dishes, and have never yet been disappointed. The food is absolutely delicious, and ...
10 years ago
Karma
Pompeii [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
I was rather hoping that this would turn out to be a movie adaptation of Robert Harris's excellent novel of the same name - but sadly no. This is a beautiful example of a movie written by a ...
10 years ago
Pompeii [12A]
Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
Andrea Hopkins
Picture this: you're a good-looking, fit young man who has just spent two months struggling through an inhospitable wilderness, before finding sanctuary in a jolly castle over Christmas. Your ...
10 years ago
Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
Christmas by Candlelight
Andrea Hopkins
This was just the thing to put you in the mood for Christmas - if you had been feeling a bit Bah-Humbug-ish thanks to the annual spend-fest and the vile weather - a perfectly formed short concert of ...
10 years ago
Christmas by Candlelight
Blue Jasmine [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Have to agree with Moviemoghul here, this is not one of Woody's best. It's essentially an updated version of A Streetcar Named Desire, but without brilliant script or the human interest. It ...
11 years ago
Blue Jasmine [12A]
Tosca
Andrea Hopkins
This is an unmissable, top-class production. There are still some tickets left so I urge you to rush out and buy them now, for the following reasons:
1. Tosca is an opera that must be seen live ...
11 years ago
Tosca
We're the Millers [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Beautifully-written, extremely funny, cleverly put-together movie which has some interesting points to make about feminism, neighbourliness, and other critical foci of contemporary American life. ...
11 years ago
We're the Millers [15]
R.I.P.D. [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Absolutely dreadful movie on every level - cannot be saved even by Jeff Bridges and certainly not by Ryan Reynolds. An inferior riff on Men in Black, but unoriginal and unfunny.
11 years ago
R.I.P.D. [12A]
Star Trek Into Darkness [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Well, I guess the problem was that the first Star Trek 'reboot' was very very good and a hard act to follow. This one is nowhere hear as good and seems to have been written to a rather ...
11 years ago
Star Trek Into Darkness [12A]
An Inspector Calls
Andrea Hopkins
Time has been good to J.B. Priestley’s magnificent piece of socialist polemic, in the sense that not only is it absolutely on topic for the social issues of today, with the government trying to ...
11 years ago
An Inspector Calls
The High Table Brasserie and Bar
Andrea Hopkins
Have now had lunch here twice and found excellent food and service both times. The restaurant is clean, light, attractive, and pleasingly quiet, which means you can get the attention of the staff ...
11 years ago
The High Table Brasserie and Bar
Le Kesh
Andrea Hopkins
Welcoming and friendly restaurant on the Cowley Road - delicious Lebanese food, all very reasonably priced, and if you want to you can sit out in the courtyard garden at the back and smoke one of ...
11 years ago
Le Kesh
Les Misérables [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Definitely a five-Kleenex weepie - you're uncomfortably aware that your heartstrings are about to be well and truly twanged upon. Full marks to Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean,with his haunted, ...
11 years ago
Les Misérables [12A]
Lincoln [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Make no mistake, this is a superb movie in the classic Hollywood tradition. It's more of a courtroom drama than a bio-pic, engaging us as it does with the thrilling and moving narration of the ...
11 years ago
Lincoln [12A]
Life of Pi [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Surpassingly beautiful to look at, and a profoundly faithful rendering of the novel. Life of Pi has all the ingenious imaginative and emotional depth of the book while gifting you with unforgettably ...
11 years ago
Life of Pi [PG]
Warm Bodies [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Unexpectedly delightful and heart-warming for a zombie movie. I won't say that it had the rejuvenating feel-good properties of It's a Wonderful Life, but we certainly left the cinema feeling ...
11 years ago
Warm Bodies [12A]
Cosi Fan Tutte
Andrea Hopkins
Clever, sharp, funny, warm-hearted – this brilliantly produced Cosi from the WNO was truly a delight from start to finish. It was set in a nameless British seaside town in the early 60s ...
12 years ago
Cosi Fan Tutte
Sinister [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Some frightening scenes and effective writing distinguish this from the run of the mill house-where-something-horrible-has-happened movies, and it maintained a decent level of suspense until about ...
12 years ago
Sinister [15]
The House At The End Of The Street [15]
Andrea Hopkins
This is not a supernatural, Amityville-type horror movie, but a suspenseful, there-are-no-monsters-worse-than-human-beings type horror movie, and as such it is not at all bad. Anyone who has watched ...
12 years ago
The House At The End Of The Street [15]
The Bourne Legacy [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Seriously good, though not perfect, attempt at extending the shelf-life of the Bourne franchise. It’s kind of like reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – you would think it was brilliant, ...
12 years ago
The Bourne Legacy [12A]
Hamlet
Andrea Hopkins
A remarkably cheery outing for the Gloomy Dane, one that teeters on the brink of turning tragedy into comedy. The production celebrates the makeshift, temporary physicality and close ...
12 years ago
Hamlet
Chernobyl Diaries [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Pripyat is the purpose-built residential city for the workers of Chernobyl and their community; c. 50,000 people were evacuated over two days in 1986 and now the ugly blocks of flats are quietly ...
12 years ago
Chernobyl Diaries [15]
Prometheus [15]
Andrea Hopkins
This movie is mind-blowing, if your mind is open to being blown. It’s a flawed masterpiece, but it is a masterpiece nonetheless. It’s hard for a movie that comes bearing such a colossal ...
12 years ago
Prometheus [15]
Snow White and the Huntsman [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
There are plenty of enjoyable moments in this movie but it doesn't quite come off. Rejecting the tongue in cheek approach of Mirror Mirror, it takes itself very seriously, and invites us to ...
12 years ago
Snow White and the Huntsman [12A]
Avengers Assemble [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
A post-script - what is it about Jeremy Renner? He's 41, not specially tall, not particularly good-looking, with a sort of rumpled, lived-in face, but he is effortlessly charismatic and ...
12 years ago
Avengers Assemble [12A]
Dark Shadows [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Looks ravishing, but it quickly becomes apparent that production values are no substitute for a great script. This one is weak and rather dull - I'm afraid they put every single funny line into ...
12 years ago
Dark Shadows [12A]
La Traviata
Andrea Hopkins
This was not the first time I’ve observed that opera can hurtle the viewer’s emotions into meltdown quicker than eighteen vodkas, but it was my first Traviata, and it was truly awesome. ...
12 years ago
La Traviata
Avengers Assemble [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Quite simply the best action adventure movie based on comic books ever made. I still haven't stopped geeking out about it and I'm almost ready to start work on the D.Phil, so I'd better ...
12 years ago
Avengers Assemble [12A]
21 Jump Street [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Moderately funny movie based on popular eighties tv show in which cops with an apparently youthful appearance have to go undercover as high school kids to expose the dealers of a dangerous drug. The ...
12 years ago
21 Jump Street [15]
The Cabin in the Woods [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Genre-busting horror movie, of the sort where it's virtually impossible to say anything about it without revealing crucial plot surprises. From the very start of the movie the audience is aware ...
12 years ago
The Cabin in the Woods [15]
The Hunger Games [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Eminently lovable and successful screen adaptation of the awesome young adult dystopian fantasy novel about the ultimate reality TV show. This is a terrific example of how we drink in ...
12 years ago
The Hunger Games [12A]
Prince Of Denmark
Andrea Hopkins
How deliciously irresistible to see this presented in Oxford in the same week as the ‘real’ Hamlet (currently playing at Blackwell’s Bookshop), since this is an audacious ...
12 years ago
Prince Of Denmark
This Means War [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Pure pink fluffy escapism and as long as you have no wish for more meaty fare you will likely find it very amusing. Reese Witherspoon is more beautiful now than she was ten years ago - I think we ...
12 years ago
This Means War [12A]
Hamlet
Andrea Hopkins
Two startling innovations were utilized by The Factory last night in order to woo audiences away from Hamlet’s reputation as ‘The Gloomy Dane’*. One was to have a woman play Hamlet; ...
12 years ago
Hamlet
OUDS New Writing Festival 2012
Andrea Hopkins
A very interesting peek into the early life of Enoch Powell, following the now well-established dramatic interest in characters who are intellectually brilliant but socially handicapped (e.g. the new ...
12 years ago
OUDS New Writing Festival 2012
Barefaced Night
Andrea Hopkins
A successful piece of genre-busting theatre that creatively fuses different (very different) dance and musical styles to re-enact the story, neatly summarized in the program as follows:
Bear meets ...
12 years ago
Barefaced Night
The Woman In Black [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Some reviewers have noted that this does not exactly represent a huge step forward for young Daniel Radcliffe in his post-Potter future career, and indeed cinema-goers are likely to be beset by an ...
12 years ago
The Woman In Black [12A]
Chronicle [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
A surprisingly meaty film about social alienation and violence masquerading as a teen fantasy about boys suddenly developing superpowers after an encounter with a big weird alien glowy thing. Rather ...
12 years ago
Chronicle [12A]
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
OK but in no way an improvement on the first one. Some ingenious interweaving of actual Conan Doyle details, but mostly a rather wearisome succession of slo-mo fights and chases and a reprise of the ...
12 years ago
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows [12A]
New Year's Eve [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
I confess myself to be one of those cinematic morons complained of by the august Mark Kermode who have been brainwashed into enjoying this movie when they couldn't really have liked it because it is ...
12 years ago
New Year's Eve [12A]
Puss In Boots [U]
Andrea Hopkins
Oh dear. Best avoided - even moppets find it disappointingly thin.
12 years ago
Puss In Boots [U]
Jubilate! Choir
Andrea Hopkins
A delicious and perfectly formed short concert of seasonally themed choral works, mostly sung by the wonderful Jubilate! Choir. Keble College Chapel, in all its vastness and gloriousness, looked ...
12 years ago
Jubilate! Choir
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part One [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
For the most part, this is a well-produced movie version of the first half of Stephenie Meyer's increasingly bizarre final Twilight book, up to the point of Bella's 'turning'. Only the scene ...
12 years ago
Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part One [12A]
Contagion [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Definitely well worth seeing, and seemed for a while as if it could have been one of the most terrifying movies ever in the genre of there-is-no-monster-so-horrible-as-human-beings, but it somehow ...
12 years ago
Contagion [12A]
The Help [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Hugely enjoyable, beautifully written, powerfully acted, very engaging version of the best-selling book. The film is slightly less touched by the terrifying racial violence at the core of the story ...
12 years ago
The Help [12A]
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy [15]
Andrea Hopkins
I can't believe that people found this film dull or fell asleep in it. For me it was two hours of knuckle-chewing, bottom-denting tension, tempered by huge admiration for all the bold choices made by ...
13 years ago
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy [15]
The Three Musketeers [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Unspeakably dire and a shocking waste of some very talented actors. My fourteen year old daughter loved it, principally because of the large amounts of screen-time showcasing the personable ...
13 years ago
The Three Musketeers [12A]
Abduction [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
A disappointing clanger. Slack, implausible writing, a workaday thriller plot that does no more than pick up and make use of the customary clichés of the genre. It's a vehicle movie that depends for ...
13 years ago
Abduction [12A]
Jane Eyre [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Not so - it is worth stirring out of your house for; though it isn't perfect, it's pretty good. The script is literate and thoughtful, the acting first rate - though my judgement is not to be trusted ...
13 years ago
Jane Eyre [PG]
Friends with Benefits [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Enjoyable and - it should be said - educational romcom with engaging, attractive, likeable leads. All teenage boys should be made to watch this and tested on their techniques afterwards.
13 years ago
Friends with Benefits [15]
Crazy, Stupid, Love [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Steve Carell is always worth watching, a past master at combining funny and touching. Though this is a rather strange, reactionary movie, it does have charm and much to recommend it. My favourite bit ...
13 years ago
Crazy, Stupid, Love [12A]
Fright Night [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Deliciously, wickedly entertaining, and the best thing Colin Farrell has done by far since In Bruges. This is a whole, richly imagined world, and not just a tired re-tread of the moderately OK 1985 ...
13 years ago
Fright Night [15]
Horrible Bosses [15]
Andrea Hopkins
A very, very funny film, an absolute delight from start to finish. Wonderful (and very different) cameos of horribleness from Kevin Spacey as the mean bullying boss, Colin Farrell with a truly creepy ...
13 years ago
Horrible Bosses [15]
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Well, my fourteen year old daughter enjoyed this hugely, and would like everyone to know that it's AWESOME. Folk often say that life is too short to do such and such - I on the other hand reply that ...
13 years ago
Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon [12A]
As You Like It
Andrea Hopkins
O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderfulwonderful! and yet again wonderful, and after that,out of all whooping! (Celia, Act III Sc ii)If you only go to one outdoor Shakespeare all summer, make it ...
13 years ago
As You Like It
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Andrea Hopkins
I had high expectations of Tomahawk Theatre, having seen their absolutely excellent production of Much Ado a couple of years ago; and I was not disappointed. This is a gutsy and witty Dream, with ...
13 years ago
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Bridesmaids [15]
Andrea Hopkins
A very much more interesting and well-written movie than the trailer would lead you to suppose. The trailer clearly wants you to think of Bridesmaids as a hilarious gross-out comedy, the female ...
13 years ago
Bridesmaids [15]
War Poetry by Candlelight
Andrea Hopkins
A very beautifully put-together programme of poems, journal extracts, letters, newspaper articles and speeches – it was not so much a poetry-reading as a performance, with boys dressed as WWI ...
13 years ago
War Poetry by Candlelight
The Green Lantern [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
I confess I only wanted to see this because it contains very large amounts of close-up screen time with the scrumptious Ryan Reynolds, but it was rewarding in other ways as well - mainly its 'I can ...
13 years ago
The Green Lantern [12A]
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Could have been worse, in the sense that it's not as awful as Pirates 3, but not really good enough to tempt you away from all the much more fun things you could be doing, i.e. nowhere near as good ...
13 years ago
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides [12A]
Much Ado About Nothing
Andrea Hopkins
The question with student productions is always, can charm, talent, or sheer enthusiasm compensate the audience for frightful production values, no budget and weak actors in minor roles? ...
13 years ago
Much Ado About Nothing
X-Men: First Class [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Totally awesome. If you have to make movies based on comic books, this is how to do it: excellent actors, luscious retro design with fabulous period detail, witty and literate script, brilliant ...
13 years ago
X-Men: First Class [12A]
Priest [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This movie has been absolutely panned in the nationals, but really it’s not as bad as all that. Nowhere near as awful as Van Helsing, for example, with which some critics have unkindly compared it. ...
13 years ago
Priest [12A]
Thor [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This movie has so much going for it: stunning set design, witty script, gorgeous hero, even more gorgeous villain, pretty spiffy FX, some top-quality kick-ass combat sequences, quite a few ...
13 years ago
Thor [12A]
Your Highness [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Very funny, but startlingly rude - quite surprised that they got away with a 15 certificate.
13 years ago
Your Highness [15]
Beastly [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
I keep hoping to see Alex Pettyfer in a decent movie so that I can admire his tousled blond good looks without having to squirm in embarrassment, but - sadly - this ain't it.
This is not a funky, ...
13 years ago
Beastly [12A]
Cave of Forgotten Dreams [U]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a lovingly detailed documentary by veteran German film director Werner Herzog about the mind-blowingly awesome Chauvet caves: discovered in 1997 to contain incredibly beautiful and mysterious ...
13 years ago
Cave of Forgotten Dreams [U]
The Eagle [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Everything about this movie is perfect and I loved every second of it. Cannot recommend it highly enough, but go see it quick before it disappears as it can't be described as mainstream. It's an ...
13 years ago
The Eagle [12A]
Source Code [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Thankfully, a thriller where they do not reveal pretty much everything in the trailer. Prepare, therefore, to be surprised and see a rather different movie from the one the trailer presents. Quite ...
13 years ago
Source Code [12A]
Limitless [15]
Andrea Hopkins
You... but on a REALLY good day - this is the tantalizing premise of this excellent thriller. Bradley Cooper is perfectly cast as hopeless loser Eddie Morra, a writer who spends his time ...
13 years ago
Limitless [15]
I Am Number Four [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
As noted by Mrs C, this is pretty much Smallville only not quite so plausible or realistic. But despair not, those of you who are grown-up and facing the prospect of being forced by teenage relatives ...
13 years ago
I Am Number Four [12A]
Restrictions May Apply
Andrea Hopkins
The audience was markedly short of parents yesterday evening (the traditional cannon fodder of student opening nights), as this is definitely not the sort of thing an aspiring thesp is going to want ...
13 years ago
Restrictions May Apply
Burlesque [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
My teenage daughter absolutely adored this latter-day Cinderella movie, and indeed it had many points of interest. Cher - isn't she about ninety now? - looked amazing and still has the same ...
13 years ago
Burlesque [12A]
The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
A rare and unusual case where the film is shedloads better than the trailer would lead you to believe. The trailer was so bad that I almost didn't go to see it, which would have been a shame as it ...
13 years ago
The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader [PG]
Advent By Candlelight
Andrea Hopkins
What an amazing and magical start to a Saturday evening this was. I’ve never previously had occasion to visit Keble College Chapel, that splendid Victorian Gothic extravaganza, and it can rarely ...
13 years ago
Advent By Candlelight
Rapunzel or The Magic Pig
Andrea Hopkins
This looks like being another triumph for Creation – a delightful, beautifully adapted, gorgeously performed show in a spectacular venue accompanied by delicious crêpes and yummy drinks. I looked ...
13 years ago
Rapunzel or The Magic Pig
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This was a very hard task for a film-maker - to film half a book in which not very much happens, lots of things go horribly wrong, and the heroes become very depressed and quarrel a lot. The Potter ...
13 years ago
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 [12A]
Unstoppable [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a perfect cinematic example of outstandingly good plain cooking as opposed to divinely esoteric haute cuisine. It's not unique, original, or even that creative, but oh-my-god it's ...
13 years ago
Unstoppable [12A]
The Lesson
Andrea Hopkins
This is an early short play by Ionesco, which he himself described as an "anti-play" – as good a way as any to indicate that anything approaching boring old bourgeois commonplaces such as plot, ...
14 years ago
The Lesson
Vampires Suck [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Has the occasional funny line e.g. 'You're pale white and ice-cold - you don't have sex - you're a Jonas brother!' but mostly pretty dire and will be virtually meaningless in ten years' time, so ...
14 years ago
Vampires Suck [12A]
Despicable Me [U]
Andrea Hopkins
Superior casting and stunning animation (definitely worth the extra three quid for the 3D version) do compensate for a somewhat predictable and teensy tad derivative story, but this is on the whole a ...
14 years ago
Despicable Me [U]
The Red Shoes
Andrea Hopkins
The Red Shoes, just so you know, is nothing to do with the wonderful Powell and Pressburger movie of 1948, except that both were ‘based on’ one of Hans Christian Andersen’s most cruel and ...
14 years ago
The Red Shoes
Letters to Juliet [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Sweet, elegiac and inconsequential romantic film, only really of interest because of the cinematic reunion of Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero, but really starring Tuscany. Amanda Seyfried ...
14 years ago
Letters to Juliet [PG]
The Hole [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
A remarkably creepy film for only a 12 certificate, maintaining the suspense right up until about twenty minutes from the end, which benefits from a quirky script and a top-notch cast. It starts out ...
14 years ago
The Hole [12A]
The Tempest
Andrea Hopkins
This was marvellous, a gleeful romp of a production that successfully brings out the humour as well as the darker motifs in Shakespeare’s late, great Romance. The OSC clearly operates on a ...
14 years ago
The Tempest
Garsington Opera 2010
Andrea Hopkins
“…the joy which this music causes is so far removed from all sensuality that one cannot speak of it. Where could words be found that are worthy to describe such joy?" So wrote the Hungarian poet ...
14 years ago
Garsington Opera 2010
Avatar [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Just bought the dvd, and whaddya know, it's still awesome and wonderful even on the small screen. Hurrah.
14 years ago
Avatar [12A]
Iron Man 2 [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Hugely enjoyable action movie in which the hero is a) not endowed with any super-powers b) has exposed his identity and c) has a perverse self-destructive tendency that drives even those who love him ...
14 years ago
Iron Man 2 [12A]
Oxfringe 2010
Andrea Hopkins
The Jam Factory, if anyone hasn’t been there, is a great venue – a bar and restaurant combined with a gallery and performance space that is really friendly, relaxed, chilled, pleasant. As Nice As ...
14 years ago
Oxfringe 2010
Oxfringe 2010
Andrea Hopkins
An intriguing concept, the adult puppet show, or rather I should say, a puppet show for adults. The world has effectively ended and mankind is no more. Two demons are discussing their new situation. ...
14 years ago
Oxfringe 2010
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang [U]
Andrea Hopkins
Delicious, funny, sweet, moving - thoroughly recommended for moppets and their parents alike. Maggie Gyllenhaal is adorable as harassed mum Mrs Green, trying to cope with the family farm and her ...
14 years ago
Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang [U]
Antigone
Andrea Hopkins
This is a complex, provoking and profoundly ambivalent play – supposedly a clear critique of tyranny, the play was first performed – by permission – in Nazi-occupied Paris in February 1944. In ...
14 years ago
Antigone
Yawn
Andrea Hopkins
This is a brand-new play by Oliver Rowse, the writer of the much-acclaimed Udder, which is simultaneously hugely bold and bafflingly weird. It’s bold because, as the title indicates, it sets ...
14 years ago
Yawn
The Wolfman [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Everything about this movie is superb, top notch, first class, except for the script, which has moments of disastrous clunkiness (I don't think I'm doing a huge spoiler if I tell you that the Wolfman ...
14 years ago
The Wolfman [15]
Avatar [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Possibly the most beautiful film I have ever seen - like spending time in your most ravishing imaginary world that you can only recall in tantalizing fragments from your childhood, but here you get ...
14 years ago
Avatar [12A]
Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a pleasant, enjoyable action-packed kids' fantasy - much better than The Golden Compass, not quite approaching the level of Time Bandits. About as good as Inkheart, I'd say. It will be fun ...
14 years ago
Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief [PG]
Valentine's Day [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Was it really a good idea to pack the cast with people who look like Ashton Kutcher and Jessica Alba in this movie? Part of the reason why Love Actually and (more to the point) the quirkier and more ...
14 years ago
Valentine's Day [12A]
Daybreakers [15]
Andrea Hopkins
A really clever, witty and enjoyable vampire movie, which you might possibly still catch at the Ultimate or the Phoenix. It looks ravishing, with a doom-laden noirish ambience - saturated colours ...
14 years ago
Daybreakers [15]
Snow White On Ice
Andrea Hopkins
Awesome, thrilling, spectacular, and very very beautiful. This was my first ice-dance and I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I think I was expecting something lower-budget in all respects than ...
14 years ago
Snow White On Ice
St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Not as cool or as funny or as clever as the first one. I'm sorry, because I enjoyed the first one and I was hoping that this would be as good. But it wasn't.
14 years ago
St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold [PG]
The Twilight Saga: New Moon [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
An interesting question. It's not that one would have any difficulty understanding the plot - it aint Tolstoy. Most of the essential background details can be swiftly picked up by reading a few ...
14 years ago
The Twilight Saga: New Moon [12A]
Jennifer's Body [15]
Andrea Hopkins
A cut above the average teen slasher pic. If taken at face value, it's an entertaining tale of the madness and mayhem that follows after a naughty satanist rock-band make the unpardonably dim error ...
14 years ago
Jennifer's Body [15]
The Twilight Saga: New Moon [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is by and large a very well-produced, well-written and splendidly performed movie, given that it's based on an incredibly silly story - a girl torn between her feelings for a vampire and a ...
14 years ago
The Twilight Saga: New Moon [12A]
Michael Jackson's This Is It [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
I was hoping that this would explain the mystery of why Jackson's fans continue to adore him, and especially why he continues to be an inspiration to black people. Was he really such an incredibly ...
15 years ago
Michael Jackson's This Is It [PG]
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
One of life's little ironies: really brilliant books often don't translate well to the screen, but it seems that badly written mediocre rubbish can actually make pleasing and entertaining films. This ...
15 years ago
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant [12A]
Zombieland [15]
Andrea Hopkins
I can't really understand why anyone would want to see this frightful movie (or indeed why I did - some friends invited me and I went in a spirit of experiment). The complete predictability and utter ...
15 years ago
Zombieland [15]
Outlander [15]
Andrea Hopkins
This isn't at all bad, if you can get your head round the idea that the true story of Beowulf was that he crashed his space-ship into a lake and inadvertently brought Grendel and his mother with him. ...
15 years ago
Outlander [15]
The Invention of Lying [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
There's a sub-genre of rom-com in which an average looking, not particularly nice, hapless sort of man pursues the affections of a gorgeous and highly intelligent woman - think of Gervais's previous ...
15 years ago
The Invention of Lying [12A]
Fame [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Inferior in every way to the 1980 movie of the same name. This means: less gritty, less realistic, less adult, more Disneyfied, more bland, more dumbed-down, more shiny, less dramatic, and much, much ...
15 years ago
Fame [PG]
Surrogates [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
A pleasingly intelligent contribution to the Evil Corporate Conspiracy/Techno-Sci-Fi genre, which owes much to those that have gone before it - most notably to I, Robot (with which it also shares the ...
15 years ago
Surrogates [12A]
Words Spoken And Sung
Andrea Hopkins
Unmissably wonderful. This was the way of it: a semi-circle of chairs on the stage, occupied by eight men and two women. One at a time they came forward to the front of the stage to perform their ...
15 years ago
Words Spoken And Sung
Useful Knowledge To Know
Andrea Hopkins
This is a quirky short piece of theatre, only 50 minutes long, in which a French lady named Chloé Déchery delivers a sort of lecture to the audience in which the ambivalence of language and its ...
15 years ago
Useful Knowledge To Know
William Shakespeare's Henry V
Andrea Hopkins
Parts of this were very good indeed - the scene following the death of Falstaff, the scene where Henry is in disguise talking to the common soldiers, Henry's tortured prayer that God will not visit ...
15 years ago
William Shakespeare's Henry V
The Proposal [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Well, this is rather fun. Instead of La Bullock presenting her familiar brand of winsome and adorable, she charges in as a first-rate, grade-A, big-city bitch and we have the enormous pleasure of ...
15 years ago
The Proposal [12A]
G-Force [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
I just love these new 3D movies and I really hope it works out as a worthwhile investment for the cinemas that have coughed up thousands to install the new screens. The 3D effects are awesome in this ...
15 years ago
G-Force [PG]
Moon [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Why isn’t this movie on at the mainstream cinemas? If you like intelligent, well-crafted, beautifully-acted human drama, whether sci-fi or not, do yourself a favour and catch this movie before it ...
15 years ago
Moon [15]
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs [U]
Andrea Hopkins
Truly an exception to the rule of diminishing returns in sequels. Ice Age 1 made me cry, Ice Age 2 was a teensy bit dull, but this is absolutely wonderful - warm, funny, unbelievably fabulous ...
15 years ago
Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs [U]
Transformers 2 [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Tolerably good FX and fight scenes, nonsensical plot, minimal acting. Nowhere near as good as Transformers 1. Pretty much as expected. Boys of all ages (and genders) will probably enjoy it but ...
15 years ago
Transformers 2 [12A]
Love's Labour's Lost
Andrea Hopkins
I can sort of see the rationale for this production. Imagine it as a movie pitch: Shakespeare meets P.G. Wodehouse – it’s about four callow young men falling in love with the idea of learning, ...
15 years ago
Love's Labour's Lost
Garsington Opera 2009
Andrea Hopkins
Mirandolina is a bright, sparkling, funny comic-opera adaptation of Carlo Goldoni’s La Locandiera, to which it owes many of the elements that make this production a delight. It has an irresistibly ...
15 years ago
Garsington Opera 2009
Garsington Opera 2009
Andrea Hopkins
This was a triumphant opening night for Garsington’s Fidelio – at the end of it the audience (largely composed of sedate and beautifully dressed elderly persons) yelled, hooted, and stamped their ...
15 years ago
Garsington Opera 2009
Night at the Museum 2 [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Disappointing. It serves me right for going to see a movie whose creators were so lazy that they just called it No 2. It's only good for making me realise that No 1 wasn't actually all that bad. This ...
15 years ago
Night at the Museum 2 [PG]
Much Ado About Nothing
Andrea Hopkins
OK, this is a truly novel and amusing way to do Shakespeare. Weird, quirky, brilliant. The actors have learned all the lines, but nothing else is certain. They are to use props supplied by members of ...
15 years ago
Much Ado About Nothing
Hannah Montana [U]
Andrea Hopkins
Could be a blue-print for Falls-between-two-stools. The Disney tv show from which this film was spawned is tightly focussed on gags, by means of a combination of most un-Disneyesque 'gross' humour - ...
15 years ago
Hannah Montana [U]
Star Trek [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is an outstanding movie – bursting with great ideas, edge-of-the-seat excitement, top quality style and FX, and (praise the Roddenberry) a literate, inventive, witty script that confidently ...
15 years ago
Star Trek [12A]
Flhip Flhop
Andrea Hopkins
Two mates are painting a friend’s flat. They are your worst nightmare in terms of decorators – easily distracted, constantly tinkering with (and breaking) their friend’s stuff, and crap at ...
15 years ago
Flhip Flhop
X-Men Origins - Wolverine [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
An unbelievably silly and disappointing film. Not quite as bad as Van Helsing, but way below the other X-Men movies (yes, even the ghastly mess that was X-Men 3) in every way - an utterly predictable ...
15 years ago
X-Men Origins - Wolverine [12A]
Aida
Andrea Hopkins
Aida is perhaps the grandest of the Grand Operas - an invitation to lavish spectacle and ruinous excess in staging. Consider the Met's 1984 production with dear old Pavarotti, when the conquered ...
15 years ago
Aida
Dolce Via
Andrea Hopkins
By Siobhan NicholasTake the Space Theatre CompanyThis new play combines ‘mentalist’ tricks, ventriloquism, fire-eating, uni-cycling and some pretty funny stand-up with an emotional disclosure of ...
15 years ago
Dolce Via
17 Again [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Also with overtones of Back to the Future, Big, and Freaky Friday. This is quite funny, thanks to an excellent cast, though not startlingly original, and they seem puzzlingly to have adopted the ...
15 years ago
17 Again [12A]
Cloverfield [15]
Andrea Hopkins
I've just watched this on dvd. Does anyone know why it is called 'Cloverfield?'
15 years ago
Cloverfield [15]
Coppelia
Andrea Hopkins
Coppelia is famously a brilliant ballet for beginners – it has a family friendly story-line, complete with happy ending, and it’s not a full-on three hour event (three half hour Acts and two ...
15 years ago
Coppelia
Never Have I Ever
Andrea Hopkins
Never Have I Ever, in case you don’t know, is a party game in which one person makes a statement, for example, ‘Never have I ever read the seventh Harry Potter book’ (to take an example from ...
15 years ago
Never Have I Ever
The Tale of Despereaux [U]
Andrea Hopkins
This is quite simply the most beautiful animated film that has ever been created. It is also, in equal measure, adorable, dramatic, scary, and uplifting, and it has a truly astonishing cast of ...
15 years ago
The Tale of Despereaux [U]
He's Just Not That Into You [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a romantic comedy in the sense that its subject matter is romance and it has a happy ending, but don't expect to be rolling in the aisles. For a movie based on a hip self-help best-seller it ...
15 years ago
He's Just Not That Into You [12A]
Confessions of a Shopaholic [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a very poor offering, dull, clunky, and obvious. It could have been smart and sassy and funny alongside its moral (materialism, consumerism and especially escalating debt are wrong. Well, ...
15 years ago
Confessions of a Shopaholic [12A]
Slumdog Millionaire [15]
Andrea Hopkins
Dudes, you are so not getting the point of the ending! It is a convention of the genre. You are not supposed to find it realistic. You don't criticize Twelfth Night or A Winter's Tale for having ...
15 years ago
Slumdog Millionaire [15]
Inkheart [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
I suspect this is about to disappear from the cinemas so I urge you to go and see it on the big screen before it's too late. Eliza Bennett is a splendid heroine, entirely believable as a twelve year ...
15 years ago
Inkheart [PG]
Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer
Andrea Hopkins
An entertaining if undemanding 1965 vintage comedy from Peter Shaffer, nicely produced and pleasingly acted. The gimmick of the play is that the characters, supposedly plunged into darkness by a ...
15 years ago
Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer
Twilight [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Robert Pattinson (recently enjoyed as the prematurely deceased Cedric Diggory in HPIV) is making rather a specialty of playing dead chaps, or in this case, undead. He is a very beautiful creature, ...
15 years ago
Twilight [12A]
Romeo and Juliet
Andrea Hopkins
This is a bold, intense, powerful, shocking version of Romeo and Juliet. See it at once, but leave all your expectations of what going to the theatre is all about at home. What do you do when ...
15 years ago
Romeo and Juliet
HIgh School Musical 3 [U]
Andrea Hopkins
The cinema was full when I was forced to take my daughter to see this movie on its opening night last Wednesday, full of over-excited little girls, some in costume with cheerleading pom-poms. A ...
15 years ago
HIgh School Musical 3 [U]
Shaolin Kung Fu Masters
Andrea Hopkins
This is a very unusual show, performed (we are assured) by real monks, who have trained themselves to be lethal fighting machines since they were tiny moppets – and indeed, some of the performing ...
16 years ago
Shaolin Kung Fu Masters
The House Bunny [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
The plot of this movie bears a very strong resemblance to Legally Blonde, and there’s a reason for that – it was written by the same people, Kirsten Smith and Karen McCullah Lutz. This time ...
16 years ago
The House Bunny [12A]
Status Quo
Andrea Hopkins
The New Theatre was bursting at the seams for this concert on Saturday night, and this is what it was like. The supporting band was justly humble and expressed themselves grateful to people for ...
16 years ago
Status Quo
How To Be Well Dressed And Famous
Andrea Hopkins
This is intended to be the cutting edge of creative theatre – to make performances that are not static, and always the same night after night, but have the explosive potential to be different every ...
16 years ago
How To Be Well Dressed And Famous
The Women [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
A very uneven film. One or two good jokes - one delightful visual one where the Meg Ryan character is trying to locate her mother in the post-op lounge of a plastic surgery, and a couple of snappy ...
16 years ago
The Women [12A]
A Man Like Any Other – The Priest’s Tale
Andrea Hopkins
I was looking forward with keen interest to the next novel by Mary Cavanagh (click here for the review of The Crowded Bed) and A Man Like Any Other does not disappoint. She is still a ...
16 years ago
A Man Like Any Other – The Priest’s Tale
'Allo 'Allo
Andrea Hopkins
A rare opportunity to see a British cultural phenomenon on stage. ‘Allo ‘Allo recently gained a kind of spurious stardom with the young because it was mentioned in Catherine Tate’s celebrated ...
16 years ago
'Allo 'Allo
Frideswide - An Oxford Story
Andrea Hopkins
Alas, the interminable bloody rain necessitated the move of Frideswide from the bucolic delights of Wytham orchard to All Saints Church last night, where the brave actors, their bare feet blue on the ...
16 years ago
Frideswide - An Oxford Story
Hellboy 2 [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
I would never have thought of going to see this movie if it hadn't been for Brendon Connelly's review below, and thus would have been deprived of two hours or so of very great visual pleasure. So ...
16 years ago
Hellboy 2 [12A]
The Duchess [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a gorgeous film, with a fine, intelligent script, brilliantly adapted from Amanda Foreman’s unwieldy biography, and rendered well above average by an outstanding performance from Ralph ...
16 years ago
The Duchess [12A]
Get Smart [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a rather pedestrian comedy spy thriller that is rescued from the Don't Bother category by the excellent performances of its two leads. Steve Carell is very touching as the geeky guy who longs ...
16 years ago
Get Smart [12A]
High School Musical
Andrea Hopkins
This is a musical that grown-ups take their moppets to, probably without any huge expectations of enjoying it themselves – but this was such a blast, I think I enjoyed it more than my daughter, and ...
16 years ago
High School Musical
High School Musical
Andrea Hopkins
This is a musical that grown-ups take their moppets to, probably without any huge expectations of enjoying it themselves – but this was such a blast, I think I enjoyed it more than my daughter, and ...
16 years ago
High School Musical
The Dark Knight [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
The Dark Night lifts movies based on comic strips to a whole new level and makes the previous bunch of Batman movies seem laughably inept. The script is superb, the movie building to a ...
16 years ago
The Dark Knight [12A]
Early Music by Candlelight Summer Festival 2008
Andrea Hopkins
Choral music, by its very nature, is about restraint, balance, harmony. This concert exemplified these qualities both in the dexterous and sonorous organ playing of Kah-Ming Ng and the ...
16 years ago
Early Music by Candlelight Summer Festival 2008
k.d. lang
Andrea Hopkins
We are constantly reminded by the ghastly profusion of programmes like The X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent that an enormous number of people think they can sing; and quite a large number of ...
16 years ago
k.d. lang
Mamma Mia [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
This movie is so beautiful to look at, you just want to chuck your job, leap on a plane and get yourself into that brilliant turquoise mediterranean sea as fast as possible. Yes, the plot is ...
16 years ago
Mamma Mia [PG]
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
This film is absolutely superb; as with Harry Potter II, they have really hit their stride and produced a much better movie than the first one. I am so glad that it has taken until now for anyone to ...
16 years ago
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian [PG]
Abbamania
Andrea Hopkins
A really wonderful evening’s entertainment by a proper tribute band, who dress up as and pretend to be the celebrated 70s supergroup. Authenticity is clearly their watchword; they opened the show ...
16 years ago
Abbamania
The Incredible Hulk [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a "reboot" and not a sequel to the 2003 Hulk starring Eric Bana and directed by Ang Lee. It has a very much higher percentage of screen time dedicated to the rather yawnsome spectacle of ...
16 years ago
The Incredible Hulk [12A]
The Importance of Being Earnest
Andrea Hopkins
This was a suitably light-hearted production of perhaps the perfect play for a June evening in a beautiful garden. It’s simply no good going to see this play in the hope of seeing something ...
16 years ago
The Importance of Being Earnest
What Happens in Vegas [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This movie was universally panned in the press, but actually I quite enjoyed it. Naturally one is not looking for either depth or realism in a rom-com; it is frothy and frilly, and if that's what you ...
16 years ago
What Happens in Vegas [12A]
Cosi Fan Tutte
Andrea Hopkins
Last night’s opening performance of Cosi fan tutte left you wondering why anybody bothers to stage operas that aren’t by Mozart – he is just so much better at it than anyone else. Even with a ...
16 years ago
Cosi Fan Tutte
L’Incoronazione Di Dario
Andrea Hopkins
I was very excited about this, as last night was the first time this opera by (Four Seasons) Vivaldi had ever been performed in our own dear country. I had never been to a baroque opera before and ...
16 years ago
L’Incoronazione Di Dario
The Innocents [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a brilliant, moving, frightening, disturbing movie based on Henry James's horrible novella The Turn of the Screw. The point of the Henry James story is that the governess is going mad, and ...
16 years ago
The Innocents [12A]
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Pamplemousse is perhaps a bit harsh about this movie, but doesn’t mention the thing I found most disappointing about it: namely, its blatant ripping-off of bits from other successful action ...
16 years ago
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull [12A]
London Assurance by Dion Boucicault
Andrea Hopkins
For connoisseurs of costume drama and drawing-room comedy, this is a tasty treat served up in a very pretty wrapping. I have to confess that as a reviewer it makes a very agreeable change, after ...
16 years ago
London Assurance by Dion Boucicault
The Clandestine Marriage
Andrea Hopkins
I was pleasantly surprised by this thoroughly delicious confection. Mid-eighteenth-century comedy can be a bit of an acquired taste, but thanks to the excellence of director Helen McCabe’s ...
16 years ago
The Clandestine Marriage
Thriller: Live
Andrea Hopkins
Many superlatives have been heaped upon Michael Jackson in his time, and this show demonstrates very clearly what an amazing creative force he has been in popular music. The wonderful songs he has ...
16 years ago
Thriller: Live
Dirty Linen
Andrea Hopkins
For those who (like me) prefer early Stoppard, before he became all tortured and complicated and much less funny, Dirty Linen is a little gem, light, sparkling and brilliant. It’s only an hour ...
16 years ago
Dirty Linen
Fiddler on The Roof
Andrea Hopkins
This is one of the great musicals, much beloved and with good reason. On the face of it, the daily life of a poor Jewish family about to be persecuted and ultimately booted out of their home in a ...
16 years ago
Fiddler on The Roof
27 Dresses [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
An absolutely delicious rom-com confection, right down to the ending (if Shakespeare can do manifestly artificial happy endings, why not Hollywood?). Katherine Heigl as Jane is an almost ...
16 years ago
27 Dresses [12A]
Measure for Measure
Andrea Hopkins
Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare’s famously difficult plays, which is why it isn’t often staged. It doesn’t so much refuse to give the audience the compulsory happy ending as plonk ...
16 years ago
Measure for Measure
Meet The Spartans [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
I cannot imagine an afternoon so rainy that I couldn't find anything better to do than watch this movie. I must admit that 300 was simply crying out to be sent up, but you can in fact have too many ...
16 years ago
Meet The Spartans [12A]
Step Up 2 [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
If you like street dancing, then you will like this. The script is sharp and sassy, the heroine attractive and likeable, the story predictably standard Hollywood but competently executed - but the ...
16 years ago
Step Up 2 [PG]
10,000 BC [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Well, this was rather fun. It has had some awful reviews in the nationals, but for most people it’s going to beg comparison with the iconic 60s blockbuster 1,000,000 Years BC and the slightly less ...
16 years ago
10,000 BC [12A]
Hanging Hooke
Andrea Hopkins
This is an enthralling piece of theatre for two reasons. One, the subject matter is absolutely riveting – it tells the story of (almost) forgotten genius Robert Hooke, a polymath who included ...
16 years ago
Hanging Hooke
The Other Boleyn Girl [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Well, this just goes to show that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The Other Boleyn Girl is a truly awful novel, and even when you throw the likes of Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, ...
16 years ago
The Other Boleyn Girl [12A]
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2008
Andrea Hopkins
In essence this was rather similar to the Dance Box performed in February at the Pegasus Theatre – a collection of dance improvisations devised and performed by local children and teenagers. The ...
16 years ago
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2008
The Game Plan [U]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a movie in the time-honoured tradition of pairing a bulging hard-man (Arnie, Vin Diesel) with an adorable little moppet. It's not a bad variation on this theme, allowing Dwayne (The Rock) ...
16 years ago
The Game Plan [U]
Vantage Point [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This was an ingenious idea for a movie and it should have been a lot better. Sadly, however, it is contrived, derivative and weak. Its plotting was teeth-grindingly obvious, so that the multiple ...
16 years ago
Vantage Point [12A]
Tenebrae Factae Sunt
Andrea Hopkins
Sung by the Marian Consort directed by Jeremy SummerlyWith music for lute by Simone Molinaro This was a single performance so you can’t go to it, but it’s worth reviewing in case you ever have a ...
16 years ago
Tenebrae Factae Sunt
Miss Potter [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Are these people mad? This movie is not charming, sweet and funny. It is a five-kleenex weepie. The most brilliant and tremendously moving part of Renee Zellweger's performance is the section after ...
16 years ago
Miss Potter [PG]
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2008
Andrea Hopkins
This is a collection of dance performances, inspired by art, created and performed by groups of children from age 3+, teenagers and adults. The Pegasus Theatre is a community dance theatre where ...
16 years ago
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2008
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2008
Andrea Hopkins
James Son of James is the third in a trilogy. The hero returns home to a small community in the middle of Ireland half way through his father’s funeral. He hasn’t been home for such a long time ...
16 years ago
Dancin' Oxford Festival 2008
P.S. I Love You [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Do not go to see this movie if you have recently lost someone you love, otherwise you will end up weeping all the way through it and your small daughter will pretend not to know you. Otherwise I ...
16 years ago
P.S. I Love You [12A]
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium [U]
Andrea Hopkins
Oh dear, oh dear. I'm afraid this is easily the worst of the Christmas bunch of Family Movies (though I haven't seen Alvin and the Chipmunks yet - that might be worse). A feeble plot, uninspired ...
16 years ago
Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium [U]
St Trinians [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This movie is just tremendous fun - my daughter has been to see it three times already - it has terrific music and several laugh out loud funny bits. It doesn't quite match up to the original movie ...
16 years ago
St Trinians [12A]
I Am Legend [15]
Andrea Hopkins
This is one of the scariest films I've ever seen, but I must qualify that by confessing that the last scary film I saw in the cinema was Aliens. I only went to this one because it had a 15 ...
16 years ago
I Am Legend [15]
Enchanted [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
This is tremendous fun, though they did put seven out of ten of the funniest moments into the trailer. But it is well-written, and the first half hour is full of delicious jokes, mostly at the ...
16 years ago
Enchanted [PG]
Noughts and Crosses
Andrea Hopkins
This is superb and a must-see; move over Shakespeare! It is a hugely successful adaptation of the celebrated teen novel by Malorie Blackman. It tells the Romeo-and-Juliet-like story of the ...
16 years ago
Noughts and Crosses
Much Ado About Nothing
Andrea Hopkins
This is an outstanding production of one of Shakespeare’s best–loved comedies. It was completely sold out last night, so rush along and get tickets if you can. Tomahawk Productions is a company ...
16 years ago
Much Ado About Nothing
Nabucco & Carmen
Andrea Hopkins
Carmen, Friday 7th December 2007You can’t help enjoying Carmen because of the wonderful, exhilarating music, with its dazzling energy, blood-stirring rhythms, and gloriously hummable melodies. It ...
16 years ago
Nabucco & Carmen
Beowulf [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
I was pleasantly surprised by how good this movie is; it's immensely rich and dramatic as well as having stunning fight scenes. It follows in the footsteps of Kingdom of Heaven in being very ...
16 years ago
Beowulf [12A]
Mindgame by Anthony Horowitz
Andrea Hopkins
Anthony Horowitz has put his (and our) frank interest in deranged killers in the spotlight in this intriguing and amusing play. What makes sadistic serial murderers different from the rest of us, and ...
16 years ago
Mindgame by Anthony Horowitz
King John
Andrea Hopkins
The director of this production, Helen McCabe, went to some trouble to inform us how very seldom King John has been performed over the centuries. Before the celebrated revival by the RSC last year ...
17 years ago
King John
Ratatouille [U]
Andrea Hopkins
First of all, this movie is ravishing to look at. Every bedraggled whisker on every little rat is as lovingly rendered as the rain-drenched roof-tiles, silvered sewers, and grandly tasseled interiors ...
17 years ago
Ratatouille [U]
South Pacific
Andrea Hopkins
A must-see at the New Theatre This is a musical that isn’t often produced nowadays, and I wonder why not, because it is truly one of the great, great musicals. So many wonderful songs – Some ...
17 years ago
South Pacific
Visiting Mr Green
Andrea Hopkins
Warren Mitchell’s performance as Mr Green is a quiet tour de force. If you didn’t know this was the same actor who so famously personated loud, ignorant, foul-mouthed, universally prejudiced Alf ...
17 years ago
Visiting Mr Green
Run Fat Boy Run [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
This is a bit fluffy, but it is extremely funny, and once you've got over the fundamental implausibility of Simon Pegg's hopeless and not particularly attractive loser of a character ever getting to ...
17 years ago
Run Fat Boy Run [12A]
The Bourne Ultimatum [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
It's true that the hand-held camera shots of the fight scenes are confusing and annoying, but do not let this put you off going to see the film - it is absolutely first rate in every other respect. ...
17 years ago
The Bourne Ultimatum [12A]
Transformers [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
There is only one word for this movie, and that word is AWESOME (pronounced aaahsome). It's a movie that must be seen on a big, wide screen to have full impact. The story is deliciously silly, but ...
17 years ago
Transformers [12A]
Scooby-Doo Live on Stage!
Andrea Hopkins
A slick, professional "Scooby-Doo!" at the New Theatre delivers absolutely everything you would expect to get from a musical stage adaptation of a children's cartoon. It's action-packed, highly ...
17 years ago
Scooby-Doo Live on Stage!
High School Musical
Andrea Hopkins
It has been remarked by jaundiced, grumpy old things that the phenominally successful High School Musical is a blatant result of "dumbing down". It's West Side Story meets Grease, set rather ...
17 years ago
High School Musical
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
Exciting, visually stunning, compelling, funny, touching - this is an excellent kids' movie. It's excellent in many ways considering it's a movie based on a comic strip; so OK, it aint Shakespeare ...
17 years ago
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer [PG]
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
There is indeed much that is funny and spectacular and enjoyable in this film, but for me it is fatally marred by having a completely incomprehensible plot. Perhaps modern audiences no longer require ...
17 years ago
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End [12A]
Six Characters Looking for An Author
Andrea Hopkins
It’s a little hard to imagine yourself back into the minds of the 1921 first night audience of this celebrated “experimental” play, who were so horrified by it that they wanted to lynch the ...
17 years ago
Six Characters Looking for An Author
The Crowded Bed by Mary Cavanagh
Andrea Hopkins
This is a first novel by Oxford author Mary Cavanagh, and it is excellent. It opens – arrestingly – with the hero, Joe, murdering his father-in-law, and the rest of the novel dances adroitly ...
17 years ago
The Crowded Bed by Mary Cavanagh
The Weir
Andrea Hopkins
This is short and pretty sweet (despite all the swearing). Somewhere in rural Ireland, curmudgeonly old Jack and his nervous friend Jim meet for a drink in their local pub and a chat with young ...
17 years ago
The Weir
Dreamgirls [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Danger! *Spoilers* within
Wow! This is a spectacularly wonderful musical, a must-see tour-de-force that sweeps all criticism before it. It brilliantly does away with the need for narrative or ...
17 years ago
Dreamgirls [12A]
A Night at The Museum [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
This was such a great premise for a story, and it's such a shame that the story delivered by the film's writers and director is lame and lets it down. If you've seen the trailer you've seen the ...
17 years ago
A Night at The Museum [PG]
The Holiday [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
The trailer for this movie is so tempting, as a high-class chick flick, that I'm sure loads of people will be putting it on their Christmas treat list. I'm afraid this is one of those movies where ...
17 years ago
The Holiday [12A]
Madama Butterfly
Andrea Hopkins
Chisinau is the capital city of Moldova, which is about the size of Wales, tucked away between Romania and the Ukraine, and is officially the poorest country in Europe in terms of income per capita. ...
17 years ago
Madama Butterfly
Casino Royale [12A]
Andrea Hopkins
Hmm. Much as I love these review dialogues, it's time we girlies had an input into this intellectual discussion. To be sure, Daniel Craig is not as tall or as handsome as Pierce Brosnan; but I can ...
17 years ago
Casino Royale [12A]
Flushed Away [U]
Andrea Hopkins
I took my daughter and friends to see this for a 10th birthday treat and wasn't expecting much out of it myself - but it was absolutely hilarious. Easily the funniest kid's film I've ever seen, I ...
17 years ago
Flushed Away [U]
Arabian Nights
Andrea Hopkins
Curiously, some of the Creation Theatre Company rented a house next door to me last summer. They were truly awful neighbours, but they sure can put on a show. The Arabian Nights has everything we ...
17 years ago
Arabian Nights
An Inspector Calls
Andrea Hopkins
J.B. Priestly’s moral mystery play has not worn well over time. The brutal exposure of the dark secrets of a complacent middle-class family was daring in 1946, but now seems tame, and the mechanism ...
17 years ago
An Inspector Calls
The Merchant Of Venice
Andrea Hopkins
This is an excellent production: fierce, direct, sharp, funny. It has been judiciously stripped of all the tedious “comic” scenes. It transcends the usual limitations of student drama – poor ...
18 years ago
The Merchant Of Venice
The Barber of Seville
Andrea Hopkins
This frivolous confection – the original play by Beaumarchais, not the opera - is not often performed nowadays. I had never seen it and was curious how it would stand up without gorgeous music to ...
18 years ago
The Barber of Seville
The Sixpenny Debt and Other Oxford Stories
Andrea Hopkins
This is a quite amusing, moderately ingenious, reasonably pleasing collection of fifteen short stories set in Oxford. There’s nothing here to set the world on fire or stir the soul, but there is ...
18 years ago
The Sixpenny Debt and Other Oxford Stories
Stormbreaker [PG]
Andrea Hopkins
This movie was pitched as a junior James Bond, and it doesn’t disappoint; it’s a light-hearted, often very funny, action romp, featuring newcomer Alex Pettyfer as Alex Rider, a reluctant teenage ...
18 years ago
Stormbreaker [PG]
Pride and Prejudice (2005) [U]
Andrea Hopkins
This hugely enjoyable Pride & Prejudice is different. It's Austen meets Bronte. Mr Darcy could easily pass for Heathcliff, with his artfully tousled hair, imperfectly barbered chin and open shirt. ...
18 years ago
Pride and Prejudice (2005) [U]
Re.form
Andrea Hopkins
What is the visual equivalent of a sound-bite? It ought to be eye-candy. The O3 Gallery is decidedly bijou and eye-candy is what it will be offering to people who pop in for a quick shot of culture ...
18 years ago
Re.form
Crazy For You
Andrea Hopkins
Oh, for the energy and enthusiasm of the Musical Youth Company of Oxford! I can only imagine the enormous effort and hours of rehearsal it took to perfect the dance routines of such a large cast – ...
18 years ago
Crazy For You
The Sleeping Beauty
Andrea Hopkins
This is an outstanding production by the Birmingham Royal Ballet. You have to see this. It is astonishing. It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes. I speak as a person who has not cared for many ...
18 years ago
The Sleeping Beauty
The Wizard of Oz
Andrea Hopkins
This isn't a Christmas Panto, it's a good old-fashioned Show, with songs and dances. If you're taking children to it they will probably love it (mine did) but your chief entertainment is more likely ...
18 years ago
The Wizard of Oz
The Snow Queen
Andrea Hopkins
This is a production of immense energy, good-humour and charm. Hans Christian Andersen it ain't, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, since the cruelty and terror at the heart of the Gloomy Dane's ...
18 years ago
The Snow Queen
