Laura Dern

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: Marriage Story battles for the high ground but risks sanctimony

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 31st December 2019

    Relationships are weird. You come to them as a pair of individuals, both trying to find common threads while maintaining individuality. Then you move in together and over time adjust to each other's idiosyncrasies, forming new habits based on a shared life, until one day you realise you're a completely different person. Later if you decide to wave goodbye to sleep for about fifteen years by having children it adds an adorable layer of walking on eggshells to proceedings. The only way to really make it work is to be totally open about your thoughts and feelings - keeping secrets is just asking for trouble - so if/when things fall apart and you're held to account for your part in the failure you get to gloat over that deceitful snake (just kidding, honey - L for Love!).

  • Review: Cold Pursuit sees Mr Plow out for revenge in a temperate thriller

    Movie Review | Becky Suter | 7th February 2019

    Over the past decade, Liam Neeson has had an interesting evolution from Serious Actor to Tough Action Dad, exclusively playing single-minded individuals dispensing their own brand of vigilante justice. Since Taken, he’s developed his particular set of skills to work within the same template over and over again, becoming a one man wrecking crew in the likes of Run All Night, Non-Stop and then Non-Stop-But-On-A-Train, The Commuter. He’s even punched a wolf in the face. All batshit crazy, yet enjoyable nonetheless. But in a recent controversial interview, Neeson revealed he was once almost in his own version of American History X, contemplating taking a cosh to any “black bastard” who crossed his path to quench his own insatiable thirst for revenge. His telling of this story was probably intended to highlight how revenge never helps anyone, but instead highlighted that this is a reality for black men and people of colour, and attempts to rationalise these thoughts could be seen, at best, as attempts to normalise racism. And to think, my main concern before seeing the film was how many snow puns and Simpsons’ gags I could shoehorn into this review.

  • Eight questions I had after the Big Little Lies finale

    TV Feature | Becky Suter | 26th April 2017

    LittleBigPicture presents its #hottake on the final episode of Big Little Lies, a mere 48 hours after it aired in the UK. After seven weeks of speculation, we finally found out who the murder victim and murderer at Trivia Night were, but many questions were left unanswered, such as ...

    (BTW, it goes without saying: there are spoilers ahead.)

  • Jurassic Park

    Movie Review | Ali | 25th September 2011

    And so, Jurassic Park week, the special event that was 65 million and 18 years in the making, comes to an end. We've laughed, we've cried, we've freaked out a little bit when Sam Neill tweeted his approval... Truly, there's nothing left to say about Jurassic Park that hasn't been said this w- Shit! The review!