Steve Carell

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: Vice shows Dick Cheney as a man with few virtues and ohhh, I see what you did there

    Movie Review | Becky Suter | 21st January 2019

    My knowledge of Dick Cheney pretty much started and ended with knowing him as the veep who shot a guy in the face whilst on a hunting trip. Had I bothered to actually watch all of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart episodes I've recorded over the years, I would have known that Cheney has always been the dark heart of American politics; a man rotten to his very core, which itself is a tiny black hole from which no joy or light can escape, who's been haunting the White House long before President Trump gleefully served McNugget BBQ sauce out of the Lincoln silver gravy boats to those footballers. Luckily, Adam McKay is here again to distil complex information to dummies like me, although newsflash - the political system is like, totally corrupt, you guys.

  • Despicable Me 3

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 3rd July 2017

    Let's just re-establish The Boss Baby Clause from earlier this year: Despicable Me 3 is a kids movie, and it was watched in the company of a kid, and it was enjoyed by said kid, thus to me, it was a successful movie. Writing criticism of movies patently not made for you is a fool's errand, but we're all professionals here, so let's try and engage the critical faculties and fire up a review for old time's sake. Despicable Me 3 is... fine? I guess? Let's say yes.

  • The Big Short

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 26th January 2016

    "I have a feeling that in a few years, the banks are going to be doing exactly the same thing," says despondent financier Mark Baum (Steve Carell) as the world teeters on the brink of economic meltdown. "They're going to blame it on immigrants and poor people." The financial crisis of 2008 is mired in so much Wall Street-patented obfuscatory bullshit you need a shovel to get down to the nitty gritty, but Adam McKay's A-list crib sheet The Big Short boils it down to the essentials: the US banks committed the largest and most audacious case of fraud ever perpetrated at the cost of every man, woman and children in America - and they got away with it.

  • Minions

    Movie Review | Ali Gray, Arthur Gray | 5th July 2015

    I hold a special kind of contempt for people who indulge themselves in reviewing things that are blatantly not meant for them to enjoy; people who take pleasure in sticking the boot into something that is clearly aimed at a different demographic. I'm thinking the petulant one-star reviews of Kanye West's Glastonbury set, or Mark Kermode secretly enjoying giving the Entourage movie a kicking - everyone knows Kermode would rather stay at home watching The Exorcist with one hand in a pot of pomade and the other down his pants. You wouldn't send a Danny Dyer fan to review a Michael Haneke film, so why is the opposite true?

  • LFF 2014: Foxcatcher

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 20th October 2014

    There is a subtle moment in the first few minutes of Foxcatcher - a moment between moments, really - that I just couldn't shake. Gold medal-winning wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) sits down alone at his table in an apartment that seems almost comically small for a man of his size. He has prepared himself some ramen noodles, presumably for his evening meal. Sitting in silence, framed against blank, beige walls, Schultz raises the spoonful to his lips but pauses for several seconds, staring intently at the noodles before putting them in his mouth. There is so much unsaid in that arresting pause; even this basic act of nourishment seems to be a struggle. It's a moment indicative of Foxcatcher as a whole; a glacial, passive drama where true emotions seethe beneath a surface of calm - until they can be contained no more.

  • Anchorman 2 poster: 60% of the time, the shadows work EVERY time

    Movie News | Ali Gray | 25th October 2013

    SHADOWS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.

  • Despicable Me 2

    Movie Review | Ben | 29th June 2013

    You could slap a three-star review on Despicable Me 2 and most people wouldn't complain, but whether you enjoy it or not depends entirely on two things: how much you enjoy the slapstick comedy of the minions, and how much schmaltz you can tolerate. The only way to give it a fair review is via the medium of chart.

  • The Incredible Burt Wonderstone

    Movie Review | Neil | 12th March 2013

    In order to raise this review to an intellectual level beyond all others, I learned the word 'prestidigitation', which means 'sleight of hand': the cunning technique by which magicians fool you into thinking you really do have a neverending supply of loose change behind your ears. That done, all I need to do now is slip it casually into my prose, like, oh, I don't know, a magician employing prestidigitation. That was pretty smooth, right? (*runs away in a puff of smoke*)

  • Seeking A Friend For The End Of The World

    Movie Review | Matt | 12th July 2012

    True fact: If everyone found out that life on earth was going to be snuffed out by a meteorite in three weeks' time, your average person is more likely to embark on a hedonistic riot of sex, drugs and anarchy than embark on a quirky odd-couple road trip in a last-ditch attempt to provide some meaning to their life. But hey, this is the end of the world as indie cinema knows it.

  • Crazy Stupid Love

    Movie Review | Ali | 20th September 2011

    Crazy Stupid Love is a movie that wants it all. It's a romcom that knows it's a romcom and wants you to know it knows it's a romcom. Characters reference popular movies and the clichés therein; by pointing out the elephants in the room, they're allowing us in on the joke. "Damn, love is crazy and stupid," they nudge and wink to us, but because they acknowledge the craziness and stupidity of movie romance, they assume they'll get away with it. Luckily for us, the characters of Crazy Stupid Love are so darn charming, they do.