Film and Action

GFF 2012 - Mark Millar interview

The comic book creator of Kick-Ass and Wanted tells us about his role at the Glasgow Film Festival

13 Feb 2012

Mark Millar has written some of the biggest comics of the last 20 years. He’s tackled the X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman and Fantastic Four alongside...

Arrietty

Studio Ghibli takes on The Borrowers and delivers charming results

13 Jul 2011

(U) 94min Over three decades, the Studio Ghibli brand of animated storytelling has become a worldwide phenomenon through beloved classics My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away and the recent Ponyo. Although not directed by the studio’s co-founder Hayao…

GFF 2012 - Day planner

Our highlights for each day of the Glasgow Film Festival

6 Feb 2012

It can be difficult, when any festival rolls around, to decide which events to skip in favour of others. Searching rigorously through the programme, referring back to the calendar, trying to fit in as much as possible - it's a painstaking piece of work…

Safe House

Brutally slick but flawed action thriller starring Denzel Washtington and Ryan Reynolds

8 Feb 2012

(15) 115mins Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds make a formidable partnership in Daniel Espinosa's Safe House, a brutally slick, if flawed, action thriller.

Film Noir

19 Feb 2009

(18) 96min (Optimum DVD retail) ANIMATION/THRILLER Mixing the conventions of its genre namesake with explicit sex scenes, this adult animated feature is a cross between 40s noir The Big Sleep and 70s underground cartoon Fritz The Cat. It…

RocknRolla

4 Sep 2008

Is there a filmmaker in Britain who’s been more derided than Mr Madonna? A bit unfair all this criticism is too: it’s not Guy Ritchie’s fault that the competent, very watchable gangster flicks Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch were some of…

Black Gold

Cliched, desert-set action adventure starring Mark Strong, Antonio Banderas and Tahar Rahim

27 Jan 2012

(12A) 130min The financial muscle of the Middle East has had a major impact on many spheres in recent years. Now that money is being directed towards movies. Bankrolled by the Doha Film Institute this action-adventure is set at the turn of the 20th…

The Adjustment Bureau

Philip K Dick-inspired sci-fi thriller starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt

2 Mar 2011

The work of Philip K Dick has inspired some of cinema’s great sci-fi films, from Blade Runner to Minority Report via Total Recall. The Adjustment Bureau, which is derived from one of the author’s short stories, doesn’t quite measure up to the former or…

Ralph Fiennes, star and director of Coriolanus - profile

Man behind the modernised Shakespeare adap has Bardic pedigree

5 Jan 2012

Name Ralph Fiennes Born Ipswich, Suffolk, 22 December, 1962 Background Initially a star onstage with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Fiennes gained international film recognition for his Oscar-nominated performance as Nazi Commander Amon Göth in…

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Slight but entertaining sequel from Guy Ritchie, Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law

13 Dec 2011

Guy Ritchie’s 2009 Sherlock Holmes was considerably better than could reasonably have been expected from the fading and formerly feted Lock, Stock director. Ritchie and his writers successfully pulled off a tough balancing act, rooting the character in…

Haywire

Steven Soderbergh's fast-paced chase movie stars Gina Carano, Ewan McGregor and Michael Douglas

5 Jan 2012

(15) 93min While other directors talk endlessly about the next great movie they are going to make, Steven Soderbergh keeps on quietly making films at a frequent rate, never repeating himself (Ocean’s sequels notwithstanding), and consistently…

Coriolanus

Ralph Fiennes proves as adept behind the camera as in front of it in this Shakespeare adaptation

5 Jan 2012

(15) 123min Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut is a powerful reimagining of the Shakespearean tragedy and is a resonant story about leadership, politics and power. Acting as well as directing, Fiennes stars as the central character, the eponymous…

Steve McQueen: King of Cool

Six of the best movies by the coolest American screen actor

17 Aug 2010

Arguably the coolest American screen actor of the last 50 years, McQueen gets his six of the best to help us make it through another damp August. Highlights include Love with the Proper Stranger – actor/director Robert Mulligan’s misguided but…

Hitlist: Films

17 Sep 2009

Army of Crime, The Beaches of Agnes, White Lightnin', The Godfather, Nagisa Oshima, Fish Tank, Adventureland, Three Miles North of Molkom, Inglourious Basterds, The Big Knife, The Stranger

Scarface re-released

The greatest of all modern gangster films returns, but why now?

14 Aug 2009

It’s been twenty six long years since Tony Montana (Al Pacino) invited us to ‘say hello to my little friend’ in director Brian De Palma and then screenwriter Oliver Stone’s Reagan era update of Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht’s gangster polemic of the same…

The Good The Bad The Weird

5 Feb 2009

WESTERN/ACTION Gifted South Korean filmmaker Kim Ji-woon takes on Sergio Leone’s greatest western and (unbelievably) emerges victorious. It’s the 1930s in the desert wilderness of Japanese colonised Chinese Manchuria and three treasure hunters are in…

Apocalypto

(18) 138min

3 Jan 2007

ACTION/ADVENTURE Welcome to the jungle. A place where pierced savages josh and jest as they rip the flesh of a freshly speared boar. Life is simple, life is good, but trouble is hiding in the undergrowth and young family man Jaguar Paw (Rudy…

The Debt

Sober-minded spy movie with Helen Mirren and Sam Worthington

14 Sep 2011

(15) 113min The Debt has languished on the distributor’s shelf for a year since screening in Toronto last September, betraying a lack of studio confidence in the commercial prospects for John Madden’s sober-minded remake of 2007 Israeli espionage…

Colombiana

Photocopy action film features unconvincing super-soldier hit-woman

19 Aug 2011

(12A) 107min After her breakthrough role as the doe-eyed alien love-interest in James Cameron’s Avatar, and as a sexed-up Uhura in JJ Abrams’s Star Trek reboot, Zoe Saldana clearly has the international profile to get almost any picture made. Almost…

How to Train Your Dragon

22 Mar 2010

(PG) 97min Commendable new DreamWorks animation set in the mythical world of Vikings and dragons, and based on the book by Cressida Cowell. Hiccup, a Viking teenager befriends a dragon. Voice work by Gerard Butler, America Ferrara and Craig…

Never Back Down

7 Aug 2008

ACTION (15) 108min (Momentum DVD retail/rental) Never Back Down isn’t meant for high analysis, it’s basically a film of hot young teens punching each other. The plot to string these acts of violence together is so basic it hardly warrants a mention…

Preview of 2012 - Django Unchained

Quentin Tarantino flexes his Western muscles with Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio

6 Jan 2012

Quentin Tarantino has already given us his heist movie (Reservoir Dogs), his take on blaxploitation (Jackie Brown), his war film (Inglourious Basterds), horror (Death Proof), kung fu (Kill Bill 1 & 2) and of course his crime thriller (Pulp Fiction).

Shark Night 3D

Dumb fun as big fish chow down on stereotypical college kids

6 Oct 2011

(15) 91 min The avalanche of 3D releases may be slowing down but there’s still a few chuckles to be had with the format. Shark Night 3D has the flimsiest of plots as seven college kids head out for a weekend at a luxurious lake house in Louisiana…

Warrior

Unfulfilling sports drama starring Nick Nolte, Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton

14 Sep 2011

(12A) 139min The underdog fighter with family issues is back in a big way this year. First came David O. Russell’s Oscar-winner The Fighter, and now writer/director Gavin O’Connor (Pride and Glory) delivers his challenger, a two-hour-plus…

Profile: Melissa George

Aussie actress Melissa George tells us all about her new film A Lonely Place to Die

1 Sep 2011

Born 6 August, 1976, Perth, Australia. Background Yet another Aussie soap alumni done good, after starring as Angel in over 300 episodes of Home & Away. ‘I’m a very good quitter, I always quit a job at the right time,’ explains George. ‘I was…