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Spike Island
17 Jun 2013
A messy, nostalgic coming-of-ager set around the legendary Stone Roses gig
Arriving just before Shane Meadows’ Made of Stone documentary comes another disappointing tribute to the era of ‘Madchester’ and the music of The Stone Roses. Directed by Mat Whitecross, who already brought us the Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock…
Edinburgh International Film Festival: Sofia Coppola on The Bling Ring
10 Jun 2013
The Emma Watson-starring drama is inspired by a true story of celeb-robbing teens
There was a moment at this year’s Cannes Film Festival that felt as if life was imitating art (which was, in turn, imitating life). Just as Sofia Coppola’s new film The Bling Ring was opening the festival’s Un Certain Regard strand, with the 42 year-old…
Snitch
17 Jun 2013
A solid thriller that hints at a life beyond blockbusters for leading man Dwayne Johnson
Dwayne Johnson moves away from film franchises to flex some acting muscles in this appealing new thriller. Dispensing with Johnson’s tough guy persona in favour of a more down-to-earth, everyman approach, Snitch offers a commentary on America’s war on…
Summer in February
14 Jun 2013
A Downton-esque middlebrow melancholic melodrama starring Emily Browning and Dominic Cooper
The success of Downton Abbey clearly points to the arrival of Summer In February, a middlebrow melancholic melodrama set amongst the real-life Newlyn School artists’ colony in pre-WWI Cornwall. Co-produced by and starring Downton’s Dan Stevens, it’s…
New trailer for Scorsese and DiCaprio’s The Wolf of Wall Street
17 Jun 2013
Strutting new production also starring Jonah Hill, Rob Reiner, Kyle Chandler and Matthew McConaughey
The trailer has just arrived for Martin Scorsese’s next directorial effort, The Wolf of Wall Street. Based on the memoir of the same name by criminal stock broker Jordan Belfort, it tells the story we’re only too well acquainted with in the days of…
Behind the Candelabra
5 Jun 2013
A tender portrayal of the bizarre relationship between Scott Thorson and Liberace
If this truly is Steven Soderbergh’s last film – and it feels like we said that for his pharmaceutical thriller Side Effects three months ago – then this time, he really is going out on a high. A glittery biopic of flamboyant pianist Liberace (played…
The Great Gatsby
15 May 2013
Baz Luhrmann’s lavish adaptation of Fitzgerald’s novel finally arrives
A far cry from the drab pastel shades and muffled emotion of the 1974 Robert Redford/Mia Farrow film, Baz Luhrmann’s new version of The Great Gatsby aims to put the ‘great’ back into F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel. Many have tried and failed to…
Paradise: Love
14 Jun 2013
An unsettling romantic drama of moods and moments that doesn't quite gel into a compelling whole
The pursuit of happiness leads to inevitable disappointment in Paradise: Love, the first in a trilogy from Austrian director Ulrich Seidl that focuses on three women from the same family. In Love, plump, fifty-something mother Teresa (Margarete Tiesel…
Stuck In Love
14 Jun 2013
A predictable and pretentious look at romance starring Greg Kinnear and Jennifer Connelly
The debut feature from writer-director Josh Boone, Stuck In Love is a predictable and pretentious look at romance. Focusing on the trials and tribulations of a family of writers, it boasts a decent cast but too often falls for the same plot contrivances…
The Iceman
17 May 2013
Impressive mafia-themed dramatic thriller starring Michael Shannon, James Franco and Ray Liotta
Is there no film Michael Shannon doesn’t excel in? Here the star of Take Shelter plays real-life New Jersey hitman Richard Kuklinski, who – upon his arrest in 1986 – is thought to have committed over 100 assassinations. Directed by Israeli-born…
Now You See Me
6 Jun 2013
Louis Leterrier's heist movie with magical trappings will dazzle audiences
There’s an obvious reason why magic tricks are perfect for live television and theatre shows, and not for films; editing and special effects create too much potential for cinematic mischief, stopping audiences from believing in the illusions. Now You…
The Film Formula: World War Z
3 Jun 2013
We discover the different elements behind Brad Pitt’s zombie apocalypse movie
One of the comparisons applied to one of World War Z’s initial scripts (by Ain’t It Cool, among others) was to dramatic thriller Children of Men. Like Pitt’s character Gerry Lane in WWZ, Theo (Clive Owen) is tasked with helping end a worldwide threat to…
Our Children
24 May 2013
A Prophet stars Tahar Rahim and Niels Arestrup reunite for Joachim Lafosse’s riveting drama
The two central actors in Jacques Audiard's 2009 masterpiece A Prophet are reunited, and their dynamic entirely reorientated, in Belgian filmmaker Joachim Lafosse’s riveting drama Our Children, a fictionalisation of a real life story where four children…
New trailer for Diana starring Naomi Watts
13 Jun 2013
The film tells the story of the Princess of Wales' relationship with Dr Hasnat Khan
A trailer for Diana, a biopic of the Princess of Wales starring Naomi Watts, has just been released - have a watch below. The film focuses on Diana's relationship with Dr Hasnat Khan (Naveen Andrews), a British-Pakistani doctor who met the Princess…
New trailer and picture gallery for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
12 Jun 2013
The second part in Jackson's second Tolkien trilogy features Bilbo, Gandalf, Legolas... and a dragon
The trailer for the next instalment of Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy has been released, and it's a bit of a doozy. As with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Jackson's been fairly liberal with what's in the original book and what he's added in from…
Before Midnight
6 Jun 2013
Third part of Linklater's long-running saga continues meditations on love...brilliantly
Since his breakthough feature Slacker in 1991, writer/director Richard Linklater’s career has been peppered by interesting work (A Scanner Darkly, Me and Orson Welles, Bernie) that, with the exception of his Jack Black vehicle School of Rock, has failed…
The Stoker (Kochegar)
17 May 2013
A strange, dark and clever Russian black comedy with an unexpectedly forceful moral message
Edinburgh’s beloved Filmhouse cinema has chosen an unusual and intriguing curio for its first release as a distributor. Directed by the prolific Alexey Balabanov - known for his unflinching but darkly comic fables of the Russian criminal underworld…
Blood
29 May 2013
One-note BBC-adapted cop drama starring Paul Bettany, Stephen Graham and Brian Cox
Brothers Joe (Paul Bettany) and Chrissie (Stephen Graham) are two cops tasked with helping solve a particularly gruesome crime in their seaside hometown. When they track down a likely-looking suspect (a suitably creepy Ben Crompton), they’re inspired by…
The Moth Diaries
22 May 2013
Suspense-less boarding school vampire thriller starring Sarah Bolger, Sarah Gadon and Lily Cole
Arriving a week before Neil Jordan’s vampire tale Byzantium, you have to wonder if those releasing The Moth Diaries were hoping to steal a march on Jordan’s film. They needn’t have bothered. A pale shadow of Byzantium, it doesn’t even hold a candle to…
Something in the Air
10 May 2013
Olivier Assayas returns with bittersweet portrait of countercultural French 70's youth
French writer-director Olivier Assayas follows up his epic chronicle of legendary terrorist Carlos the Jackal with this bittersweet portrait of countercultural youth in early 70s France. ‘Diffusely autobiographical’ is how the filmmaker has described…
The King Of Marvin Gardens
10 May 2013
Reissue of forgotten 70s film starring Jack Nicholson by director of Five Easy Pieces
'In the fun house how do you know who's really crazy?' that's the pertinent question in The King of Marvin Gardens, Bob 'Five Easy Pieces' Rafelson's third film. This reissue is a chance to re-appraise the 1972 financial flop starring Jack Nicholson and…
Director Neil Jordan and actor Gemma Arterton talk vampire feminism in Byzantium
17 May 2013
The thriller is 'a continuation' of Jordan's earlier Interview with the Vampire
‘There have been too many vampire films lately,’ laughs Neil Jordan, perched on a chair in London’s Soho Hotel. You might say the director of Interview With the Vampire only has himself to blame. Without his 1994 take on Anne Rice’s novel, starring Tom…
Nothing but the Truth
16 May 2013
Serviceable political thriller starring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, David Schwimmer and Alan Alda
It’s amazing how many films with big name casts slink out direct to DVD. Take Nothing But the Truth, featuring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer and Alan Alda. To be fair, NBT was a victim of circumstance rather than some…
The Eye of the Storm
30 Apr 2013
Adaptation of Patrick White's 'unfilmable' novel starring Charlotte Rampling and Geoffrey Rush
He may have won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973, but Australian novelist Patrick White has not has much impact cinematically beyond his screenplay for 1978’s The Night, the Prowler. His novel The Eye of The Storm has often been described as…
Dead Man Down
30 Apr 2013
Overlong and silly crime drama starring Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace
This convoluted thriller's nondescript title is a pointer to its flaws: unfocused and overlong, its swill of criminal characters and sub-plots feel like an unfinished work-in-progress, thrown together and stamped with a generic title whose meaning is…
