Film, Drama and Paul Dale

Melancholia

Lars von Trier's sci-fi drama features star turns from Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg

21 Sep 2011

(15) 135min Melancholia is like the inversion of TS Elliot’s much quoted dictum. Is this how the world will end? With a bang not a whimper. Lars Von Trier’s curious, enigmatic and deterministic film seeks to equate the black dog of depression with an…

Tyrannosaur - Paddy Considine interview

The star of Dead Man's Shoes discusses his directorial debut

21 Sep 2011

There was a time when if a British actor got a bit of movie money, he (they were invariably male) would direct Henry V, A Bridge Too Far or The Night of the Hunter. But since Gary Oldman made Nil By Mouth in 1997, a very different generation of largely…

Tyrannosaur

Paddy Considine's directorial debut features strong performances from Peter Mullan and Olivia Colman

21 Sep 2011

(18) 92min Unemployed widower, drunk and all-round angry old man Joseph (Peter Mullan) stumbles into the council estate charity shop minded by good Samaritan volunteer Hannah (Olivia Colman), and friendship follows initial hostility. Despite her…

A Better Life

Chris Weitz's immigration drama is admirable but predictable

21 Jul 2011

(12A) 97min There’s no denying American comedian Pat Paulsen’s dictum that the problems the United States faces today can be traced to the American Indian’s slack immigration policy. A Better Life is the mainstream cinemagoing public’s worst…

War correspondent Martin Bell to give Oliver Stone another chance

Martin Bell will be introducing Oliver Stone's Salvador at the EIFF

24 Jun 2011

‘I tend to walk out of films about wars that I reported on. I walked out of Oliver Stone’s Salvador when I first saw it in 1986 that’s why it will be interesting to present it and revisit it in Edinburgh. I remember he satirised a female reporter I know…

Takeshi Miike's 13 Assassins strikes a balance between measured character development and violent brutality

25 Apr 2011

(15) 126min Prolific to the point of insanity, unpredictable and blatantly controversial, Takeshi Miike is not your average Japanese filmmaker. His notorious body of work which includes loads of straight to video fare, the Dead or Alive trilogy, Ichi…

Ron Peck on Thatcher-era thriller Empire State

Director of Nighthawks discusses overdue DVD and Blu Ray release

2 Mar 2011

It’s mad to think that Ron Peck’s Thatcherite era thriller Empire State has lain dormant for so long. Set in and around the gay clubbing scene, which at the time was exploding in vast warehouse clubs in the UK, the film easily still stands next to The…

Opening film Potiche and Little White Lies among GFF highlights

An overview of the careers of both actresses

17 Feb 2011

The Catherine Deneuve-starring Potiche, opens the 2011 Glasgow Film Festival, while another programme highlight is Little White Lies starring Marion Cotillard. Paul Dale examines the career of both actresses.

Greenberg

10 Jun 2010

(15) 107min The worst thing about a mid life crisis? You are only half way through. Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is 40 years old, unemployed, house-sitting for his rich brother and a minefield of mildly autistic behaviour. Obnoxious…

The Blind Side

22 Mar 2010

(12A) 128min If movies could be made out of human foreskins, Kentucky Fried Chickenbuckets and American Football sponsorship deals, The Blind Side is the film the Republican Party would make to fund their next attempt to hang some chads. Based on…

Nativity!

13 Nov 2009

(U) 105min Surprisingly enjoyable British family drama about one school’s attempt to put on the best nativity play in Britain by getting the media involved. Martin Freeman and Marc Wootton as the two primary school teachers at the eye of the storm…

Night Train to Inverness

Gutsy period curo

22 Oct 2009

Directed by oft overlooked British film and TV director Ernest Morris (The Tell-Tale Heart, The Court Martial of Major Keller), this tight, train-bound 1960 thriller has a lot to commend it. When ex-convict Roy Lewis (Norman Wooland) turns up in…

Tales of the Golden Age (Amintiri Din Epoca De Aur)

Affectionate Romanian cinema

21 Oct 2009

Cristian Mungiu, the Palme D’Or winning Romanian filmmaker of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, would almost certainly find himself in contention with American communications magnate Harold S Geneen’s much quoted belief that ‘We must not be hampered by…

The Godfather preview

23 Sep 2009

The most iconic mafia film of all time, and rightly so, in which Francis Ford Coppola weaves a rich and detailed story of family, bloodshed and crime all ruled by a masterful Marlon Brando. A great opportunity to see the life of the Corleone family on…

Away we go

11 Sep 2009

After Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mendes takes a turn for the worse with this naff impersonation of an independent American comedy road movie written by publisher and memoirist Dave Eggers and his Mrs (Vendela Vida). Expectant parents Burt (John…

Fish Tank

10 Sep 2009

Andrea Arnold’s remarkable second feature, following her Glasgow-based debut Red Road, is about Mia, an angry and aggressive 15-year-old who wants to be a dancer. When she’s not practicing in her room in the flat she lives in with her single mum and her…

Mesrine: Public Enemy Number One

Second part of biopic on France's most notorious bank robber

21 Aug 2009

Part two of Jean François Richet’s epic account of the contrary life and times of France’s most famous bank robber and criminal mastermind Jacques Mesrine – we are now in the realm of myth and self-deception. Written, like it’s predecessor, by Abdel…

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…

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (l’Instinct de Mort)

30 Jul 2009

Tracing a line from Mesrine’s disillusioning military service during the Algerian war to the beginning of his notoriety in 1972 (when he graduated to murder), the first instalment of this epic crime tale is derivative, energetic and hugely…

Film and Fashion - Coco Before Chanel

23 Jul 2009

As enjoyable as Coco Before Chanel – the giddy biopic of the reputed Nazi collaborator couturier starring Audrey Tautou – is, it underlined a hard, learned truth for me. Fashion and films co-exist – there is no symbiosis between the two. If they were…

Antichrist

23 Jul 2009

Danish Dogme pack leader Lars Von Trier conjures up a slice of unbridled and unpleasant pantheistic horror that’s underlined by themes of grief and guilt. When middle class couple Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe’s son dies in a freak accident…

Lake Tahoe

9 Jul 2009

More small-time deadpan shenanigans from Fernando Eimbcke, the mischievous young Mexican writer/director of 2004’s Duck Season. In a sleepy sun-baked Mexican suburb, teenage Juan (Diego Cataño) crashes the family car. Stranded and fearful of…

Also Released - Film

25 Jun 2009

Blood: The Last Vampire (18) 91min Vampire hunter Saya (Gianna Jun) is unrivalled, but that’s because she is half bloodsucker herself – on her mother’s side. Will she go to the dark side or will she carry on fighting for the mortals? Popular anime gets…

Rudo Y Cursi

25 Jun 2009

Latin American superstars Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna reunite on screen for the first time since 2001’s Y Tu Mamá También in this likeable and engrossing tale of brotherly rivalry, professional football and celebrity culture. When Mexican…

Sugar

11 Jun 2009

DRAMA Premier Baseball’s Latin American slave trade route and the immigrant experience go under the microscope in this offbeat and compelling character study from the makers of 2006’s Half Nelson. Miguel Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) aka Sugar is a…