Film, Issue 673

Tron Legacy

State-of-the-art, but with dialogue that only a motherboard could love

(PG) 125min ‘The game has changed,’ announces the poster for Disney’s blockbuster offering for 2010, but despite 3D and innumerable upgrades, Tron-Legacy remains a very similar proposition to 1982’s super-culty box-office flop. With dialogue that…

The Viva Cuba Collection

(12) 680min (Network) Back in the 1960s there was mighty Cuban filmmaking wave. Filmmakers Tomás Guttiérez Alea and Humberto Solás became internationally significant filmmakers whilst reflecting the social values espoused by Castro’s government.

127 Hours

(15) 94min Is there a more versatile or interesting British filmmaker than Danny Boyle working today? Few of his contemporaries have as varied a filmography, and there is no denying the consistency in quality of his cinematic narratives. Slumdog…

On Tour (Tournee)

Star-writer-director Mathieu Amalric combines road movie with authentic portrait of provincial show

‘France is going to love you,’ declares television producer turned impresario Joachim (Mathieu Amalric) to his American troupe of ‘new burlesque’ dancers, whom he is leading on a tour of French coastal towns. Voluptuous characters such as Mimi Le Meaux…

The Way Back

Heavy on pretty spectacle but light on character development

(12A) 133min Australian filmmaker Peter Weir (Master and Commander, The Truman Show) defies most prison escape movie conventions to make a film that is heavy on pretty Lawrence of Arabia-type spectacle but light on significant character development.

Catfish

Debate over documentary that taps into universal desires for love, acceptanc

(12A) 87min Fabulism flourishes in the unlikeliest of places in this intriguing documentary co-directed by young New York filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman. It begins with Ariel’s photographer brother Nev receiving a painting of one his…

Chatroom

(15) 97min Young British acting talent is out in force in this drama set in an alternative cyber reality. Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard, Hannah Murray and Daniel Kaluuya are the rising Brit stars who meet in a chatroom that has been…