Film and Reviews

Private Road

12 Jan 2011

(15) 89min (BFI) Barney Platts-Mills’ 1971 film is undoubtedly one of the great lost British masterpieces of the 1970s. Platts-Mills was a filmmaker whose previous cult film Bronco Bullfrog had taken a knife to the frothy London set cinema of the…

Enemies of the People

Horrifying but redemptive documentary of the Khymer Rouge’s 1970s genocide in Cambodia

12 Jan 2011

(15) 93min Thet Sambath and Rob Lemkin’s horrifying but remarkably redemptive documentary revisits the architects of the Khymer Rouge’s 1970s genocide of the Cambodian people and somehow gets them to open up about the bloodbath and madness of those…

Wetherby

Intriguing and engrossing 1984 mystery drama with to-die-for cast

12 Jan 2011

(15) 99min (Park Circus) National treasure David Hare remains best known for his award-feted plays (Plenty, The Blue Room) and his screenwriting (The Hours, The Reader), but he’s also an assured director, as is evidenced by this intriguing and…

F

British ‘hoody horror’ thriller in which a group of teachers defend themselves from schoolkids

12 Jan 2011

(18) 78min F is the latest in a line of peculiarly British ‘hoody horror’ films that also include Eden Lake and Heartless. English writer/director Johannes Roberts’ effort is the best yet thanks to his smart script, crisp direction and a fine…

Freakonomics

‘Blockbuster documentary’ adapting bestselling book on human nature not quite substantial enough

12 Jan 2011

(12) 90min (Optimum) This ‘blockbuster documentary’, which pools the talents of six well-established doc directors to adapt the bestselling book by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner that examined various aspects of human nature, doesn’t quite add…

Flesh Of The Orchid (La Chair De L’Orchidee)

12 Jan 2011

(18) 120min (Bluebell) Charlotte Rampling rarely takes an easy role and this 1975 adaptation of a James Hadley Chase novel is no exception. She is Claire, a runaway heiress and it’s the asylum she is running away from. Taking up with big and bulky…

Season of the Witch

Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman in broad but mildly entertaining supernatural medieval action adventure

12 Jan 2011

(15) 94min Broad but mildly entertaining supernatural medieval action adventure in which Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman star as knights who must transport a woman/witch to a remote monastery. Dominic Sena (Gone in 60 Seconds, Swordfish) directs with…

Waiting for Superman

Compelling documentary about the crisis of public education in the United States

12 Jan 2011

(PG) 111min Compelling and persuasive documentary about the crisis of public education in the United States told through interlocking stories. An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim brings a rare clarity to proceedings. GFT, Glasgow…

Mammoth

Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodyson's drama about the rich, the poor, globalisation and power

12 Jan 2011

(15) 125min Swedish filmmaker Lukas Moodyson (Together, Lilya 4-Ever) returns to some sort of coherent form with this big canvas drama about the rich, the poor, globalisation and power. Gael García Bernal and Michelle Williams star. GFT…

Collapse

Focused documentary about the reporter who predicted the financial crisis

12 Jan 2011

(15) 88min Focused and interesting documentary about the reporter who predicted the financial crisis. Documentarian Chris Smith (American Movie, The Yes Men) levels his usual mischievous gaze. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Sun 16 & Mon 17 Jan.

Abel

3 Jan 2011

(15) 82min Mexican actor Diego Luna’s first fictional feature film (he previously directed a documentary on the legendary Latino boxer Chavez) is a curious mix of poignant and bizarre. Nine-year-old Abel (Christopher Ruíz-Esparza) returns home after…

The King's Speech

23 Dec 2010

(12A) 118min The speech in question was a crucial one: a broadcast to the nation by King George VI on the eve of World War Two. In director Tom Hooper’s hands, the story of the difficulties faced by George (Colin Firth) in overcoming a speech…

Leap Year (Ano Bisiesto)

Serious exploration of troubling subject matter

23 Dec 2010

(18) 92min Set almost exclusively within the four walls of a gloomy Mexico City apartment, this minimalist chamber drama is the debut feature of Australian-born writer-director Michael Rowe. Its protagonist is the depressed Laura (Monica del Carmen…

Blue Valentine

Derek Cianfrance’s extraordinary feature debut is an exceptional and brutal piece of filmmaking

23 Dec 2010

(15) 111min Ten years in the making, Derek Cianfrance’s extraordinary feature film debut, which can be best described as a marital cautionary tale, draws from the very best of the American independent inheritance (the uncompromising work of John…

Easier with Practice

Impressive lead performance from Brian Geraghty in film exploring loneliness and alienation

23 Dec 2010

(15) 100min ‘A one-sided love story’ is how writer-director Kyle Patrick Alvarez has described his downbeat US indie, which won the Best New International Feature Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival back in 2009. Adapted from an…

Burlesque

Ill-advised directorial debut is dross, despite effort from Christina Aguilera and Cher

23 Dec 2010

(12A) 119min Burlesque is the type of film that made musicals go out of fashion. It plays up the kitsch in order to cover its many deficiencies. At best the film has curiosity value as it features the acting debut of Christina Aguilera, who also…

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Impressive exploration of mental health doesn’t compromise its indie values

23 Dec 2010

(12A) 101min Having impressed with Half Nelson and Sugar, indie stalwarts Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden complete a commendable hat trick with It’s Kind Of A Funny Story. Based on the novel by Ned Vizzini, the film follows suicidal 16-year-old Craig…

The Next Three Days

Unremarkable thriller represents a low for writer/director Paul Haggis

23 Dec 2010

(12A) 132min This unremarkable thriller represents a low for writer/director Paul Haggis, who not so long ago was being showered with Oscars for his work (Million Dollar Baby, Crash). It’s a remake of Fred Cavayé’s Anything For Her from 2008, and…

Daft Punk - TRON: Legacy OST

Sense of melancholy and creeping doom pervades perfect retro-futurism pairing

15 Dec 2010

(EMI) There’s as much hype and hyperbole around Daft Punk’s TRON: Legacy score as there is around the film itself. Putting aside the massive media assault that is now building around the Disney sequel, the hiring of the Parisian electronic dons for…

Gulliver's Travels

Jack Black vehicle unfunny and lacking in cohesion

14 Dec 2010

In the ten years since his breakout performance as John Cusack’s slacker workmate in High Fidelity, Jack Black has become a big name movie star, but his CV is surprisingly short of hits. Only Richard Linklater’s family comedy School of Rock has managed…

Loose Cannons (Mine Vaganti)

Enjoyable gay rom-com-cum-family soap by Turkish/Italian filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek

14 Dec 2010

(12A) 112min This gay rom-com-cum-family soap by Turkish/Italian filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek is as enjoyable as his winning 1996 debut, Hamam (The Turkish Bath). And over the 14 years since that international success introduced a bright new talent to…

Love & Other Drugs

14 Dec 2010

(15) 112min Edward Zwick’s Love & Other Drugs may stylistically represent a throwback to the sort of intimate character driven drama of his first film About Last Night but it also possesses the epic scope of a director more commonly associated with…

The Avengers: The Complete Series 6

The flamboyant spy series that echoed the pop-cultural moods of the 1960s

14 Dec 2010

(12) 480min (Optimum) Throughout the 1960s The Avengers bestrode the televisual world like a colossus. Twisted, kinky and confident, the flamboyant spy series echoed precisely the pop-cultural moods of that tumultuous decade. The latest volume in…

Down Terrace

Alternately nasty and hilarious UK kitchen sink gangster film

14 Dec 2010

(15) 89min (Metrodome) Not another facking Brit gangster flick?! Well, yes, but this alternately nasty and hilarious little gem is a world away from the mockney posturing of Guy Ritchie and co. Set in the suburban backstreets of Southern England’s…

Kicks

Lindy Heymann’s dark drama dramatises crisis of Britain’s celebrity culture

14 Dec 2010

(15) 82min (Drakes Avenue) The third and final film to be made under Liverpool and Northwest’s excellent micro-budget scheme, Digital Departures, director Lindy Heymann’s dark drama is very different from its predecessors, Terence Davies…

127 Hours

10 Dec 2010

(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…

Tron Legacy

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

10 Dec 2010

(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…

On Tour (Tournee)

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

10 Dec 2010

‘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

10 Dec 2010

(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

10 Dec 2010

(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

10 Dec 2010

(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…

Monsters

Astonishing science fiction thriller betters both Cloverfield and District 9

30 Nov 2010

(12A) 94min Young British filmmaker Gareth Edwards’ astonishing science fiction thriller combines the immersive excitement of Cloverfield with the astute political allegory of Distrtict 9, and, far from being a rip-off, is actually a much better film…

A Bay of Blood

Mario Bava’s 1971 film one of the most influential and imitated horror films ever made

30 Nov 2010

(18) 80min (Arrow Video) Out of all Arrow’s lush new DVD and Blu-ray issues of films from the American and Italian masters of horror, this is the one I have been looking forward to most. I was first introduced to Mario Bava’s 1971 film by friend…

Of Gods And Men (Des Hommes Et Des Dieux)

30 Nov 2010

(15) 121min ‘It goes beyond religion: the film is about men,’ is how French writer-director Xavier Beauvois has described his serenely controlled drama Of Gods and Men. Inspired by real-life events from the mid-1990s, it chronicles the experiences of…

An Ordinary Execution (Un Execution Ordinaire)

30 Nov 2010

(12A) 105min Adapted from his own novel by French writer/director Marc Dugain, An Ordinary Execution unfolds in Moscow in the winter of 1952, where it imagines a series of encounters between an ailing Joseph Stalin (André Dussollier) and a young…

Somewhere

Sofia Coppola's quiet and meditative film returns to familiar thematic territory

30 Nov 2010

(15) 97min Sofia Coppola returns to familiar thematic territory in her latest take on the dull realities that lie beneath the hedonistic lifestyle of the pampered and the privileged. Johnny Marco (Stephen Dorff), a permanent resident of LA’s…

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

Finnish off-the-wall horror fantasy explores wild side of St Nicholas folklore

30 Nov 2010

(15) 82min From Finland comes this bizarre Christmas tale, an off-the-wall horror fantasy pitched halfway between The Polar Express and Let the Right One In. Evil Father Christmases are a rarely mined cinematic seam, but not since Edmund Purdom…

Miral

Meandering narrative and clunky dialogue spoil visually disappointing potted history

30 Nov 2010

(12A) 112min Artist Julian Schnabel has made a habit of turning real life subjects into difficult, provocative films. At his best, Schnabel is able to entwine the neo-expressionist aesthetic of his gallery work with cinematic narratives to stunning…

Megamind

DreamWorks' latest sports parent-pleasing rock tunes but let down by 2D characters

30 Nov 2010

(PG) 95min Following on from this year’s other super-villain cartoon Despicable Me, DreamWorks’ Megamind does at least boasts an original premise and it is this: what would happen if Lex Luthor actually succeeded in killing off Superman? Or rather…

Secretariat

30 Nov 2010

(U) 117min The tried and tested Disney formula for heart-warming stories about inspirational animals finds an ideal subject in the true story of Secretariat, a horse who improbably won the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing back in 1973. Given…

Outcast

Dreadful script and cack-handed direction renders film unintelligible despite strong cast

30 Nov 2010

This Scottish/Irish co-production shot in Edinburgh and Galway boasts an intriguing premise and a great cast, but its grim supernatural subject matter comes across as, at best, tedious, at worst, laughable. That’s a real shame given there’s plenty of…

Shogun Assassin

30 Nov 2010

(18) 85min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Heavily cut by the British Board of Film Censorship for its original cinema release and subsequently banned as a video nasty, this bloodthirsty 1980 martial arts flick has since become a chanabara (samurai…

Sweet Karma

30 Nov 2010

(18) 85min (Anchor Bay) There are echoes of female vigilante benchmarks Ms 45 (aka Angel of Vengeance) and the Kill Bills in this femme fatale revenge thriller in as much as it features a gorgeous girl (model-turned-actress Shera Bechard) brutally…

I am a Camera

Largely forgotten adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin omits social decay

30 Nov 2010

(12) 100min (Park Circus) Made in 1955 this, the first major film adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, is largely forgotten, eclipsed by the multi award-winning stage and film musical Cabaret, also adapted from Isherwood’s tales…

Chaplin at Keystone

30 Nov 2010

(U) 561min (BFI) Before he became an international star and acclaimed filmmaker, Charlie Chaplin learned to make movies at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Film Company. Spotted in Fred Karno’s touring vaudeville troupe, Chaplin was snapped up by the silent…

Down Home Music

30 Nov 2010

(E) (Arhoolie) In 1963 German filmmaker Dietrich Wawzyn set out to shoot a series of films for German television that took him through the southern states in search of American jazz and roots music. He asked Arhoolie Records founder Chris…

London Boulevard

Sparky, enjoyable comedy directed by The Departed and Kingdom of Heaven screenwriter

22 Nov 2010

(15) 90min A reclusive London-based actress (Keira Knightley) gives an ex con (Colin Farrell) a job as her bodyguard and ends up falling for him. Sparky, enjoyable comedy (pictured) directed by The Departed and Kingdom of Heaven screenwriter William…

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

22 Nov 2010

(U) 89min (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) Frank Tashlin’s wacky 1957 advertising world romp has got to be a contender for the fastest comedy ever made. Tashlin, the Hollywood animator-turned-filmmaker, even gets in a gag before the film’s opening…

Limmy's Show

The series which brought credibility to BBC Scotland comedy roster

22 Nov 2010

(15) 180min (2entertain) A stoned loner notices peculiar inconsistencies on TV adverts at 4am. A bushy-eyebrowed executive plots his excuses before the local constabulary show up at his office. A paranoid ex-junkie takes offence at the most…

Room In Rome (Habitacion En Roma)

Julio Medem continues exploration of sexuality, but delivers emptiest film yet

22 Nov 2010

(18) 103min (Optimum) Two women, one gay, Alba (Elena Anaya), the other the heterosexual Natasha (Natasha Yarovenko) have an overnight fling in a Rome hotel room, talk about their pasts and prepare for their future. Director Julio Medem continues…