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Film and Reviews

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The Woman In Black

The Woman In Black

Daniel Radcliffe's first post-Potter film lacks the requisite scares for a classic ghost story

(2 stars)23 Jan 2012

(12A) 95mins Susan Hill’s Victorian ghost story has been terrifying theatre audiences for the best part of twenty-five years, second only to The Mousetrap as the longest running show in the history of London’s West End. It has already been…

Shame

Shame

Steve McQueen's second directorial effort is an unflinching portrayal of sex addiction

(5 stars)5 Jan 2012

(18) 101min Sexual imagery oozes from every blockbuster and frat boy comedy, but serious discussion rather than cheap titillation is a rarity. Cinema actually finds it hard to confront sex, partly because the American censorship board takes such a…

Intruders

Intruders

Derivative, moderately engaging paranormal horror starring Clive Owen

(3 stars)5 Jan 2012

(15) 110min Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo has never quite delivered on the promise of his clever debut feature Intacto. Retro chiller Intruders is cleverly constructed and suspenseful but fades when pitted against superior genre fare like…

J Edgar

J Edgar

Clint Eastwood's biopic of the legendary FBI chief is well-acted but unfocused

(2 stars)5 Jan 2012

(15) 137min Clint Eastwood’s biopic on former FBI head J Edgar Hoover offers an askew perspective on American history that eventually buckles under the weight of its own misguided ambition. Written by Dustin Lance Black (who won an Oscar for his…

Mother and Child

Mother and Child

A strong but plodding triptych starring Annette Bening, Naomi Watts and Kerry Washington

(3 stars)5 Jan 2012

(15) 126min Mexican cinema’s love affair with the triptych continues with Mother and Child. Executive produced by Babel director Alexandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, the latest film from Nine Lives helmsman Rodrigo Garcia stars Annette Bening as a nursing…

The Deep Blue Sea

The Deep Blue Sea

Unashamedly old-fashioned film luscious proof of genius of Davies and Rattigan

(4 stars)9 Nov 2011

(12A) 98mins The combination of Terence Davies and Terence Rattigan is a match made in heaven. Rattigan’s centenary year has brought renewed appreciation of his gifts as an astute chronicler of loneliness and longing, whilst Davies is a past master…

The Thing

The Thing

'Prequel' to John Carpenter's 1981 classic is a shapeless mess of a rip-off

(2 stars)9 Nov 2011

(15) 103min Despite confusingly sharing the same title, debutante director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr’s film is a prequel rather than a remake of John Carpenter’s 1981 horror classic, which was itself a remake of Howard Hawks’s 1951 version of John…

50/50

50/50

Comedy about cancer one of the funniest and most human films of the year

(4 stars)9 Nov 2011

(15) 100min Not since Roberto Benigni won Oscars for Life is Beautiful – a holocaust movie played for laughs – has there been a comedy with such a seemingly poor premise that scores so high on the laughter scale. 50/50 is a comedy about cancer. Get…

Oslo, August 31st

Oslo, August 31st

Film of visual beauty full of melancholy, intimacy and humanity

(4 stars)8 Nov 2011

(15) 95min Films set over a single 24-hour period are seldom as naturalistic and affecting as this poignant drama from Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier. Less intensely stylish than his 2006 debut Reprise, this is a very good, slow-paced film, full…

Miss Bala

Miss Bala

Impressive crime drama from Mexican director Gerardo Naranjo

(4 stars)12 Oct 2011

(15) 113min Maria Full of Grace meets Heat in this absorbing thriller from Mexican writer/director Gerardo Naranjo (I’m Gonna Explode), whose title translates as ‘Miss Bullet’. Laura (newcomer Stephanie Sigman) is a young working-class woman living…

Monte Carlo

Monte Carlo

Flat romcom vehicle for Justin Bieber's paramour Selena Gomez

(2 stars)12 Oct 2011

(PG) 108min The star of tween drama Wizards of Waverly Place, but better known as the current squeeze of Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez is being relentlessly packaged for fame. Her previous venture, last year’s Ramona and Beezus sank like a stone, and…

Straw Dogs

Straw Dogs

Risible remake of Peckinpah's 1970s revenge thriller

(1 star)12 Oct 2011

(18) 109min An early star vehicle for Dustin Hoffman, Sam Peckinpah’s film of Gordon Williams’ novel The Siege of Trencher’s Farm was one of the high (or low) watermarks of early 1970s brutalism – a moody, nihilistic polemic that equated violence…

Melancholia

Melancholia

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

(4 stars)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…

Perfect Sense

Perfect Sense

Dark yet sentimental romance set in an apocalyptic world

(4 stars)14 Sep 2011

(15) 92min David Mackenzie’s seventh feature is, superficially, his most disturbing yet. That’s saying something given the Scottish filmmaker introduced himself and his penchant for dark psychosexual drama with his grim and gritty adaptation of…

Steam of Life

Steam of Life

Beautiful but bleak documentary about Finnish sauna culture

(2 stars)9 Sep 2011

There are five million people in Finland, and an estimated two million saunas – roughly one per household. They form an integral part of Finnish culture: women are encouraged to give birth in them, while men use the steamy rooms both as social venues…

A Lonely Place To Die

A Lonely Place To Die

Tense and riveting Brit-thriller set in Scottish Highlands

(3 stars)24 Aug 2011

How far would you go to save a stranger? Would you risk your life? And your friends’ lives? It’s a question Alison (Melissa George) and her fellow climbers must answer after they stumble across a young girl (Holly Boyd) buried in a wooden box while…

The Skin I Live In (La Piel Que Habito)

The Skin I Live In (La Piel Que Habito)

Almodovar's adaptation is measured, playful and spellbinding

(4 stars)19 Aug 2011

(15) 120min The Skin I Live In has all the elements of a campy Vincent Price B-movie. There is a meddlesome scientist driven mad by grief, a grisly revenge plot and a hapless victim, not to mention multiple murder, kidnap and rape. In the hands of…

Project Nim

Project Nim

Excellent ape project documentary a complex meditation on human nature

(4 stars)9 Aug 2011

(12A) 99min It’s not surprising that director James Marsh has chosen to follow his Oscar-winning 2008 documentary Man On Wire by taking an approach often favoured by bands following up a hit album: don’t mess with the formula, just try and do the…

The Taqwacores

The Taqwacores

Exploration of identity set within American Muslim punk scene

(3 stars)9 Aug 2011

(15) 83min Eyad Zahra’s adaptation of Michael Muhammed Knight’s novel set in the American Muslim punk scene is in the tradition of early 80s music scene movies such as Penelope Spheeris’ Surburbia and Edo Bertoglio’s Downtown 81. First generation…

The Tree

The Tree

Psychological drama starring Charlotte Gainsbourg is a fine study of loss

(4 stars)29 Jul 2011

(12A) 100min It seems trees are the new black: Terrence Malick wins the Palme d’Or with The Tree of Life, Win Win shows the central character’s life on track as he finally takes down the tree outside his garden, and La Quattro Volte gives a tree a…

Poetry

Poetry

A deeply moving portrayal of an elderly woman's struggles in rural South Korea

(4 stars)21 Jul 2011

(12A) 139min The quest to write a single poem becomes a heroic act in Poetry, a poignant, intricately plotted melodrama from Secret Sunshine director Lee Chang-dong. Poetry won the Best Screenplay at Cannes but it is the central performance from…

A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin)

A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader Az Simin)

Award-winning Iranian film is skilfully crafted, intelligent and considered

(4 stars)21 Jun 2011

(PG) 122min A Separation begins with the event of its title: Nader (Peyman Moaadi) and Simin (Leila Hatami) sit in front of a local judge debating their decision to get a divorce. Simin wants to move abroad, where she feels their daughter, Termeh…

The Last Circus

The Last Circus

Spanish black comedy/horror takes in clowns, circus life, love and madness

(4 stars)20 Jun 2011

The latest film from writer/director Alex de la Iglesia is almost unclassifiable, a love story, a black comedy and horror all apply and as fans of his Accion Mutante (1992) will know it’s this glorious mess of ideas and themes that makes for such a…

Romain Duris turns out an excellent performance in French drama The Big Picture

The Big Picture

Romain Duris turns out an excellent performance in French drama

(4 stars)23 May 2011

(tbc) 114min This adaptation of Douglas Kennedy’s novel relocates the setting from New York and Montana to Paris and the Adriatic Coast. Its plot involves murder, identity theft and abandonment but this is not so much a thriller as an investigation…

French thriller Point Blank (A Bout Portant) is engaging and well-paced

Point Blank (A Bout Portant)

Director Fred Cavayé's French thriller is engaging and well-paced

(4 stars)23 May 2011

(15) 84 min Fashion photographer turned filmmaker Fred Cavayé (Anything For Her) would have thrived in the old Hollywood studio system. His films operate with the speed and single-mindedness of a runaway locomotive. Give him a high concept premise…

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