Film and Kaleem Aftab

GFF 2012 - Director Lynn Shelton on Your Sister’s Sister

Mumblecore icon on her film which opens 2012 Glasgow Film Festival

10 Feb 2012

Seattle-based filmmaker Lynn Shelton has specialised in revelling in the foibles of her characters across each of her four movies, so it’s no surprise to hear her say, 'People are flawed, that’s what I love about them... I want people to like characters…

Red Dog

Hilarious and tearjerking scenes of human folly played as classic comedy

1 Feb 2012

(PG) 92min 2012 is turning into the year of the dog for cinema fans. After Uggie stole the show in The Artist comes this wonderful tale of canine tomfoolery. Told in a zippy boy’s own adventure style, this ‘inspired by a true story’ tale is set in…

Profile: Jason Reitman, director of Young Adult

CV includes Thank You For Smoking, Juno and Up In the Air

1 Feb 2012

Name Jason Reitman Born 19 October, 1977. Background Born in Montreal, Quebec, his old man is Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. Since graduating from the University of South California, where he was an English major, he’s taken on various…

Black Gold

Cliched, desert-set action adventure starring Mark Strong, Antonio Banderas and Tahar Rahim

27 Jan 2012

(12A) 130min The financial muscle of the Middle East has had a major impact on many spheres in recent years. Now that money is being directed towards movies. Bankrolled by the Doha Film Institute this action-adventure is set at the turn of the 20th…

Mother and Child

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

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 Lady

Aung San Suu Kyi biopic does nothing to alleviate Luc Besson's downward course

9 Dec 2011

(TBC) tbcmin Luc Besson is best known for his action adventures such as The Fifth Element, The Big Blue and Leon. The French director’s career has been in decline in recent years and this jump into serious drama has done nothing to alleviate this…

50/50

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

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…

Moneyball

Star-studded baseball film mired in clichés and with scenes that fall flat

8 Nov 2011

(12A) 133min Moneyball is a baseball movie that aims for universal appeal by casting Brad Pitt as a maverick general manager, having climactic scenes revolving around a strained father/daughter relationship, and in its strongest moments, being about…

Wuthering Heights

Andrea Arnold's retelling of Brontë’s novel lacks an emphasis on story

20 Oct 2011

(15) 129min Andrea Arnold hit home runs with her first two films, Red Road and Fish Tank. Her new film, an attempt at adapting Emily Brontë’s seminal novel, gets bogged down in the Yorkshire Moors. The director seems more concerned with paying…

The Ides of March

Clooney's effective if by-the-numbers dissection of America’s political system

17 Oct 2011

(15) 101min George Clooney – more salt than pepper, more actor than director. Like Good Night, and Good Luck, his fourth feature directorial effort dissects America’s political system and surmises that it is fuelled of corruption and greed. The…

Interview: Carey Mulligan on Drive

Recent work includes roles in Drive, Shame and The Great Gatsby

22 Sep 2011

For a film that she thought no one would see, An Education did a remarkable job of changing Carey Mulligan’s life. The 26-year-old star was immediately snapped up to star in A-list movies such as Never Let Me Go and Wall Street 2. Perhaps sensing burn…

The Art of Getting By

22 Aug 2011

(12A) 83min ‘110 billion humans have walked the planet since the dawn of time, and none of them have made it.’ So begins schoolboy George Zinavoy’s narration in this melancholic teen comedy with heavy echoes of Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything. George…

Jane Eyre

Gothic yet modern adaptation helped by excellent performances

19 Aug 2011

(PG) 120min The latest adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s classic book demonstrates that great texts can have many different interpretations. Director Cary Fukunaga (Sin Nombre) dumps the childhood chapters, makes insinuations as to the cruel…

Kill List

Genre-schizophrenic crime spree lacks clarity

19 Aug 2011

(18) 95min Down Terrace director Ben Wheatley second feature is another tale of crime, skullduggery and mystery. Kill List is one of those movies that starts off in one genre (kitchen sink drama) and turns into another (horror). Robert Rodriguez…

The Devil's Double

Rambunctious romp with career changing performance from Dominic Cooper

9 Aug 2011

(18) 106min Subtlety is not in director Lee Tamahori’s repertoire. His excellent 1994 debut, Maori drama Once Were Warriors was full of well caught masculine bravado and tearful repercussions but the director’s career went wayward and reached its…

The Taqwacores

Exploration of identity set within American Muslim punk scene

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 Beaver - Jodie Foster interview

The director on working with Mel Gibson on comedy drama

1 Jul 2011

The Beaver is the third directorial effort from the iconic Jodie Foster. The 48-year-old actress burst onto the international scene as a child star in 1976 with films such as Taxi Driver, Bugsy Malone and Freaky Friday. Lauded as a teenager for her…

Profile: Philip Seymour Hoffman, director and star of Jack Goes Boating

The much-respected actor screens his directorial debut at the EIFF

27 May 2011

Born Fairport, New York, 23 July 1967. Background Known as the ‘character actor’s character actor’, Hoffman has been a jobbing actor since the early 1990s. After playing bit parts in television shows, shorts and features, Hoffman got his breakthrough…

The Big Picture

Romain Duris turns out an excellent performance in French drama

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…

Passenger Side is a witty road movie about sibling rivalries

Matt Bissonnette's comedy stars Joel Bissonnette and Adam Scott

28 Mar 2011

(12A) 85min Before the road movie was carjacked by the American gross-out comedy, Easy Rider and its offspring helped establish a genre of American outsider cinema, with its portraits of the big country beyond the confines of the Hollywood system.

Profile: Matt Bissonnette, director of Passenger Side

Canadian director's third feature earning critical praise

24 Mar 2011

Name Matt Bissonnette Born Montreal, Quebec, November 2 1965. Background Bissonnette is an autodidact at the school of Alfred Hitchcock, Gus Van Sant and Richard Linklater. He studied English and film at Concordia University and read law at…

Drive Angry 3D - review

Nicolas Cage, Amber Heard and William Fichtner star in off-the-wall hellbound actioner

9 Mar 2011

(18) 104min More than any other actor, Nicolas Cage has the ability to move from the sublime to the ridiculous. For every Moonstruck, Leaving Las Vegas and Kick-Ass, there is a Ghost Rider, Bangkok Dangerous or World Trade Centre. Whereas his…

Unknown

Mistaken identity thriller starring Liam Neeson, January Jones and Diane Kruger

2 Mar 2011

(12A) 113min Liam Neeson has had a career revival as the star of mid-budget action thrillers in which he growls his way through various preposterous situations, while remaining muscularly watchable. Though comparable to his reactionary turn in…

James Franco stars in Ginsberg biopic Howl - interview

We speak to the multi-disciplined actor about what he wants from life

17 Feb 2011

Author, filmmaker, Oscars host and star of 127 Hours, Howl and Spiderman James Franco discusses his work.

Sanctum is an enjoyable if formulaic James Cameron-affiliated film

Inventive despite slunky dialogue and sentimental father-son aspects

2 Feb 2011

(15) 108min Unsurprisingly, executive producer James Cameron gets above-the-title billing for this Australia-set action/adventure which brings together the Avatar director’s obsession with 3D technology and his fascination with underwater adventures…