Kaleem Aftab

The Lovely Bones

17 Feb 2010

(12A) 135min The problems with Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s popular novel run much deeper than the usual stumbling block of having a macabre subject matter. The casting of Mark Wahlberg as the grieving dad is seriously misjudged…

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.

RocknRolla

4 Sep 2008

Is there a filmmaker in Britain who’s been more derided than Mr Madonna? A bit unfair all this criticism is too: it’s not Guy Ritchie’s fault that the competent, very watchable gangster flicks Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch were some of…

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 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.

Michael Haneke interview

4 Nov 2009

‘I’m a control freak,’ says Michael Haneke, the current holder of the Palme d’Or. The Cannes prize-winning director is talking in a London hotel room, wearing a black shirt and trousers, German words spouting through his Santa Claus-esque white hair and…

27 Dresses

27 Mar 2008

COMEDY/ROMANCE (12A) 110min During an interview to promote Knocked Up, actress Katherine Heigl said of the Judd Apatow comedy that brought her worldwide fame (after her years lighting up Grey’s Anatomy): ‘It paints women as shrews, as humourless and…

Hot Tub Time Machine

28 Apr 2010

As with Snakes on a Plane, the best thing about this charmless movie is its title. Director Steve Pink did much to kickstart the cinema bout of 80s nostalgia when he wrote Grosse Point Blank, starring that consummate 80s icon John Cusack. Nonetheless…

Profile: Pablo Larrain

2 Apr 2009

Name Pablo Larrain Born 19 August 1976, Santiago, Chile Background Pablo Larrain studied film at the UNIACC university in Chile. After working as an assistant director on several films, he started to direct commercials. His debut film Fuga…

Role Models

11 Dec 2008

How adults can benefit from relationships with children has been explored cinematically since before Charlie Chaplin met The Kid. One good recent example of this type of story was The School of Rock where Jack Black’s inner-child was flattered by a…

Man on Wire - James Marsh interview

Edinburgh International Film Festival

19 Jun 2008

Philippe Petit was the man who dared to walk a tightrope between the Twin Towers. Director James Marsh tells Kaleem Aftab how he made a film of this incredible feat

Azur and Amar: The Princes' Quest

31 Jan 2008

In Azur & Asmar: The Princes’ Quest writer and director Michel Ocelot (Kirikou and the Sorceress, Princes and Princesses) opts to use digital technology over the hand drawn animation technique that livened up his ‘Kirikou’ trilogy. The technology might…

Interview - Mads Mikkelsen

Mad As A Dane

13 Mar 2007

It’s been a little over a decade since Mads Mikkelsen terrorised his way into public consciousness playing the violent enforcer Tonny in Pusher. It was his debut film and the start of a career that now has him commonly touted as the face of Danish…

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…

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…

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…

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 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…

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.

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…

Tetro - Vincent Gallo interview

24 Jun 2010

‘I’m a person with more flaws than most people because I am maybe a little more ridiculous’ says Vincent Gallo with typical understatement. The man of many clothes – actor, director, painter, singer, songwriter and internet entrepreneur has always been…

Sons of Cuba

29 Mar 2010

(12A) 88min ‘What is one million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans,” said Cuban Heavyweight Olympic boxing champion Teofilo Stevenson when offered the chance to turn professional and fight Muhammad Ali. Cuba has been one of the…

Hancock

3 Jul 2008

SUPERHERO/COMEDY (12A) 91min The writers and director of Hancock take a hyper-powered leaf out of the Mystery Men and Return of Captain Invincible school of heroism with Hancock. Will Smith plays a nihilistic superhero who has fallen out of favour…

Cannes Diary

22 May 2008

The start of the Cannes 2008 film festival was dominated by two films that delve into the recent past to raise pertinent and timely questions about how the State deals with those they consider terrorists. Billed as cinema’s first animated documentary…

Persepolis

24 Apr 2008

ANIMATION (12A) 96min Marjane Satrapi’s autobiographical coming-of-age graphic novel Persepolis has been expertly adapted to screen by the author and graphic artist Vincent Paronnaud. The dubbed English language version features the voices of…