Miles Fielder

The Air I Breathe

8 May 2008

THRILLER/ROMANCE (15) 95min Taking its cue from an old Chinese proverb that says life is composed of four emotions – happiness, pleasure, sorrow and love – this ensemble drama featuring an A-list cast and four intertwined plotlines is reminiscent of…

Pink String and Sealing Wax

8 May 2008

DRAMA (PG) 86min (Optimum) This is the debut feature from Robert Hamer, the talented but troubled (by the bottle) filmmaker who went on to make the superb Kind Hearts and Coronets and terrific School for Scoundrels. Having contributed a segment of the…

Garth Ennis & Darick Robertson - The Boys II

8 May 2008

SUPERHERO SATIRE (Titan) Some 20 years ago Alan Moore asked the question: ‘Who watches The Watchmen?’ Garth Ennis answers the question with this anarchic superhero satire about a gang of super-powered, CIA-backed thugs who police – with extreme…

Jordan Crane - The Clouds Above

8 May 2008

FANTASY (Fantagraphics) American cartoonist Jordan Crane’s all-ages graphic novella first published in 2005 makes its paperback debut complete with five previously unseen pages. It’s actually a follow-up to the self-published and now out-of-print The…

Stop-Loss - An interview with Kimberly Peirce

24 Apr 2008

Two films in ten years is a meagre output by any filmmaking standard. But then American writer-director Kimberly Peirce’s striking 1999 debut, Boy’s Don’t Cry, won an Oscar, and her belated follow-up, Stop-Loss, might be the first film about Iraq to…

Made of Honour

24 Apr 2008

ROMANTIC COMEDY (12A) 101min Tom (former teen heartthrob Patrick Dempsey) is a wealthy New York City playboy. Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) is Tom’s best friend and the single constant female companion in the life of a serial shagger. But when Hannah is…

Brendan Gleeson & Martin McDonagh - In Bruges

10 Apr 2008

Between filming the twin swords and sandals epics Troy and Kingdom of Heaven in Malta and Morocco in 2004, much-in-demand Dublin-born actor Brendan Gleeson nipped home to Ireland to make a short film called Six Shooter. A comparatively modest project in…

In Bruges

10 Apr 2008

CRIME/COMEDY (18) 107min A pair of mismatched professional hitmen are sent to the picturesque titular Belgian city to lie low after a job in London goes wrong. There, young philistine Ray (Colin Farrell) and older, cultured Ken (Brendan Gleeson) argue…

Flashbacks of a Fool

10 Apr 2008

DRAMA (15) 113min Between Bond outings Daniel Craig has made good use of his greatly increased clout to get this interesting, if not outstanding drama about the repercussions of childhood folly, green-lit. Set in present-day California and an English…

Fool's Gold

10 Apr 2008

ADVENTURE/ROMANCE (12A) 112min All that glitters is not gold is indeed the case with this witless, plodding rom-com romp that reunites How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days pretty pair Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson as estranged husband and…

Jaime Hernandez - The Education of Hopey Glass

10 Apr 2008

SOCIAL DRAMA (Fantagraphics) This 24th collection of the three decades – and counting – run of Los Bros Hernandez’s seminal comic book series Love & Rockets, archives in handsome hardback 15 short stories focusing on the supporting and peripheral…

Garth Jennings - Son of Rambow

27 Mar 2008

‘Would you like a slice of sponge cake with your cup of tea?’ Garth Jennings says amiably. ‘I made it this morning. Not sure if it’s any good, mind.’ A warm welcome aboard his floating studio, housed on a barge on a canal in north London, this may…

Funny Games US

27 Mar 2008

HORROR/THRILLER (18) 111min The conventional thinking about shot-for-shot remakes is why bother? We only need cast our minds back to the furore surrounding what many thought to be the sacrilegious and pointless remake of Psycho by Gus Van Sant.

Profile - Michael Pitt

27 Mar 2008

Name Michael Pitt Born 10 April 1981, West Orange, New Jersey Background Having moved to New York City aged 16, studied drama, appeared on stage, and been talent-spotted for a part in the TV drama Dawson’s Creek, boyishly pretty Pitt wasted no…

Flight of the Red Balloon

13 Mar 2008

DRAMA (PG) 113min Taiwanese New Wave cinema pioneer Hou Hsiao-hsien makes his French language debut with this eloquent drama loosely inspired by Albert Lamorisse’s much-loved 1956 short, The Red Balloon. Taking as its starting point that film’s…

Sleuth

13 Mar 2008

MURDER/MYSTERY (15) 132min (Paramount DVD retail) If you were a ‘bluddy idiot’, as Maurice Micklewhite might say, you could purchase both versions of Sleuth, which are being released on the same day, and then compare the two: this 1972 original…

Ace in the Hole

13 Mar 2008

FILM NOIR (U) 111min (PDX DVD retail) At long last, the late, great Billy Wilder’s very finest – and all too rarely seen – film is available on DVD (if only on region one). Released in 1951, the year after Wilder’s acerbic indictment of the movie…

Semi-Pro

28 Feb 2008

COMEDY (15) 91min Will Ferrell raises his game with this typically energetic and supremely daft ‘frat pack’ comedy that also boasts a surprising winning streak in its semi-serious celebration of the now defunct American Basketball Association. With…

The Other Boleyn Girl

28 Feb 2008

ADAPTATION/ROMANCE (12A) 114min This clumsily abridged adaptation of Philippa Gregory’s bestselling historical novel fills in the ‘hidden history’ of Mary Boleyn, sister of Anne, the second of Henry VIII’s six wives. According to this take on the 16th…

Diary of the Dead

28 Feb 2008

HORROR (18) 94min Having expanded his ‘living dead’ trilogy to a tetra-logy with the relatively high budget, studio-produced Land of the Dead, modern horror movie master George A Romero goes back-to-basics – and his own beginnings – with his fifth…

The London Nobody Knows/The Bicyclettes De Belsize

28 Feb 2008

DOCUMENTARY (PG) 73min (Optimum DVD retail) The London Nobody Knows is a genuine curio. James Mason takes his brolly and bowler for a stroll around the seedier parts of the big smoke in the late 1960s, bemoaning ruined buildings such as Camden’s…

Chris Ware - The ACME Novelty Library Number 18

28 Feb 2008

INDEPENDENT (Chris Ware) It doesn’t get much more independent than self-publishing, and that’s what Chris Ware is now doing with his occasional title that was originally published by Fantagraphics and which initially introduced the Guardian First Book…

Brian Andersen - So Super Duper

28 Feb 2008

INDEPENDENT (CBG Comics) San Francisco-based comics creator Brian Andersen has hit upon a winning conceit for his self-published title So Super Duper, the first three issues of which are available through his website www.sosuperduper.com. Neatly…

All The Boys Love Mandy Lane

14 Feb 2008

HORROR (18) 90min Here’s a welcome example of that all too rare thing in American horror movies: a teen slasher that’s actually very good. The simple answer to that conundrum is that appearances can be deceptive: Mandy Lane isn’t simply a teen slasher…

Black Water

14 Feb 2008

THRILLER/HORROR (15) 90min This low budget Australian creature feature is probably inspired by the true story of a saltwater crocodile attack in the Northern Territory. Written and directed by newcomers David Nerlich and Andrew Traucki, Black Water…

KM31

14 Feb 2008

HORROR (15) 102min (Yume DVD retail/rental) Some critics were quick to liken this assured Spanish language chiller to Japanese horror films such as Ju-on: The Grudge. Young Mexican writer-director Rigoberto Castaneda’s debut does share the creepy…

Juno - interview with Ellen Page

31 Jan 2008

The elfin Canadian Ellen Page has been nominated for a Best Leading Actress Oscar for her titular role in the independent comedy drama, Juno. If she wins that prestigious prize at the Academy Awards on Monday 25 February, four days after her 21st…

Chromophobia

(15) 135min

31 Jan 2008

Writer-director Martha Fiennes’ follow-up to her impressive debut, Onegin, is a disappointment. The cool manner with which Fiennes told the story of the emotionally distant St Petersburg aristocrat in that film is here frozen solid, so that what’s…

The Frightened City

Crime/drama

31 Jan 2008

Chiefly notable for an early screen appearance from Edinburgh’s most famous former milkman, this somewhat pedestrian 1961 British film noir features Sean Connery in one of his last supporting roles, here playing a cat burglar the year before he was cast…

Rick Veitch & Gary Erskine - Army@Love: The Hot Zone Club

17 Jan 2008

WAR/SATIRE (DC/Titan) Given the irreverent nature, speedy production and counterculture placement of the medium, it’s unsurprising that comics should come in under the radar with a satirical first strike at the bogus war in the Middle East. American…

Robert Venditti & Brett Weldele - The Surrogates

17 Jan 2008

SCI-FI (Top Shelf) In the near-future cybernetic surrogates will live our lives for us, reducing humanity to a race of reclusive couch potatoes. That’s the intriguing premise of this cleverly conceived and smartly executed science fiction/crime…

Preview 2008 - Kelly Macdonald

4 Jan 2008

Kelly Macdonald caught the Coen brothers on the hop. Having convinced the casting director of the Coens’ new film, No Country For Old Men, that she could pull of an authentic West Texas accent, the 31-year-old Glaswegian actress was presented to the…

Profile - James Schamus

4 Jan 2008

Name James Schamus Born 7 September 1959, Detroit, Michigan, US. Background Almost uniquely in American filmmaking, Schamus is both an Oscar-nominated writer/producer and a movie executive. In 1991 he co-founded the production outfit Good…

Alexander Ahndoril - The Director

4 Jan 2008

NOVELISED PORTRAIT (Portobello Books) This novel portrait of an artist captures the late, great Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman at a crucial moment in his life, in 1961 when he was making the second film in his celebrated faith trilogy, Winter Light.

The Hottest State

4 Jan 2008

DRAMA (15) 113min (Revolver retail/rental) Actor, writer and now director Ethan Hawke’s respectable feature debut didn’t receive a cinema release in the UK, despite premiering at last August’s Edinburgh International Film Festival. Adapted by…

It's a Wonderful Life

(U) 130min

13 Dec 2007

You know Christmas has arrived when Frank Capra’s perennial festive season favourite receives its annual reissue. The 1947 classic is one of the most inspirational films of all time, as well as being a fine romance, a terrific comedy and genuine…

Princesses (Princesas)

(18) 113min

13 Dec 2007

Madrid-born and bred filmmaker Fernando León Aranoa confirms himself as Spain’s answer to Ken Loach with this affecting but unsentimental, gritty but humorous drama about a pair of prostitutes eking out a living in the Spanish capital. Just as Aranoa’s…

Paranoid Park

(12A) 85min

13 Dec 2007

With this freewheeling adaptation of Blake Nelson’s young adult novel, Gus Van Sant returns to the territory he mined successfully in 2003’s Elephant. Where that film examined teenage behaviour through the extreme event of high school shootings…

Trent's Last Case - DVD review

(U) 90min

13 Dec 2007

Following the 1920 original and Howard Hawks’ 1929 remake, this third version of the archetypal English country house murder mystery, based on EC Bentley’s novel and made in 1952, is a workmanlike whodunnit directed by Irish journeyman Herbert Wilcox.

The Golden Compass - Heart of Darkness

29 Nov 2007

Everyone wanted Nicole Kidman to play Mrs Coulter. From the makers of the blockbuster film adaptation of The Golden Compass through the millions of fans of Philip Pullman’s bestselling fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials to the author of the novels…

Andrew Dominik - Contrary cowboy

29 Nov 2007

It’s taken New Zealand-born, Australia-bred filmmaker Andrew Dominik (pictured) seven years to make the follow-up to his much-praised debut, Chopper. Like that film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is a wildly unconventional…

Profile - Rigoberto Castaneda

29 Nov 2007

Name Rigoberto Castaneda Born 27 February 1973, Mexico City Background Castaneda was working as a runner in a production house in Mexico City when he was given a book about Alfred Hitchcock and was inspired to take a course in filmmaking. Having…

Jason - I Killed Adolf Hitler

29 Nov 2007

IDIOSYNCRATIC SCI-FI I Killed Adolf Hitler (Fantagraphics) Having re-imagined heavyweight modernist writing icons Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound as criminals involved in a heist in The Left Bank Gang, and plundered George Romeo’s zombie…

Jason Schwartzman - The Darjeeling Limited

15 Nov 2007

‘I felt like we were kids making a movie,’ says Jason Schwartzman. ‘Every day we set out to work was an adventure. We never knew what was going to happen.’ The 27-year-old American actor might well be reminiscing about his big screen debut in 1998 in…

In the Shadow of the Moon

15 Nov 2007

This exhilarating British-made documentary about the American lunar programme of the 1960s and 70s serves to remind us just how stirring the best efforts of mankind can be. Assembled under the guidance of director David Sington from a wealth of…

Wristcutters: A Love Story

15 Nov 2007

There’s a thick-blooded vein of Slavic humour running through Croatian writer-director Goran Dukic’s absurdist purgatorial romantic comedy. Adapted from Israeli writer Etgar Keret’s short story, Kneller’s Happy Campers, Dukic’s feature debut boasts a…

Mike Mignola

15 Nov 2007

HORROR Hellboy: The Troll Witch and Others (Dark Horse) Those lamenting the scaling back of Mike Mignola’s terrifically idiosyncratic illustrations (presumably so he can focus on comic scriptwriting, film development and other business affairs) will…

Jeff Lemire

15 Nov 2007

DRAMA Essex County Vol 2: Ghost Stories (Top Shelf) The second volume of an interconnected trilogy of graphic novels set in a fictionalised version of Essex County, Ontario is almost unbearably poignant. Ghost Stories follows the lives of brothers…

Into The Wild

1 Nov 2007

TRUE STORY/DRAMA (15) 140min Sean Penn steps behind the camera once more, to write and direct this robust yet freewheeling adaptation of journalist John Krakauer’s non-fiction book about the extraordinary experiences on the road of young American…

Andrew Garfield

1 Nov 2007

Unless you happened to catch fresh-faced actor Andrew Garfield on the London and Manchester stages – where in the last three years he’s won various newcomer awards for well-received performances in plays by Enda Walsh and Mark Ravenhill – chances are…