thu 28/03/2024

Film Reviews

Diplomacy

Graham Fuller

More frequently and accessibly than his fellow veteran directors of the New German Cinema, Volker Schlöndorff has captured the pandemonium wrought by Nazism – in in his Palme d’Or-sharing masterpiece The Tin Drum (1979), its quasi-sequel The Ogre (1996), and The Ninth Day (2004).

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Life Itself

Katherine McLaughlin

In keeping with his impressive body of work, acclaimed documentary filmmaker Steve James approaches the details of the life of film critic Roger Ebert with honesty and the utmost respect. James was granted unprecedented access to Ebert in the final stages of his life in December 2012, just after he had been admitted to hospital for a hip-bone fracture.

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The Drop

Adam Sweeting

Derived from a Dennis Lehane short story called Animal Rescue, at one level The Drop is indeed a tale of one man and his dog, a pit bull puppy rescued from a dustbin in Brooklyn. But given the opportunity to develop the story into a screenplay for Belgian director Michaël R Roskam (of Bullhead fame), Lehane has created a subtly detailed milieu of crushed hopes, pervasive fear and simmering criminality.

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The Imitation Game

Karen Krizanovich

“He should be on banknotes.” Benedict Cumberbatch has spoken of his character, real-life hero Alan Turing, as if he knew him. Turing, who died in 1954, was the father of computing and, more importantly, a secret WWII hero as told in The Imitation Game.

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The Possibilities are Endless

Nick Hasted

Rock music excessively rewards its pretty young corpses. Edwyn Collins’ survival, like Wilko Johnson’s, is much more remarkable. Two massive strokes in 2005, when he was only 44, should really have finished the ex-Orange Juice singer. Edward Lovelace and James Hall’s film plunges us without preamble into the dramatised, subjective reality for Collins back then.

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Leviathan

Tom Birchenough

It’s fascinating to catch the moment when an already great film director moves onwards and upwards, to another level. Russia’s Andrei Zvyagintsev has been collecting major festival prizes for more than a decade, since his debut feature The Return won the Golden Lion at Venice in 2003.

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Say When

Katherine McLaughlin

Pretty in Pink featured an interesting example of female friendship between a teenager and a grown woman. A record shop owner imparts motherly advice to her employee while also getting to grips with her own identity. In a similar manner, Lynn Shelton’s indie comedy (which was written by YA author Andrea Siegel) pairs up Keira Knightley and Chloë Grace Moretz, but shifts the focus away from teen angst to tackle the quarter-life crisis from the point of view of a woman who decides she...

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Interstellar

Adam Sweeting

Space, the final frontier. Except that on the slowly dying earth where Christopher Nolan's often awesome sci-fi epic begins, the instinct to reach for the heavens has been crushed by the struggle for survival as crops die and life-choking dust storms sweep across the American midwest.

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Mr Turner

Matt Wolf

There's been much talk about Late Turner, to co-opt the name of the exhibition now on view at Tate Britain covering the last 16 years in the English artist JMW Turner's singular career. And as if perfectly timed to chime with those canvases in celluloid terms is Mr Turner, the ravishing film that stands...

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The Fall of the House of Usher, Sound Affairs, Malvern

stephen Walsh

At least three composers have set about turning The Fall of the House of Usher into operas, including most famously Debussy, whose abortive attempt, completed by Robert Orledge, was brilliantly staged by Welsh National Opera in June. But there is a good argument that Poe’s story – short on incident and character, long on visual image and atmosphere – lends itself better to film than to the stage.

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Horns

Adam Sweeting

Adapted from the cult novel by Joe Hill (son of Stephen King) and directed by Alexandre Aja, Horns can't keep itself on an even tonal keel for more than a few minutes. Part policier, part doomed romance and part gothic nightmare, I suppose it might even have created its own nano-genre.

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Nightcrawler

Katherine McLaughlin

“If it bleeds it leads”, proclaims crime news reporter Joe Loder (Bill Paxton) as he investigates the bloody remains of a car crash with his invasive camera lens in a bid to make the biggest bucks out of the exploitation of human tragedy. It’s a mantra which curious onlooker Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal, who has shed a massive 30 pounds for the role) takes to grim and vicious extremes when he sets up his own TV news business.

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Kieron Tyler

The key lines are “you’re reborn into an untroubled world” – a world “where everyone’s the same.” The 1956 Don Siegel science fiction film Invasion of the Body Snatchers is often taken as a response to America’s fear of Communism and the associated suppression of self, or as a commentary on the encroaching conformity brought by the spread of consumerism and a regimented suburbia. In both cases, homogenisation and standardised behaviour were the potential result.

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The Overnighters

Tom Birchenough

In The Overnighters documentarist Jesse Moss found his story and pursued it with remarkable empathy, all in the best traditions of the genre. He persuaded both sides in this tale of (quiet) confrontation to trust him, and they opened up completely. Then closing minute revelations that come as a total shock take his film to a different level, turning what would have been a strong film in itself into something that will stay in the memory for a very long time.

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Jimi: All Is By My Side

Karen Krizanovich

The Jimi Hendrix redux directed by John Ridley, Oscar-winning scriptwriter of 12 Years A Slave (and the underrated Undercover Brother, among others), was highly anticipated - especially as this take on the great guitarist’s life would not, apparently, feature any hits.

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The Babadook

Nick Hasted

Mother love is mangled, yanked inside-out and tested almost to destruction in Australian writer-director Jennifer Kent’s heartfelt horror debut. The Babadook enthusiastically fulfils its remit to scare, but finds its fright in the secret corners of maternal instinct, where frustration, grief and violence meet.

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