Film
Adam Sweeting
The Eagles recorded their first two albums in London in the early Seventies, though they couldn't have imagined they'd be back 40 years later to present their new documentary, History of the Eagles Part One, at Sundance London. There is, as you may have surmised, also a Part Two, which is available in the DVD and Blu-ray package that goes on sale on Monday 29 April.The band now comprises Glen Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B Schmit and Joe Walsh. Former lead guitarist Don Felder, once a major stakeholder in the cash-spinning conglomerate that the Eagles became, has been cast into limbo following a Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
Scarecrow tied for the coveted Palme D’or of 1973. Directed by Jerry Schatzberg, the man who did Panic In Needle Park and importantly Street Smart, which captured the electrifying moment when Morgan Freeman became a star, this sombre comedy stars Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. In fact, every element of Scarecrow aims for classic status. Thanks to nifty distributor Park Circus, we can now see first-hand on the big screen why this pedigreed film has been so little heard of or seen since its 1973 French triumph.As the film after Hackman's Oscar for The French Connection (1971) and The Poseidon Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
“In a world…” How many times have we heard this portentous introduction to a movie trailer, in a reverberating baritone whose seriousness is in stark contrast to the epic fluff it seeks to promote. Director/writer/star Lake Bell’s oddball and hugely likeable comedy makes up for some of the pain we’ve had to endure through such promos, by taking a peep into the world of the voice-over artists, whose finely-honed vocals are responsible.Bell plays Carol, a young woman who is working hard to emulate her father, Sam (Fred Melamed), a legend in LA’s voice-over community. But the odious parent Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
It may not be Scorsese and De Niro, but the partnership between Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan has been extremely fruitful. It has given us Coogan’s sublime portrayal of legendary music promoter Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People, a triple role as that great literary waffler Tristram Shandy, Tristram’s dad, and as himself playing them in the dazzlingly post-modern A Cock and Bull Story, and again as the worst public image of himself in the television series The Trip.Real, fictional, autobiographical, there’s a certain pattern here, of grandiosity, self-delusion and prattishness. So Read more ...
Jasper Rees
Knock knock. Who's there? Eamonn. Eamonn who? Eamonn Etonian. There's an Eamonn at No 10, an Eamonn is Mayor of London, an Eamonn is even Archbishop of Canterbury. Oh, and Eamonns are third and - for three more months - fourth in line to the throne. Recently Eton has started to dominate British film, television and theatre. In 2012 one Eamonn won an Emmy, another was given a Bafta and a third played a Shakespearean king on the BBC. It’s true that a remarkably talented group of actors from Eton have risen like the richest cream to the top in recent years. They are led by Damian Lewis, Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The only faintly cracked note in this zinging early-season blockbuster is that, just as spring belatedly puts in an appearance, the action is set around Christmas time, with snow, Christmas trees and even some Yuletide hip-hop beats. Still, think of it as just a further example of the smart counter-intuitiveness that director Shane Black (stepping in for Jon Favreau) has brought to the party, helping to make it the fizziest and funniest of the series so far.Naturally IM3 bristles with CGI and mind-bending technological set-pieces, such as an apocalyptic helicopter assault on Tony Stark's Read more ...
Demetrios Matheou
I’ve always thought of Lynn Shelton as Sundance royalty. Her breakthrough film Humpday – the über-buddy movie with the amateur porn twist – screened at the festival, as did her follow-up, Your Sister’s Sister, which demonstrated that Shelton could handle more mainstream comedy-drama without losing her indie spontaneity.Which is why it’s such a shame that Touchy Feely disappoints. The Seattle director has assembled a talented cast, and films with evident affection in her home town, but her usually deft touch for character and plot deserts her.It concerns a brother and sister, polar opposites Read more ...
emma.simmonds
Unburdened by conventional narrative sense, Upstream Color is a true curiosity. Seductively strange, woozily kinetic and above all romantic, Shane Carruth's second feature is a little film with big, bizarre ideas. Incorporating pig farming, scientific experimentation and sound recording, it proves that you don't need a sizeable production budget to swoop and soar on the big screen, and that you don't always need to know precisely what's going on to be immersed in a story.Amy Seimetz plays Kris, a successful creative. One night she's kidnapped, seemingly at random, and force-fed a specially Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
It’s hard to imagine that anyone on earth has yet to see Ang Lee’s four-times Oscar-winning Life of Pi, the sensational SFX adventure based on Yan Martel’s hitherto unfilmable spiritual classic. But, along with Skyfall, there are reasons why anyone would want to own a film they’ve already seen at least once: it’s a visuall -soothing if existentially unsettling portrait of trauma and loss told by a master storyteller.Suraj Sharma stars as Pi Patel, a young man shipwrecked while immigrating to Canada with his family and the family zoo. Whether he survives in mid-ocean depends on the actions of Read more ...
emma.simmonds
Bringing some much needed sunshine streaming into what has, so far, been a hit and miss spring is this year's Sundance London, which takes place from 25 - 28 April at The O2. Sundance is, of course, a name most associated with Robert Redford, President and Founder of the Sundance Institute which supports fledgling filmmakers and runs the Utah-based festival. This will be the second year the festival has headed on over to bring us the pinnacle of American independent cinema, and this year its US indie gems are accompanied by several sterling UK efforts.Music-themed offerings include live Read more ...
emma.simmonds
"There are people in town that would have shot her for five dollars." Those are the shocking but undeniably comic words of a resident of Carthage, Texas, who's nonchalantly describing the strength of the vitriol felt toward murder victim Marjorie Nugent. The format of the film is recognisable from countless documentaries: talking heads giving us the lowdown on a crime. But in Bernie Richard Linklater boldly combines fact and fiction and handles the darkest of subjects - the real-life murder of an elderly woman by her younger male companion - with the lightest of comic touches and, by god, if Read more ...
sheila.johnston
Late on a spring Friday evening, İstiklal Caddesi, the main shopping thoroughfare in Istanbul’s Beyoğlu district, exudes all the delicious traditional Turkish aromas: roasting chestnuts, fierce black coffee, döner grills and simit, İstanbul’s bagel, still selling like hot cakes way after midnight. Most of all, though, milling with the crowd, you are struck by something else, something less familiar these days, in Europe anyway: the smell of money.While the old economies are on their knees, Turkey has been booming: 9.2 percent growth in GDP in 2010, 8.5 percent in 2012. Last year the motor Read more ...