The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Unless Peter Jackson and his team decide to mine The Silmarillion for three more J.R.R. Tolkien adaptations, their films of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit will, by this time next year, comprise a complete hexalogy – or, at least, two consecutive triptychs.

Fill the Void

It’s usually documentary cinema that takes us inside societies of which we know little, revealing their structures and rituals. Occasionally feature films achieve something similar, and Rama Burshtein’s Fill the Void is one such, telling its story from inside the world of Israel’s Orthodox Hasidic community, specifically the Haredim.

Klown

Lest anyone think that the measured performances in Borgen, The Bridge and The Killing or the personal cinema of, say, Susanne Bier, Pernille Fischer Christensen, Lars von Trier or Thomas Vinterberg define Danish drama, along comes the British release of Klown, a film which – despite a few local touches – plays to the familiar: the uncomfortable comedy of The Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the gross-out, road-trip fare of The...

Kill Your Darlings

Allen Ginsberg was once approached by two young acolytes eager to discuss literature. The bearded eminence of the Beats was the soul of generosity, giving up no small allowance of time to share his vast knowledge and experience. How they must have basked in the glow as a great poet treated them as equals. At a certain point, having put in sufficient effort, Ginsberg deemed it a good moment to change the subject. “So,” he said, “either of you guys suck cock?”

Frozen

Although it begins, somewhat startlingly, with a 3D hacksaw to our collective mush - as it penetrates the ice on a frosted lake - the latest computer-generated offering from Walt Disney Animation Studios is far from an aggressive overhaul of Disney tradition.

Saving Mr Banks

Classic children’s stories often have a darker side; a shadowy area that lends an eternal quality to an otherwise merely durable yarn. Such is Mary Poppins. How and why it came to the big screen is one of Hollywood’s best tales, previously untold until now with Saving Mr Banks, a controlled yet poignant story hinging on the persistence and pain essential to bringing even the cheeriest film to fruition.

Blind Side director John Lee Hancock’s high-profile...