Film Reviews

No

Emma Dibdin Tuesday, 05 February 2013

There’s an episode in the first season of Mad Men in which the ad execs of Sterling Cooper brainstorm a campaign for Richard Nixon, just prior to the 1960 presidential election. Dramatic irony being what it is, it’s a rare opportunity to watch our anti-heroes working on a pitch (based chiefly around smear tactics) that is predestined to fail.

A Liar's Autobiography

Bruce Dessau Monday, 04 February 2013

It is probably not unreasonable to argue that all of the original Monty Python's Flying Circus team – including lovely Michael Palin – were, and are, a complex bunch. But none were as complex as the late Graham Chapman. Gay, alcoholic and partial to smoking a pipe and playing authority figures such as army officers, there is more than enough meat there for a colourful film about his life.

Bullet to the Head

Adam Sweeting Friday, 01 February 2013

We know Sylvester Stallone didn't do this movie for the money, since he's surfing the career revival wrought by the astounding success of The Expendables. Perhaps he wanted to work with Walter Hill, here directing his first movie in over a decade. Perhaps Sly just prefers working to loafing around the pool in between bouts of weight-lifting.

Hyde Park on Hudson

Jasper Rees Wednesday, 30 January 2013

Another week, another presidential movie. Another year, another lead role for a stuttering English monarch. Hyde Park on Hudson feels like the product of one of those irony-free meetings in Burbank. You know, the ones in which executives crank up a cinematic concept on the basis that if the audience liked X, they’ll suck up Y. And hey, why not hit them with some Z too?

Antiviral

Nick Hasted Tuesday, 29 January 2013

Body-horror proves a viable family business with Brandon Cronenberg’s writing-directing debut, a chilly, queasy successor to dad David’s best work. Cronenberg Sr.’s Videodrome (1983) – which caught its era’s potential for bootleg, endemic visual sex and violence and the interdependence of people and screens – is a decent comparison to Brandon’s Antiviral, which pushes our obsession with celebrity to satiric extremes.

Flight

Karen Krizanovich Monday, 28 January 2013

"You're a hero, man! You will never pay for a drink for as long as you live." Sounds easy enough, but after the sensational crash sequence in the opening scenes of Flight, heroism will never be the same. The Oscar-nominated script by John Gatins is a morally skilful examination of one terrifying what-if: what if Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who sensationally landed US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009, had been a closet drunk?

Lincoln

Demetrios Matheou Friday, 25 January 2013

A rum aspect of the Oscar nominations has been the inclusion of two films that concern American slavery, and which could not be more different: in Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino gives the American slave exactly the sort of empowerment he offered the Jews in Inglourious Basterds – blood-splatter violent and fantastical; in Lincoln, Steven Spielberg is happy to lean on the history books, for a respectful biopic.

Zero Dark Thirty

Emma Simmonds Thursday, 24 January 2013

Zero Dark Thirty could have easily gone by the name of the Danish thriller from last year, The Hunt, it’s so furiously single-minded. As it is, the film's striking title is a military term for half-past midnight - the timing of the Navy SEAL raid which shot dead Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on 2 May 2011. The shadowy, nail-biting recreation of that infamous operation forms the film’s finale and is its pièce de résistance.

The Last Stand

Adam Sweeting Wednesday, 23 January 2013

It's not an easy trick for an outsized action hero to grow older gracefully or credibly, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has made a shrewd choice of vehicle with which to launch his post-political film career. The way he tells it, being Governor of California was only ever intended to be a temporary time-out from Hollywood. Back in his first leading role since 2003's Terminator 3, he has little difficulty in seizing control of the screen.

Won't Back Down

Matt Wolf Tuesday, 22 January 2013

As proof that the American cinema for the most part exists to waste its actresses, along comes Won't Back Down. A peculiarly reactionary piece of tosh, it masquerades as a crusading film in the spirit of Norma Rae, the Sally Field Oscar-winner from decades ago that in fact is snarkily referenced in passing.

The Sessions

Karen Krizanovich Friday, 18 January 2013

"There's a lot of nudity in The Sessions." That's what people will be thinking - and maybe fearing while also being curious - when they consider seeing this uplifting drama. 'Do I really want to see a naked sex surrogate have naked sessions with a naked journalist crippled with polio?

Django Unchained

Emma Simmonds Thursday, 17 January 2013

With its exuberant blood-spray, rambunctious dialogue and generous running time, Django Unchained is writer-director Quentin Tarantino’s first full foray into Westerns.

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V/H/S

Nick Hasted Wednesday, 16 January 2013

V/H/S is the first film to convincingly update EC comics’ Fifties horror anthologies, which gleefully corrupted the kids of Eisenhower’s America. They also inspired British films such as Tales from the Crypt (the 1972 anthology with Peter Cushing as a vengeful pet owner, and Joan Collins murdered by a psychotic Father Christmas), an HBO TV series and the Stephen King-George Romero tribute Creepshow.

Ballroom Dancer

Ismene Brown Monday, 14 January 2013

Slavik Kryklyvyy was Jennifer Lopez's tush-shaking partner in Shall We Dance?, getting one over on Richard Gere. But that was 2004, and what happened then? Ballroom Dancer is a documentary feature about his year on the edge, 2010, when the former world number one Latin dancer tried to come back from a series of injuries and broken partnerships to mount his throne once more.

Les Misérables

Karen Krizanovich Friday, 11 January 2013

Les Misérables is revolutionary, but not in a French way. Oscar-winning director Tom (The King's Speech) Hooper’s film of a musical seen by over 60 million people in over 40 countries and in half again as many languages has engaged so much critical ink I’m almost dreading writing my own opinion.

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Gangster Squad

Emma Simmonds Thursday, 10 January 2013

Jean-Luc Godard once said, "All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl". Aside from upping the ante to include a formidable arsenal of the former, Ruben Fleischer's Gangster Squad hangs its fedora on that wisdom. It might however have aimed a little higher, as its glamour-and-guns story is trimmed to the point of frustration. There's action aplenty but with a story told in quips and shorthand, this is the gangster movie as entertainment pure and simple.