Film Reviews

Winter's Bone

Veronica Lee Wednesday, 15 September 2010

The Ozarks, situated mostly in Missouri, are not on most tourists’ itineraries when they visit the United States. The area is not as pretty or dramatic as the Appalachians or the Rockies, and the mining and backwoods country is considered different, remote even, by many Americans.

The Kid

Veronica Lee Monday, 13 September 2010

What a difference the Atlantic makes. An abused, underprivileged boy tries to escape his neglectful mother and through the kindness of an unrelated adult discovers he has a rare talent that - a few ups and downs notwithstanding - eventually brings him a happy and fulfilling life.

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done

Nick Hasted Saturday, 11 September 2010

For 15 years after the death of his demon muse Klaus Kinski, Werner Herzog made documentaries about equally obsessive visionaries, climaxing five years ago with Grizzly Man’s tale of Timothy Treadwell, who loved and was eaten by bears. Though the documentaries continue, Herzog is now finally re-engaging with feature films.

Cyrus

Matt Wolf Thursday, 09 September 2010

At the same time, those of a certain generation will be curious to see Jonah Hill breaking free from the Judd Apatow stable, playing the overgrown kid, 21-year-old Cyrus, of the title. But outshining both the fellas is Marisa Tomei, who completes the film's sexual and emotional geometry with charm and flair.

The Runaways

Graham Fuller Wednesday, 08 September 2010

A drop of menstrual blood spatters the ground in the opening shot of The Runaways, an insolent enough metaphor for the unstaunchable female energy that drives writer-director Floria Sigismondi’s bracing biopic of the pioneering all-girl teenage 1970s rock band until it heads up a narrative cul-de-sac.

Tamara Drewe

alexandra Coghlan Tuesday, 07 September 2010

If Cold Comfort Farm and Hot Fuzz got chatting down their local one night, the conversation might go something along the lines of Tamara Drewe. Putting the “sex” in Wessex, Stephen Frears’s latest film loosens the corsets of the Hardy pastoral, pitting town and country against one another in the dirtiest and most gleefully anarchic of fist-fights.

Dinner for Schmucks

Matt Wolf Thursday, 02 September 2010

There's a fascination that comes with films/ plays/ you choose the art form that contain within them their own critique: the sort of thing you find, for instance, in Chekhov done badly when one character or another opines about how "boring" proceedings have become, and you are tempted to nod in assent.

Cherry Tree Lane

Nick Hasted Thursday, 02 September 2010

Ever since his award-winning debut From London to Brighton (2006), Paul Andrew Williams has been an exemplary British filmmaker of sparky, low-budget genre tales. Cherry Tree Lane is Straw Dogs in suburbia, a schematic and brutal home invasion film, full of fearsome but unfulfilled ideas on the terrors waiting at your front door.

The Switch

alexandra Coghlan Monday, 30 August 2010

Step aside Prince Charming – there’s a new fairy tale in town, and your only substantive contribution fits into a small plastic sample pot. At some point in the last few years the Shangri-La, the unattainable dream of romantic comedies, shifted from man to baby.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Nick Hasted Saturday, 28 August 2010

This middle adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium crime trilogy will be followed almost instantly by the last. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), the elfin abuse victim and avenger who is the heart of the Larsson phenomenon, remains compelling.

The Maid (La Nana)

Matt Wolf Thursday, 26 August 2010

Domestics of varying kinds have always figured prominently in the cinema, from Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee to The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Mary Reilly. (Julia Roberts playing the hired help?

Scott Pilgrim vs The World

Matt Wolf Tuesday, 24 August 2010

Far be it from me to complain when the eternal geek is reborn as a man of action. But perhaps I'm not sufficiently a video game kinda guy - Okay, let's come clean, I've never played one - to get into Scott Pilgrim vs The World, the inoffensively if incessantly violent romcom in which an eerily youthful Michael Cera gets to go "Ka-pow!" an awful lot before he finally gets a girl that doesn't in any actual way seem a sensible match. There are chortles to be had, and Lord knows the (...

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Mother

Nick Hasted Tuesday, 24 August 2010

Director Bong Joon-ho watched Psycho as he prepared his latest film, one of the most discomfiting visions of mother-love since Norman Bates last ran a motel. There is Hitchcockian perversity, too, in Bong’s casting of Kim Hye-ja, an iconic Korean actress specialising in benign mothers, as a far more troubled maternal spirit. This nameless mother will do anything for her son, which feels like a threat as much as a promise, as Bong’s gothically atmospheric melodrama plays out.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Jasper Rees Sunday, 22 August 2010

NB Since it was co-opted by the New Labour project to make them sound like humans, I’ve gone off the word “kids”, but let’s make an exception for a film called Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Le Refuge

Matt Wolf Friday, 20 August 2010

Amid the cinematic dog days of late summer, François Ozon's Le Refuge comes aptly named: a character-led, intimate tale in the style of the late Eric Rohmer that will infuriate those who like their films more purely driven by plot even as it offers a refuge to moviegoers for whom the curves of a pregnant belly or a handsome young man's spine contain within them their own narrative.

Salt

Neil Smith Wednesday, 18 August 2010

With no Bonds or Bournes on the immediate horizon, no more Bauer with the end of 24, and the future of the Mission: Impossible series reportedly hanging in the balance, there appears to be an opening for a new secret agent franchise. It remains to be seen if Salt will plug the gap, though I for one will be more than happy if it does.