Film
Winter of DiscontentWednesday, 21 August 2013
The final words we see in subtitles in Ibrahim El Batout’s Winter of Discontent, a film centred on the events that began in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on 25 January 2011 and would go on to change Egypt’s future, could not read more ominously today: “And... Read more... |
LovelaceTuesday, 20 August 2013
Shot in Seventies throwback grainy-cam, Amanda Seyfried is superb as Linda Lovelace in the surprisingly entertaining biopic Lovelace. Peter Sarsgaard, Sharon Stone, Robert Patrick, Bobby Cannavle, Hank Azaria, Chris Noth, Juno Temple and James... Read more... |
DVD: The Adventures of Prince AchmedTuesday, 20 August 2013
Cinema's unrivalled silhouette animator Lotte Reiniger (1899-1981) was influenced by Arthur Rackham's illustrations and by Chinese and Indonesian puppet theatre. Like her fellow German filmmaker Fritz Lang, she must have appreciated the intricacy... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Locarno: All About the Wet BitsSunday, 18 August 2013
Feuchtgebiete has been the talk of Locarno. The word combines “damp” or “moist” with “areas” – yes, you might guess what’s coming. English-born, German-bred Charlotte Roche published in 2008 a novel of the same title, which became Wetlands in... Read more... |
DVD: Spring BreakersSaturday, 17 August 2013
Wilfully perverse avant-hipster darling Harmony Korine has always teetered on the paper-thin border between vanguard edginess and trendy, emperor’s-new-clothes vapidity. His previous work, from the opening salvo of Kids, with Larry Clark, through... Read more... |
KumaFriday, 16 August 2013
It’s the women who keep things together in Umut Dağ’s debut feature Kuma, and you can see the weight of the burden that matriarch Fatma (Nihal G Koldas) has been carrying etched on her face. Fatma’s latest endeavour to preserve balance in her Vienna... Read more... |
2 GunsThursday, 15 August 2013
Clocking in at a comparatively lean 102 minutes, 2 Guns is a speedy and rumbustious buddy movie in which Bobby Trench (Denzel Washington) and Stig Stigman (Mark Wahlberg) form a wisecracking, fast-shooting duo forced to abandon their mutual... Read more... |
Kick-Ass 2Wednesday, 14 August 2013
With this sequel to director Matthew Vaughn’s action-comedy based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John S Romtia Jr, writer/director Jeff Wadlow has done his best to make Kick-Ass 2 into a two-part franchise. It certainly doesn’t help that its... Read more... |
DVD: Berlin 36Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Sporting dreams and the Second World War are both bottomless narrative mines. German-Jewish high-jumper Gretel Bergmann’s attempt to compete in the German team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics unites these genres, but it’s no Hitler-era Chariots of Fire.... Read more... |
BacheloretteMonday, 12 August 2013
"What do you call a bachelorette party without a bride?" asks maid-of-honour Regan (Kirsten Dunst). "Friday," comes her fellow hen’s deadpan response. In Bachelorette the bridesmaids lose the bride, tear up her dress and get trashed; these are high-... Read more... |
Listed: Sitcoms that became moviesSaturday, 10 August 2013
This week sees the release of the eagerly anticipated Alan Partridge film, Alpha Papa. And while there are those of us who simply cannot wait to cringe along with Norwich’s favourite talk radio host, there is a rather vocal minority that are... Read more... |
The Lone RangerFriday, 09 August 2013
Kemosabe, The Lone Ranger is fun. Despite its star and producer blaming American critics for poor box office stateside, this film is Pirates of the Caribbean on horseback - and that's the Pirates franchise before it bloated in 2007.There is a lot of... Read more... |
