★★★☆☆ A man sits alone in a room with a notepad and begins to scribble down his own voiceover. He only writes on one page and seems to always be starting at the top. His thoughts will be meticulous and he will show a certain expertise. When he’s finished writing he will place the pen on the table, neatly aligned with the pad.
★★☆☆☆ Bereavement, mental health, the threadbare US social welfare system and homelessness are the heavy topics that British-born director Deborah Richards tackles in her debut feature. Unfortunately, their worthy but superficial and somewhat incoherent presentation means that Move Me No Mountain is an emotionally and thematically inert experience.
★★★☆☆ Sometimes, it’s tough being really skilled at one thing in particular. Having flown out the blocks with two supremely good, bonafide hit horror films (Hereditary, Midsommar), writer and director Ari Aster had to make a departure to avoid being pigeon-holed as a genre specialist.
★★★★☆ “I’ve been waiting a long time for this” mutters Clu, the digital reincarnation of Jeff Bridges’ Kevin Flynn, echoing the thoughts of thousands of Tron fans worldwide. 28 years ago the original Tron was wowing 80′s audiences with its...
Rarely does a documentary manage to encapsulate its subject matter with the kind of beauty and non-judgemental insight as Jason Massot’s latest film, Road to Las Vegas (2010).Spanning four years, it follows the lives of African American couple Vanessa and...
From his opening shots of a bride striding through the Italian countryside before turning a gun on herself, Italo-Turkish director Ferzan Ozpetek plays with our expectations. Drama, melodrama, domestic tragedy, family comedy: Loose Cannons (2010) has it all.Set in Lecce, in...
★★★☆☆ It is election night, 3 May 1979, and police officer Karn (Ralph Brown) is confident that Margaret Thatcher will win a landslide victory. An innocent black man, Leon Delroy (Clint Dyer), is brought in for interrogation, accused of murdering...
Argentinian-born director Lucrecia Martel crafted her newly rereleased debut feature La Ciénaga (The Swamp) in 2001, receiving praise from critics and audience alike. The film does indeed stand as a testimony of her directorial talent and ability to let the story...
★★☆☆☆ Tom Cruise often comes across as a pint-sized, arrogant, pampered Hollywood cliché, and his notorious appearance on The Oprah Winfrey show could (and perhaps should) have been the final nail in his career’s 5ft solid gold coffin, yet Cruise somehow...
★★★★☆ The intent behind The Expendables (2010) is now legendary; a chance to bring back the past action stars of yore, all heralded under heavyweight director/writer/star Sylvester Stallone’s banner. The Expendables introduces (or should that be re-introduces) us to a...
★★★★☆ I’m not going to review John Pilger’s documentary The War You Don’t See (2010). It’s beyond critique and to be honest, it’s had such a profound effect on me that at the moment my role as a film reviewer...
Have you ever made a film about your Aunt Suzette? Michel Gondry has. Why should you care? Maybe you don’t like watching other people’s home movies. Maybe you don’t even have an Aunt Suzette. Watching Gondry’s autobiographical documentary The Thorn in...
★☆☆☆☆ There are, it would seem, a growing number of films that can claim to have at one stage carried the hallowed moniker ‘the most controversial film of all time’. Controversy is, of course, entirely subjective – Mel Gibson’s The...
★★★☆☆ Machete (2010) is a feature length expansion of the brilliant, initially faux trailer that was spliced between director Rodriguez and buddy Quentin Tarantino exploitation homage Grindhouse (2007). Starring Danny Trejo as the titular character, with accompaniment from a host of...
Alongside legendary directors Yasujirō Ozu and Takeshi Kitano, Akira Kurosawa is often cited as one of Japanese cinema’s greatest exponents. With a career spanning six decades and numerous high profile awards including the Palme d’Or and Golden Lion to his name,...