Film reviews and more
★★★☆☆ A bedraggled man’s gargling death in a Romero-esque shopping centre sets the stage for this exemplary Mexican horror-satire, the preternaturally assured debut of Jorge Michel Grau. No sooner has the man collapsed to the faux marble floor, than a […]
★★★☆☆ Midway through Woody Allen’s latest dramedy, Anna Friel’s small role as a budding artist laments to her long time friend Sally (Naomi Watts) that the affair she has recently entered into has turned her life into something resembling a […]
There are as many ways to describe a city as there are people living in it. The Barbican’s ‘City Symphony’ season, part of its Silent Film and Live Music strand, gives us glimpses of urban life in the 1920s – filtered […]
★★☆☆☆ Based on Alex Glynn’s 2001 novel The Dark Fields, Limitless (2011) tells the story of Eddie Morra (Bradley Cooper), a down-and-out writer who’s suffering chronic writer’s block. Eddie believes his life is falling apart but this all changes when […]
★★★☆☆ Ballast opens with a wide panoramic view of a bleak, waterlogged, windswept landscape; birds taking off in the grey distance. But for the three lonely individuals at the heart of Lance Hammer’s astonishing debut film, escape is not an […]
★★★★★ Adapted from the Joe Dunthorne book of the same name, Submarine (2011) is the maiden voyage of writer, actor and director Richard Ayoade into the deep and murky waters of British cinema. Perhaps best know for his role as […]
★☆☆☆☆ What is there to say about Zonad (2009)? It’s a bizarre comedy from the shores of Ireland by writer and director brothers John and Kieran Carney, which tells the story of Liam Murphy – a recovering alcoholic who escapes […]
What intrigued me about Altitude (2010) was that the film was being promoted to fans of Donnie Darko (2001) and classic sci-fi show The Twilight Zone. I may not be the biggest fan of Donnie Darko – though I do applaud it […]
★★★★☆ Roughly 50 minutes into Songs From the Second Floor (2000), director Roy Andersson decides to move the camera. Pulling slowly back, the shot moves only enough to accommodate the rather large figure of Kalle (Lars […]
★★★☆☆ One of the most talked about horror films of last year was Let Me In (2010) an American restructuring of the flawless Swedish vampire smash Let the Right One (2009), which brought to life John Ajvide Lindqvist’s haunting, romantic […]
In 2009 the National Theatre launched NT Live, a project to broadcast their plays live to cinemas in the UK and around the world via satellite. The initiative has been a huge success, and next to reach cinemas is Academy […]
★★★☆☆ During one scene from Frank Ripploh’s semi-autobiographical tale of a sex-obsessed, German school teacher Taxi Zum Klo (1980) we witness a man lying on a bed being sprayed in the face with urine. For ten, maybe fifteen seconds, all […]