Moët Bifas 2011: Nominations announced
If there was any ounce of nagging doubt concerning the health of modern British cinema, it was completely irradiated today with the announcement of...
★★★★☆ Inspired by Robert Bresson’s Au Hasard Balthazar, veteran Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski’s latest is a darkly comic and moving fable about a wayward donkey living through fate’s tender mercies. EO is at once a cinematic curiosity, a compelling drama and a harrowing portrait of cruel whimsy.
★★★★☆ American director Darren Aronofsky has made a career out of exploring individuals who are physically and psychologically self-destructing in the throes of obsession. It could be the relationship between the diameter and circumference of a circle; building a boat to avoid a genocidal flood; ballet or wrestling; drugs or food.
★★★★★ Documentary filmmaker Alice Diop’s (We, La Permanence) first narrative feature Saint Omer is a major achievement and an investigation into motherhood, judgment and the other. Kayije Kagame plays Rama, a university professor and writer who is working on a new book.
★★☆☆☆ After his girlfriend is killed in a brutal attack, former boxer and paramedic Jan (Milan Ondrík) falls into profound despair. Exploring themes of guilt, masculinity and justice, boxing-inflect crime film from Slovakian director Peter Bebjak shows much promise, but fails to coalesce into a coherent vision.
★★★☆☆ Bulgarian documentarian Andrey Paounov turns his hand to fiction in this adaptation of Yordan Radichkov’s 1974 play. January is an intriguing, eerie, ponderous narrative set entirely within the confines of a forest cabin. Religious allegories, monochrome photography and folk horror trappings ensue.
★★☆☆☆ Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans had all the ingredients to ascend as cinema’s new darling. Yet, as this semi-autobiographical film plods on, there is an unshakeable sense that in reaching for the stars, The Fabelmans instead lands somewhere more mediocre and disappointing.
If there was any ounce of nagging doubt concerning the health of modern British cinema, it was completely irradiated today with the announcement of...
★★★★☆ The Princess of Montpensier (2010) is a captivating historical drama with modern sensibilities from auteur director Bertrand Tavernier, starring Mélanie Thierry and Lambert...
★★★★☆ An unconventional, surreal comedy set in the suburbs of Glasgow, Orphans (1998) is Peter Mullan’s first film behind the camera. Best known for...
★★★☆☆ Reeling from the commercial failure of 1982’s One from the Heart and perhaps wary of his growing reputation as an obsessive monomaniac, in...
★★★★☆ Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) – which stars Gene Hackman, John Cazale, Robert Duvall, Teri Garr, Harrison Ford, and Frederic Forrest –...
★☆☆☆☆ If you manage to make it to the end of Ruggero Deodato’s controversial thriller The House on the Edge of the Park (1980),...
The films of cult Dutch director Dick Maas are as notorious for their difficulty to see as for their often graphic depictions of murder...
★★★★☆ If you have any experience of Dutch director Dick Maas’ previous work, you will most likely have been eagerly anticipating his latest schlocker...
★★★☆☆ Loosely based on a short story by Raymond Carver, Dan Rush’s Everything Must Go (2010) follows the fortunes of an alcoholic salesman, Nick...
★☆☆☆☆ After the generally well-received original Paranormal Activity (2009) and its quick successor, the coma-inducing Paranormal Activity 2 (2010), it’s no surprise to see...
★★☆☆☆ Ulrich Köhler’s latest drama Sleeping Sickness (2011) is a difficult and tiresome film that leaves a sour taste of lethargy and disappointment in...
★★★★☆ Werner Herzog returns for the second time this year with another extremely powerful and moving documentary, Into the Abyss (2011). After the success...
★★★☆☆ After an 11-year hiatus, British director Terence Davies returns to screens with his passionately faithful adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s The Deep Blue Sea...
★★★☆☆ Tate Taylor’s Oscar-baiting The Help (2011) – starring Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer – is an incredibly well-crafted...