At 13:30 GMT today, US actress Jennifer Lawrence – star of Winter’s Bone (2010) and the upcoming The Hunger Games (2012) adaptation – announced the Oscar nominations for this year’s 84th Academy Awards ceremony, to be held on 26 February. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo lead the way with 11 nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, with Michel Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ Directed by Brit Stephen Daldry and adapted from the 2005 novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer, US drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) was one of the surprise inclusions of this year’s Best Picture Academy Award nominee list – and rightly so. Beneath its emotional Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Setting up base camp in the Panorama programme at this year’s 62nd Berlinale, Cao Hamburger’s Xingu (2012) is an extremely engrossing, well-executed and well-meaning dramatisation of the formation of Brazil’s enormous Xingu National Park (referred to as ‘Belgium in the film due to its immense size), one of the Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ One of the competition entries for the coveted Golden Bear at this year’s 62nd Berlinale (yet ultimately receiving no awards), Matthias Glasner’s Mercy (Gnade, 2012) comes complete with a solid concept, but unfortunately suffers in its long-winded execution. A morality tale of sorts, the film follows an ex-pat German Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ A critical hit upon its BFI London Film Festival appearance last year (though predictably fairing less well at the UK box office), Gerardo Naranjo’s Mexican thriller Miss Bala (2011) gets a DVD release this week thanks to distributors Metrodome. At times stark and gruelling, yet at others laborious and Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Finally finding its way onto DVD and Blu-ray thanks to the BFI’s Flipside label, Norman J. Warren’s 1967 erotic drama Her Private Hell deserves recognition for its confrontational stance, bravely taking up the mantle of the UK’s first narrative sex film. Below some occasional messy editing and hastily-dubbed dialogue Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Those perplexed by grizzled mumbler Nick Nolte’s nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category at this year’s Academy Awards may well be among those who missed his performance in last year’s remarkably good MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) drama Warrior (2011), directed by Gavin O’Connor and starring Tom Hardy and Continue Reading