Film reviews and more
On Tuesday night of this week, CineVue we honoured to be invited along to the UK premiere of Martin McDonagh’s new film Seven Psychopaths (2012) at The Oval, near Bethnal Green, London. The special gala event was hosted by Jameson Cult Film Club, who are celebrating Seven Psychopaths as a potential cult classic of the future. The Oval was […]
Unlike other art forms, cinema is a collaborative process more than any other. It involves directors, editors, writers, artists, costumes designers to name but a few different cogs, each of whom contribute their own element to a production. When we go to the cinema, from the latest arthouse release to the new Hollywood blockbuster, we are witnessing months – […]
★★★★☆ Jonathan Blow, developer of the hugely popular Braid, once said: “Let me take my deepest flaws and vulnerabilities, put them in the game, and see what happens.” Chronicling the figures at the forefront of the ‘indie game’ revolution, Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky’s Indie Game: The Movie (2012) focuses upon the personalities rather than their global product. Indie […]
★★★☆☆ Somewhat unfortunately released in cinemas at a time when sympathy for the Israeli military is perilously low, Eytan Fox’s melancholic romance Yossi (2012) – the belated follow-up to his own Yossi and Jagger (2002) – is a surprisingly touching story of loss and rekindled sexuality. Featuring a sensual soundtrack (courtesy of Devendra Banhart and Israeli songstress Keren Ann) […]
★★☆☆☆ Finding its way into selected UK cinemas this week despite a minuscule £55,000 budget, Scottish filmmaker David Barras’ comic book/film noir homage Electric Man (2012) certainly deserves credit for its endearing lightheartedness and flashes of quality – even if the final results fail to ever really impress as a whole. Barras intentionally tried to avoid the tropes and […]
★★★☆☆ Winner of the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes and Best Canadian Feature at Toronto, 23-year auteur in the making Xavier Dolan offers us an unconventional love story in Laurence Anyways (2012), demonstrating the pitfalls of his unrestrained approach to filmmaking. The opening shot shows the staunch strut of a woman walking down the streets of Montreal, stared […]
★★★☆☆ One of the founding members of the Dogme 95 movement, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg has struggled to match the monumental heights of his devastatingly powerful debut tale of domestic catharsis, Festen (1998). However, with The Hunt (Jagten, 2012), Vinterberg has once again found himself in the spotlight after receiving encouraging critical praise at both the Cannes and London […]
★★☆☆☆ Outside Academy Awards hopeful Trouble with the Curve (2012), helmed by Clint Eastwood’s longstanding producer and friend Robert Lorenz who now directs the aforementioned American cinema icon, is a token sports-cum-family drama about the woes of a legendary, ailing baseball scout now entering the twilight years of his illustrious career. Protagonist Gus Lobel (Eastwood) is under threat of being […]
★★★☆☆ Charles Dickens and Christmas go together like holly and ivy, or Nigella Lawson and a festive lunch. With that in mind, the release of British director Mike Newell’s new adaptation of Dickens’ much-loved literary classic, Great Expectations (2012), couldn’t be timelier. Sadly, however, it could have been better. This well-known and frequently adapted piece of Bildungsroman follows the […]
★★★☆☆ From DreamWorks Animation, the studio which brought us the Shrek franchise and 2010’s How to Train Your Dragon comes Rise of the Guardians (2012), a 3D computer animated fantasy adventure which, thanks to its collection of magical childhood heroes, should find itself a popular choice amongst younger viewers this festive season. Rise of the Guardians gives us an […]
★★★★☆ Following on from 2011’s occult horror Kill List, in which two contract killers mercilessly slaughtered their way through an assortment of sinister individuals, director Ben Wheatley obviously felt the need for some levity in his career. When comedians Alice Lowe and Steve Oram approached him with their idea for a humorous road movie, he jumped at the opportunity […]
★★★☆☆ Walter Hill once said: “Every film I’ve done has been a western”, alluding to the assimilation of a moral (and, at times, very immoral) universe fabricated by the genre. The maverick director had a natural panache to strip contemporary stories down to their bare virginal bones; usually concentrated on real men with very real problems. In the 1980s, Hill […]
★★★★☆ Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke may already be well-known to cineliterate Western audiences for his 2006 film Still Life or, perhaps from his effort two years later, 24 City (2008). A pivotal part of the ‘Sixth Generation’ of Chinese filmmakers, Zhang-Ke’s confrontational films present a more gritty and realistic portrait of his home country than the more mythological works of […]
★★★★☆ Many a film fan may have gone through life thus far without lavishing an abundance of attention on the cinema of Czechoslovakia – or even, for that matter, being aware of the Czech New Wave. This movement saw films of previously unseen quality coming from the country in the 1960s, including highly regarded work from directors such as […]
★★★★☆ Making the effort to think of something that Seth MacFarlane (the much-loved creator of hit American adult animations Family Guy, American Dad and The Cleveland Show) and his brand of outlandish animated comedy is yet to poke fun at is like trying to trawl through episodes of Family Guy to find one where Peter doesn’t invoke some sort […]
★★★★☆ Widely considered as one of the most sophisticated comedies ever produced, Trouble in Paradise (1932) fizzes like a glass of vintage champagne – frothy and light, yet with a tangy aftertaste which lingers long after the last drop is finished. Featuring Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis, two incomparable stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood, along with the […]
★★★☆☆ One of the most influential acts of the grunge era, second perhaps only to Kurt Cobain and his mighty Nirvana in terms of their capacity to eat up column inches, Hole were a true product of their time – a pro-feminist, angsty collective that gave rise to the über ego that is Courtney Love. One of the band […]
★★☆☆☆ Over the past decade or so, multilingual stage and screen star Kristin Scott Thomas has carved a palatable little niche for herself; appearing in intense French dramas such as 2008’s I’ve Loved You So Long. This has seen the actress, who has been a resident in Paris since her teens, acquiring the kind of interesting parts that she […]