★★★☆☆ It’s indomitable personalities and powerhouse voices that shine through in Morgan Neville’s enjoyable ode to stellar backing singers, 20 Feet from Stardom (2013). The film scooped the Oscar for Best Documentary at last month’s star-studded ceremony and features exactly the blend of glamour, sentiment and toe-tapping music that one Continue Reading
★☆☆☆☆ B-movie shams frequently present a finite line between cult wizardry and superfluous trash. Commonly, that line can be so blurred that the difference between good and bad is lost in the film’s lunacy. The Cold War camp of fifties sci-fi-cum-fantasy horror such as Douglas’s Them! (1954) or Yeaworth’s The Continue Reading
Shanghai has a long, rich cinematic history, spanning from the Golden Age of Chinese cinema in the 1930s to its modern role as an international production hub for both Western and Eastern filmmakers. World Film Locations: Shanghai is the latest in Intellect Books’ cinematic guidebooks, providing a considered and informed Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Unceremoniously winching its way onto DVD this week despite contending for top honours at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival, Greek director Spiros Stathoulopoulos’ (PVC-1) snail-paced Metéora (2012) makes up for its lack of narrative dynamism through some deeply evocative religious symbolism and arresting vistas captured by Stathoulopoulos himself. Set Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Hot on the heels of the highly acclaimed In the House (2012), suddenly prolific French auteur François Ozon returned last year with coming-of-ager Jeune & Jolie (2013), an engaging if overly diminutive story of a teenager’s blossoming sexuality set over four seasons. Having previously explored the combined mores, difficulties and Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Described by its writer and director Tomasz Wasilewski as “the first Polish LGBT film”, Floating Skyscrapers (2013) boldly goes where n Pole has gone before in its intricate study of repressed homosexuality. Mateusz Banasiuk stars as aspiring champion swimmer Kuba, an ambitious athlete with the world at his feet. Continue Reading
★★★★★ Crusading documentaries have now become a common sub-genre: from Michael Moore’s slick polemics and eco-worrier Al Gore’s persuasive An Inconvenient Truth (2006) to the animal rights appeals of both The Cove (2009) and Blackfish (2013). As such, these high profile offerings present the film critic with something of a Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ As Don Jon’s (2013) opening credits present a series of images highlighting the objectification of woman in the media, juxtaposed with a thudding and syrupy romantic score, it’s clear something a little different is at work in Joseph Gordon-Levitt directorial bow. While he may make the odd narrative misstep Continue Reading
Written and directed by French auteur François Ozon (best known for past offerings Swimming Pool and In the House), 2013 Palme d’Or nominee Jeune & Jolie is a unique look at one adolescent’s development into maturity. To celebrate the release of Ozon’s latest on DVD and Blu-ray this Monday (24 Continue Reading
The sophomore feature from director Tomas Wasilewski, Floating Skyscrapers (2013) is also one of Poland’s first LGBT dramas. When Kuba, a young man in a stable hetero relationship, meets Michal, the life of the three teenagers soon gets flipped upside down. In a rollercoaster of emotions and confusion, all three Continue Reading
The directorial debut from Hollywood actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Don Jon is a knowing take on the modern American romantic comedy, as a muscle-bound porn addict struggles to adapt to a relationship with an actual breathing human being, Barbara (Scarlett Johansson). To celebrate the release of Don Jon on DVD and Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Actor turned director Jalil Lespert’s latest feature, Yves Saint Laurent (2014), sets about the ambitious task of condensing into an 106-minute film the life and work of one of fashion’s most celebrated icons. The result is a stylish melodrama, enriched by touching performances from Comédie-Française actors Pierre Niney and Continue Reading
★★★★☆ With The Unknown Known (2013), inimitable documentarian Errol Morris has taken the age old adage “Give em enough rope” before expanding it into a timely political critique; an oft-infuriating but deft tête-à-tête with former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld. In a performance that even ‘Teflon Tony’ Blair would Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ Having paced the peripheries of the British film industry for over twenty years (going all the way back to his striking 1994 debut Dirty Diamonds), director David Mackenzie appears to be on the verge of bagging his first mainstream hit. His latest feature, the gritty prison drama Starred Up Continue Reading
★★★☆☆ A stoic tough guy being confronted by his own maltreated conscience is hardly a novelty in cinema. When the convention is adopted, there is always the hope that it with the intention to approach the subject from some fresh angle, or provide a new kind of insight into age-old Continue Reading
