Adam Lowes

★★★★☆ A moving and sobering tale of the fight against prejudice and the quest for acceptance in the face of adversity, Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall’s doc Call Me Kuchu (2012) is almost structured like a fiction feature, with a final devastating third act which brings little closure or cause for celebration. While there are…

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★★☆☆☆ Woody Allen continues his picture postcard Euro trawl with mixed results in To Rome with Love (2012), despite an admittedly gorgeous backdrop photographed by the great Darius Khondji, and the impressive array of acting talent at his disposal once more. Using the titular city to tell four unconnected vignettes of romantic mishaps and chance…

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★★★★☆ With a mawkish setup which sounds like it could easily have been concocted by a Hollywood studio, only to be packaged and presented to a Nicholas Sparks-fond audience, in reality Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s Untouchable (Intouchables, 2011) is a winning slice of mainstream French cinema which successfully avoids slushy sentiment, even if it…

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★★★☆☆ Adam Sandler returns to the world of animation for the first time since 2002’s ill-received Eight Crazy Nights. That film was a crude and joyless affair, featuring the same off-putting mix of gross-out and sentiment synonymous with Sandler’s recent live-action work. Thankfully, he lends only his voice to proceedings here, although regular cast members…

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★★★★★ A new Quentin Tarantino picture has come to represent something of an event film for many (in the best sense of that word), and as that unmistakable 1970s exploitation style typeface fills the screen – complete with a theme tune cribbed from an earlier, unrelated Django movie –  it’s very apparent we’re heading into…

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★★☆☆☆ Historically, anthology films are a patchy affair, so almost predictably the five chapters which make up horror mashup V/H/S (2012) (thematically linked by the concept of found footage material played back on VHS tape) were always unlikely to buck the trend. Last year’s Handycam superhero flick Chronicle (2012), directed by newcomer Josh Trank, managed…

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★☆☆☆☆ Over seven decades since he first began making his name with the kind of fun, Z-grade schlock this film falls way short in replicating, executive producer Roger Corman unleashes yet another atrocious monster mash-up for the SyFy channel, Piranhaconda (2011) which makes its debut over here on DVD. Michael Madsen is intrepid, bandana-sporting scientist…

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★★★★☆ The world-renowned Don McCullin spent over three decades of his illustrious career on the frontline of human conflict. From 1969 to 1984, he was the celebrated photographer for The Sunday Times, where he covered an assortment of wars, a number of famines around the world, and even the plight of the homeless in sixties…

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★★★★☆ This year has already seen its fair share of complex, unforgettable real-life figures to receive the documentary treatment, and Jesse Vile’s Jason Becker: Not Dead Yet (2012) is no exception, in a film which manages to be simultaneously heart-breaking and inspiring. Becker was someone who lived and breathed his passion, morning, noon and night.…

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