Festivals
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Cannes 2012: ‘On the Road’ preview
Finally emerging at this year’s 65th Cannes Film Festival after half a century in development hell, Walter Salles’ adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s Beat Generation classic On The Road (2012) – starring Sam Riley, Garret Hedlund and Twilight lead Kristen Stewart – will certainly be worth a look when it’s released here in the UK in…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ preview
The first trailer is still doing the rounds for US director Wes Anderson’s return to live-action filmmaking, Moonrise Kingdom (2012). Reuniting Anderson with regular collaborators Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman – on top of a fine cast including Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand and Harvey Keitel – the trailer reveals the director’s…
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Cannes 2012: ‘The Hunt’ preview
Danish director Thomas Vinterberg garnered widespread international acclaim in the mid-1990s with his debut feature film Festen (The Celebration, 1998), an unsettling, naturalistic drama exposing a dysfunctional upper-class Danish family with a shocking secret. Vinterberg’s first film was also the inaugural work of the Dogme 95 movement, adhering to a filmmaking manifesto he had produced…
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Cannes 2012: ‘Lawless’ preview
Those of you who have been kept awake at night wondering what had happened to John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Matt Bondurant’s historical novel The Wettest County in the World can finally rest easy, as the film – renamed Lawless (2012) – will receive its World Premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. This recent name…
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Sundance 2012: Safety Not Guaranteed review
★★★★☆ American director Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed (2012) is just the type of sweet-natured, low budget indie comedy (with an all-important intelligent heart) that has slowly become synonymous with the world-renowned Sundance Film Festival. Starring rising star Aubrey Plaza, Jake M. Johnson and US mumblecore actor/director Mark Duplass, Safety Not Guaranteed is a pitch…
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Sundance 2012: Filly Brown review
★★☆☆☆ From directors Yousser Delara and Michael D. Olmos comes Filly Brown (2012), a fictional tale of a promising Latino rapper trying to make it big in LA despite numerous domestic and professional obstacles. Starring Gina Rodriguez, Chrissie Fit and Lou ‘Diamond’ Phillips, this hip hop-infused drama sadly struggles to find its voice amongst its…
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Sundance 2012: LUV review
★★★☆☆ From debut director Sheldon Candis comes LUV (2012), and unconventional crime drama set on the mean, crab-filled streets of Baltimore. Candis largely ensures the cat-and-mouse structure typical of most gangster narratives, instead choosing to focus on the relationship between 11-year-old Woody Watson (Michael Rainey Jr.) and his entrepreneurial Uncle Vincent (played by US rapper…
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Sundance 2012: For Ellen review
★★☆☆☆ Regardless of others involved, a new film starring US indie darling Paul Dano will always be an intriguing prospect. Having broken onto the scene with fine performances in Sundance favourite Little Miss Sunshine (2006) and Paul Thomas Anderson’s towering Oscar-winner There Will Be Blood (2007), Dano has since retracted into the background with a…
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Sundance 2012: Chasing Ice review
★★★★★ Easily one of the most eagerly-anticipated films to feature in this year’s inaugural Sundance London festival programme was the National Geographic-funded documentary Chasing Ice (2012). Director Jeff Orlowski has painstakingly created a fascinating and powerful movie about climate change by presenting the audience with the globally important work of photographer James Balog and his…
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Sundance 2012: Finding North review
★★☆☆☆ Thanks to the enormous popularising influence of filmmaker Michael Moore, American ‘social issue’ documentaries can now be found in relative abundance. Taking more than a few nods from past efforts such as 2008’s Food, Inc, Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush’s oddly-titled, Civil Wars-scored Finding North (2012) seeks to highlight the hunger crisis currently sweeping…