Reviews
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Film Review: ‘My Afternoons with Marguerite’
★★★★☆ With a graceful tone to match his existing body of work, director Jean Becker unveils his latest, My Afternoons with Marguerite (2010), a charming and serene film that explores an indispensable relationship between two unlikely French citizens.Gérard Depardieu stars as Germain, an unprivileged, illiterate handyman who spends his days defacing public monuments and counting pigeons…
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Film Review: ‘We Are What We Are’
★★☆☆☆ Riding in upon an impressive swell of industry hype, mainly garnered from screenings at this year’s Cannes and New York Film Festivals, comes Mexican horror We Are What We Are (2010) from first time director Jorge Michel Grau.Grau is the latest film maker to emerge from Mexico City’s prestigious film school, the Centro de…
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Theatrical Releases: ‘Red’
Action movies are a young man’s game. Or they used to be, before Sylvester Stallone resurrected the hard-man genre this summer with his team of middle-aged action heroes in The Expendables (2010).Now there’s a fourth Mission: Impossible on the way with Tom Cruise still firmly strapped into the lead role, and even Tony Scott has…
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DVD Releases: ‘The Concert’
Providing a fresh take on the underdog story, Radu Mihaileanu’s The Concert (2009) tells the tale of one musician’s determination to conduct Tchaikovsky’s Concerto, a feat that was interrupted mercilessly thirty years before. Falling from grace after being stopped short mid-performance due to his affiliation with Jews in communist Russia, famed conductor Andrei Filipov (Aleksey…
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LFF 2010: ‘The First Grader’ review
★★☆☆☆ Appearing very much at the tail-end of this year’s BFI London Film Festival, The First Grader (2010) has been somewhat underplayed among its brother and sister entries this year. Following his feature debut The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), director Justin Chadwick fast forwards to the 21st century for his latest film, which retells the life…
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Film Review: ‘Due Date’
★★☆☆☆ When it came to co-writing his latest comedy, Due Date (2010), The Hangover (2009) director Todd Phillips took more than a few leaves out of Planes, Trains & Automobiles’ (1987) unblemished book. Perhaps Due Date is a loving homage to that John Hughes classic (which also happens to be one of my favourite films),…
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Film Review: ‘Let Me In’
★★★☆☆ Predictably, there was an almost universal outcry of both lamentation and disgust when an American-based, English language remake of Swedish vampire masterpiece Let the Right One In (2008) – retitled Let Me In (2010) – was announced last year.Even the dual association of Cloverfield (2008) director Matt Reeves and British horror institute Hammer with…
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Theatrical Releases: ‘Another Year’
Disappointment and regret loom large in Mike Leigh’s latest film, Another Year (2010). From the opening shots of Janet’s (Imelda Staunton) pained expression as she desperately tries to recall a happy moment from her past, you know Leigh will be revisiting familiar territory.As with Leigh’s previous efforts, Another Year once again serves as a showcase for the…
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Zipangu Fest 2010: ‘Annyong Kimchi’
★★★☆☆ Self-discovery can take many forms and shapes, but in Tetsuaki Matsue’s case, it’s a 16mm independent autobiographical documentary. Annyong Kimchi (1999) (literally Hello Kimchi) is the Korean-Japanese director’s graduation project, a representative work for the very prolific ‘jishu eiga’ (independent film) movement, and will screen at this year’s Zipangu Fest, taking place in London from…
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LFF 2010: ‘Never Let Me Go’ review
★★★★☆ When Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go was first published in 2005, it found itself shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Arthur C Clark Award and also the National Book Critics Circle Award. TIME Magazine named it the best novel of 2005 and also placed in the TIME 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to…
