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DVD Releases: ‘The Thorn in the Heart’
Have you ever made a film about your Aunt Suzette? Michel Gondry has. Why should you care? Maybe you don’t like watching other people’s home movies. Maybe you don’t even have an Aunt Suzette. Watching Gondry’s autobiographical documentary The Thorn in the Heart (2009) isn’t likely to change either of those very much.It’s a project about…
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DVD Review: ‘The Stoning of Soraya M.’
★★★★☆ Just so you know right off the bat, The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008) is not an Iranian version of Cheech & Chong’s Up in Smoke (1978), but if you occasionally enjoy the taste of a herbal cigarette and you are thinking of buying or renting this film, I recommend you procure yourself some…
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DVD Review: ‘The Social Network’
★★★★☆ Fresh from its recent BAFTA success comes the DVD release of David Fincher’s highly acclaimed ‘Facebook flick’, The Social Network (2010). The story is simple: Mark Zuckerberg (Jessie Eisenberg) is a geeky computer genius who is dumped by his girlfriend due to his rampant egomania and lack of emotion. He returns to his Harvard…
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Baftas 2011: Firth and ‘The King’s Speech’ reign supreme
The eagerly-anticipated 64th British Academy Film Awards took place earlier this evening, with Tom Hooper’s royal epic The King’s Speech winning exactly half of the awards it was nominated for with a grand haul of eleven BAFTAs. Though surprises were few and far between, this year’s lineup was undoubtedly strong in comparison to past years, and bodes well…
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Film Review: ‘True Grit’ (2010)
★★★★☆ American writer Charles Portis’ 1968 revisionist Western novel True Grit is an incredibly tight, well paced and highly cinematic thriller, so it came as little surprise when the text was originally adapted for the silver screen by director Henry Hathaway in 1969, just a year after the book was first published.Featuring John Wayne in…
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Interview: Mark Henderson, ‘My Kidnapper’
In My Kidnapper (2010), three members of a group of eight backpackers who spent 102 days in captivity after being kidnapped in Columbia in 2003 return to the country to confront the men and women who detained them, in an attempt to finally put the most distressing experience of their lives behind them. The film plays out…
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Film Review: ‘Son of Babylon’
★★★★★ Son of Babylon (2009) is set in 2003, in the immediate aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s fall, and tells the story of a Kurdish grandmother and the search for her son, Ibrahim, a soldier missing since the Gulf War in 1991. A letter from a fellow soldier informs her that he had been arrested and…
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Special Feature: Korean Blogathon 2011
Inspired by the ‘Japanese Blogathon’ run by the WildGrounds website for the last two years, fellow bloggers New Korean Cinema and cineAWESOME! have decided to steal been inspired by the idea and are joining forces to create our own ‘Korean Blogathon’ in the hope that we can encourage you – yes, you! – to share…
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Special Feature: Sir Christopher Lee to receive Bafta fellowship
On Sunday 13 February the British Academy of Film and Television Arts will present Sir Christopher Lee with the ‘Academy Fellowship’ at the Orange Baftas ceremony at London’s Royal Opera House. Awarded annually by the Academy, the Fellowship is the highest accolade bestowed upon an individual in recognition of an outstanding and exceptional contribution to film.…
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Barbican Film: ‘Berlin, Symphony of a City’ & ‘Manhatta’
On Sunday 6 February, fans of silent cinema were treated to the first event of the Barbican Centre’s ‘City Symphonies‘ series. Berlin, Symphony of a City (1927) and Manhatta (1921) both played to a packed out audience, who were no doubt drawn by the opportunity to see these gems on 35mm film and with live musical accompaniment…
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