December 2010
55 posts
Pirahna 3D: Blood and Bikinis
★★☆☆☆
A film that opens with a cameo of Richard Dryfuss sitting in a fishing boat singing “Show me the way to go home” is setting itself up to have it’s tongue planted firmly in it’s cheek and it’s brain in a jar of fermaldahyde somewhee in a dimly lit lab.
Jaws references aside Alexandre Aja’s vicious and face hurting ridiculous remake of Joe Dante’s...
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Down Terrace: Kitchen Sink Killers
★★★☆☆
Ben Wheatley’s debut film places the cliche ridden family crime film into a three bedroom Brighton home, somehow owing as much to Mike Leigh’s unscripted kitchen sink realism as it does to HBO’s The Sopranos.
Father and Son Bill (Robert Hill) and Karl (Robin Hill) are released from a short prison term and return home for a nice cuppa, a few cans of lager and a lot of...
magic8track asked: I have Paths of Glory sitting under the tree for Christmas. Have you ever seen it?
The most awesome new release from Criterion... →
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Still REALLY need to see this... Down Terrace... →
WatchTrailer For Terence Malick’s Tree of Life. My God, Yes!
WatchAranofsky’s ever beautiful sound design. A short film about Black Swan.
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Some simple tasteful poster designs for truely... →
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REVIEW: A Serbian Film
★☆☆☆☆
As far as controversy goes Srđan Spasojević’s A Serbian film has been making the Antichrists and the Irreversables of the world look like Nanny McPhee. A Serbian film received a now record holding 4.5 minutes of edits from the BBFC to pass classification. However, unlike those vividly imagined and flawlessly filmed statements of cinema, Spasojević’s instead uses an...
The Death of Cinema Poster Art?
After I’d seen John Hillcoat’s The Road earlier in the year I wandered out into the light to find myself a little dazed and drained, standing in the lobby of The Ritzy in Brixton, London, staring up at Matt Damon’s grimacing super-face. A face that sells film. Bourne but not Bourne looks over his shoulder at me, all black and white and grainy. Cluttered all around him are groups of four...
Cyrus: Battle of Little Big Face
Its an old concept… John C. Reilly plays John; a divorcee, seven years single and at the end of his tether with people and dating and life. He’s forced back to life by his ex wife (Katherine Keener) by way of a house party at which he meets the very cute and very perfect Molly (Marisa Tomei). The pair hit it off and John thinks it’s all smooth sailing until he meets...
Beautiful little nod to Arthur Penn from the BFI →
Animal Kingdom sweeps the AFI Awards... →
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Monsters: Terrible Love
★★★★☆
British visual effects whizz Gareth Edwards debut film Monsters has inexplicably manged to blend a love story, a creature feature and a road trip into one beautifully crafted, inspired exercise in guerrilla film making. Shot on a skeleton crew with only the 2 primary actors (Real life couple Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able) and local extras it is equal parts Spielberg and Herzog, a sweet...
Four Lions: Without Extreme Prejudice
Ever since Chris Morris dropped the bomb that is himself on the public his name was always going to pull in controversy. From telling unsuspecting celebrities about a new designer drug called cake to injecting the words self facilitating media node into the brain holes and out of the hoot traps of the very people he was having a go at, his comedy has always sought to force the public to look...
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Dogtooth: One of a Kind
★★★★★
Yorgos Lanthimos outstanding second feature is quietly making waves on it’s far too limited release. Pinned at a jaunty angle between the most savage Von Trier and the coldest Haneke, Dogtooth frequently out does both of their finest efforts and in doing so also manages to infuse a sense of humor so original it almost makes you forget just how strange 90 minutes in a cinema can really be.
...
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The Return: Daddy Issues
★★★★★
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s wonderful debut feature opens with a simple childhood test. A group of boys stand atop a look-out tower on stone pier against a drab Russian sky. Each one jumps, terrified, into the icy water below. The two boys left are brothers Ivan (Ivan Dobronravov) and Andrei (Vladimir Garin) and when the older finally jumps, leaving Ivan on the tower in the shivering cold, it’s...
A Single Man: A Day in the Life
Tom Ford, the Vanity Fair helming, Gucci saving, fashion designer, has delivered a fairly assured debut film. A Single Man, which looks just as sharp as Ford’s tailoring, tells a 24 hour story held up by a central and almost career defying performance from none other than Mr Darcy himself, Colin Firth.
Looking like Yves Saint Laurent and often sounding like a mid 70’s era Micheal Caine,...
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A Prophet: Audiard’s Crime Masterpiece
★★★★★
Jacques Audiards knack with the crime film has been growing steadily in force since the his debut. Each film tightening, focusing, yet becoming more and more subtly complex.
When he decided to follow up the brilliant Hitchcock influenced Read My Lips, with a remake of James Toback’s little seen Fingers, he garnered his first world wide hit. The Beat My Heart Skipped showed a knack...
The Road: Bleak and Beautiful
Some time ago, Cormac McCarthy’s post apocalyptic Pulitzer Prize winning novel really affected me (embarrassingly so) on a plane somewhere above Thailand. As I finished reading it on a long haul flight, after crying into my terrible airline food, i knew it was a book I, myself wanted immediately to make into a film.
The Road is definitely a cinematic novel. So vivid is McCarthy’s writing...
I’m Gonna Explode: Godard in Mexico
When I saw Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna’s names as producers on at the front of Gerardo Naranjo’s I’m Going to Explode I immediately got a sense of what might be in store. Young love, beautiful outcasts and a sun bleached road trip. I’m not sure what that says about the pair or the definitive themes in Mexican Cinema itself which has been blooming since the late nineties; But it sure is ...
It Might Get Loud: 3 Men & an Amplifier
Davis Guggenheim leaves the brain battering Powerpoint presentation of a documentary that was The Inconvenient Truth in the dust to make a simple film about three guitarists getting together to discuss the instrument they love.
I’m sure the thought of Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White sitting in a room together would have even the most modest player salivating on their pick guard, but does...
Synecdoche New York: The Film of 2009
Rather than hit up another top ten list of films from the last 12 months (mine would probably include The White Ribbon, A Prophet, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Milk, Fish Tank, A Serious Man and Encounters at the End of the World amongst others) I instead decided to put one egg in one basket.
Its a weird egg too so I must apologise.
You know one of those ones with two yolks in it or a smaller egg?...
The Cove: The Flip Side of Flipper
Richard O’Barry is the man who trained Flipper; The Lassie of the sea and surprisingly, in the opening moments of The Cove the man who believes that by sparking the public interest in these fascinating creatures, he is directly responsible for the way the species is treated, bought and sold today.
The Cove takes us to a small beach near Taiji, in Wakayama, Japan, which O’Barry has discovered...
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Micheal Haneke: Masterclasses in Fear
The first time I saw a Micheal Haneke film I was fourteen. Late at night I stumbled across a story, whose title I had missed, about a somewhat reclusive young boy obsessed with violent images, including his own home made video of a pig being killed on a relatives’ farm. A deconstruction of the media, it’s violent draw and the moral reactions of those who rely on it’s power unfolds as Benny ...
Terrence Malick: The Reluctant Auteur
The furious way that the beautiful free flowing style which Terrence Malick has curated over his career is talked about often disguises the fact that he has made just four features and one (some people say two), rare as hens teeth, shorts. So, after only a hand full of features in 37 years what is it about the director that has celluloid lovers chomping at the bit.
Until very recently...
Cracks: Lady of the Flies
Jordan Scott’s debut feature sends us all the way back to the 1930’s to an all girls boarding school in England and directly into the smoldering and, every so often, that every so slightly crazy stare of the girl’s favorite teacher Miss G (Eva Green). She swishes around the halls in her Hepburn-like silk trousers smoking cigarettes and filling the young ladies under her wing with stories of...
Bad Lieutenant: Herzog Rebuilds A Modern Classic
I’ve got to say, that the thought of handing over the keys of a cliche ridden traditional cop thriller to Werner Herzog and letting him drive it out of the showroom, is partly a stroke of genius and partly, or completely, totally and absolutely, insane. Not that Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film (one which Herzog claims he’s still never seen) was anything traditional of course. What’s weird with...
Thirst: Chan-wook Park’s Vampire Curveball
Chan-wook Park’s draw to the horror genre has always been apparent. The dark brutal subject matter of his films, revolving around revenge, mystery, the unattainable and ultimately themes of regret, redemption and water (which signifies trouble and death in all of Park’s Films) could almost be part Alfred Hitchcock, part Roman Polanski and part Sam Fuller. The beautifully lit and gorgeous...
Katalin Varga: Revenge, Served Very Cold.
Peter Strickland’s debut feature, made from inheritance money of £25,000 and shot in Hungary nearly 2 years ago, in a language he hardly spoke, seems, from the out set, a film which more than many independents even, could have never seen the light of day. The fact that it did is a real testament to the spirit of film making which feels like it’s becoming rarer every day. After filming the...
Rivers and Tides: Art Film
“A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it.”
-Andy Goldsworthy
Thomas Riedelsheimer’s criminally unheard of documentary on British artist Andy Goldsworthy could be, for most people, just as much a test in patience as the process of making the works of art is for the artist. The pace of any film is dictated by character and if your only character is a ...
Zombieland: Braiiiiiiiiiins...
I keep hearing the words “zombie revival” touted around the place with regards to Ruben Fleischer’s debut film. With a load of solid Zombie films made over this decade is it really that much of a revival? It’s been devastating the box office in the USA over the last few weeks and its sure to do the same in the UK.
But is the film, which walks strongly in the footsteps of Shaun of the Dead,...
The Tenant: Roman Polanski’s Little Seen Horror
★★★★★
Whether you see Roman Polanski as a dirty old man or as a masterpiece making auteur, watching him going mad, dressing in full drag and cooing “I’m pregnant!” towards the camera probably isn’t going to change your mind either way. Its terrifying and hilarious no matter which side of the fence you sit. The Tenant, the last film in a loose trilogy dealing with urban loneliness at its most...
The Story of Anvil: Right Place, Wrong Time
Whitesnake, Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeath; Monumental names on the metal Scene, influencing anyone and everyone who has ever donned leather pants, popped a tin-foil wrapped cucumber down the front, strapped on a hideous angular guitar and screamed Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!!!.
It’s odd then that one of the first faces in Sacha Gervasi’s brilliant rockumentary is iconic guitar god ...
The Girlfriend Experience : Sex, Lies and...
Steven Soderbergh has never been an easy guy to pin. His debut feature, Sex, Lies and Videotape exploded all over the world on release 1989 and it remains one of the seminal films in recent independent cinema, paving the way for a new band of film makers in the early nineties, single handedly put the then unheard of Miramax in the spotlight and hijacked the way vital low budget cinema was...
Fish Tank: Andrea Arnold’s Mesmorising Second Film
Stepping up to make the first film in Lars Von Trier’s proposed Advanced Party trilogy, Andrea Arnold delivered a powerhouse of a debut feature film in Red Road, one which the Von had to admit in his gruff monotone, “…had massive balls”. Though the other films (all to be set in Scotland, feature the same cast and to be written and directed by first time directors) are yet to be made, Arnold...
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Little Scene: The Films of Alejandro Jordorowsky
Alejandro Jordorowsky certainly is a strange and amazing fellow. It’s extremely sad though that only a small amount of people have had the chance to find out just how strange and amazing the artist’s works actually are. He has heavily influenced everyone from The Beatles to David Lynch to Sam Fuller and Bob Dylan. Despite his popularity, it has been his own film’s content which has in many...
Madness or Genius? : The New Vampire Revival
Ever since Bram Stoker went on the most successful writers retreat of all time and penned Dracula, the vampire story has molded and helped evolve not only the horror genre as we know it today but, really, film as a whole. Watching Max Schreck walk out of the shadows in 1922’s Nosferatu is still kinda unsettling and is surely an image we’ve seen as much as we have Bogart smoking, Eastwood...
Inglorious Basterds: Tarantino’s Spaggetti War...
The words “Understated” and “Quentin Tarantino” go together like peas and ice cream. The worlds most confident director and self confessed blabber mouth has hardly been quiet about his slow cooking project and I’m sure everyone already knows that his Basterds have been waiting in the wings for their que for more than 10 years.
So now that they’re here, is this Tarantino’s much whispered...
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Scarecrow: Wizards of Odd
★★★★★
When Scarecrow premiered (and won the Ex-aequo award) at Cannes in 1973 Al Pacino had was hot off The Godfather and Gene Hackman had just completed The Poseidon Adventure and had already won an Oscar for his role in The French Connection.
Popeye Doyle and Micheal Corleone face to face, two of the stars of the decade jostling for position. Pacino, buoyant, having just had Francis Ford...
