Film Reviews

The Queen of Spades

Sheila Johnston Saturday, 26 December 2009

Family been bickering over games again this Christmas? Take the blighters to this fabulous supernatural melodrama and they'll learn soon enough what happens to a dirty card cheat. Long unavailable, Thorold Dickinson's 1949 adaptation of Alexander Pushkin's eerie short story, wherein a penniless Russian officer and crusty beldame sell their souls for the secret of winning at a simple game of chance,...

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Nowhere Boy

Adam Sweeting Thursday, 24 December 2009

It’s been a very good year for Beatlemania, with all the albums re-repackaged and the group going virtual in Rock Band. The BBC lobbed in their own Beatles season-ette, and one of the more striking images from their riot of documentary footage was of John Lennon escorting his Aunt Mimi up the steps onto the plane taking them to America, with her handbag and Sunday-best hat.

Sherlock Holmes

Adam Sweeting Sunday, 20 December 2009

If James Bond could survive Roger Moore and George Lazenby, there must be grounds for optimism that Sherlock Holmes will eventually recover from this brutal mauling by Robert Downey Jr, under the gaudy directorial eye of Guy Ritchie. Holmesophiles are a doughty bunch, and will probably just carry on watching Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett as if Mr Madonna never happened.

Avatar

Jasper Rees Sunday, 20 December 2009

There is a sequence in which a monstrous tree of otherworldly dimensions, its boughs as sturdy as oaks, its twigs as vigorous as saplings, crashes spectacularly to earth in roaring, creaking, shattering, time-expanding slo-mo. In a film that’s full of them, this is very much the premier-cru money shot. Remember the last time the director, deploying the computer-generated forces of a sound-stage deity, downed another very large object? Back then it was a boat.

St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold

Veronica Lee Thursday, 17 December 2009

This film was never going to be nominated for any awards, but then it probably doesn’t need critical acclaim - the first reworking of the glorious 1950s Ealing Studios comedies (which were based on Ronald Searle’s cartoons), released in 2007, was the third-highest grossing independent UK film ever. St Trinian’s 2 is more of the same: loud, silly and rollicking good fun.

Humpday

Sheila Johnston Thursday, 17 December 2009

Sixteen years ago, Tom Hanks was in Seattle, pining sleeplessly for Meg Ryan. In 2009, though, romantic comedy has a rather different complexion and, in another corner of the Space Needle city, two best buddies flirt with a gay affair, even though both of them protest, just a little too much, that they are straight.

Nine

Matt Wolf Wednesday, 16 December 2009

A funny thing happened to the movie musical of late: a genre thought to be moribund learned once again to sing, even if - as so often happens in education - there have been some truants along the way. In recent years, we've had Chicago and Hairspray, The Producers and Sweeney Todd, all of them adapted from Broadway shows familiar to UK playgoers as well. Now, along comes the riskiest of them all, Rob Marshall's Nine.

The Limits of Control

Sheila Johnston Wednesday, 09 December 2009

When the director Jim Jarmusch speaks of his new film, the discourse is jam-packed with cultural namechecks. One minute it's Rimbaud's Le Bateau Ivre, the next we're on to William S Burroughs, or Antonioni, or John Boorman's Point Blank. Joe Strummer is in the mix there too, and Jacques Rivette, and Boris, Sunn O))) and petenera flamenco and... well, you get the drift.

Unmade Beds

Ryan Gilbey Wednesday, 09 December 2009

Of all the film genres to flourish in recent times, mumblecore is both the most ethereal and, to date, the least profitable. But unlike, say, torture-porn or mockumentary, it has some distance to go before it outstays its welcome. For the uninitiated, mumblecore is essentially an offshoot of the rom-com, but instead of Kate Hudson, Sandra Bullock and/or Matthew McConaughey, you get an infinitely preferable...

Mascarades, Ciné Lumière

Sheila Johnston Monday, 07 December 2009

Wedding breakdown: Mascarades, the feature debut of the Algerian film-maker Lyes Salem

It begins with a touch of brio: a sinuous, swirling tracking shot plunges deep into the daily chaos of a market place in a remote Algerian desert village. Signs are hoisted aloft and askew, mobile phones noisily bickered over, clapped-out bangers pushed out of the way. Eventually, the camera pauses on three old men as they, as one, clasp their handkerchiefs to their noses: a honking wedding cortege is about to roar past in a miniature dust-storm to set the seal on the mayhem.

Where the Wild Things Are

Graham Fuller Saturday, 05 December 2009

Beware the ids of kids: Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's film of Maurice Sendak's seminal children's picture book, centres on a hyperactive nine-year-old boy, Max (Max Records), who’s so angered and frustrated by the reverses of a winter's day that he destroys a keepsake he gave his adolescent sister and ends up biting his single mother (Catherine Keener) while she’s entertaining her boyfriend at home.

Candy Gothic: Tim Burton, MoMA, New York

Graham Fuller Friday, 04 December 2009

Though he has yet to make a perfect film, the director Tim Burton’s choice of Gothic and fantasy subjects and his deadpan, post-expressionist approach to them rightfully designate him an auteur of considerable genius. His 14 movies to date have earned him a cohesive retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

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The Merry Gentleman

Sheila Johnston Thursday, 03 December 2009

Lost souls: Michael Keaton and Kelly Macdonald find salvation, of sorts

It has hardly been a vintage year for Christmas movies so far (click here and here to read our respective reviews of Nativity! and A Christmas Carol). But Michael Keaton's absorbing first film as director, in which he also stars, finally nails the true spirit of the festive season: it is about a suicidal hitman....

The Posters Came From The Walls, Clapham Picture House

joe Muggs Tuesday, 01 December 2009

German Depeche Mode fan in video re-enactment costume

In a pirate television (pirate television!) broadcast from 1992, a large group of Russian youths in flat top haircuts and leather jackets discuss Depeche Mode's appeal. “It's romantic style,” suggests one with absolute assurance, “it's music for the lonely.” It is just one touching, funny moment in a film packed with them, but it also sums up what The Posters Came From The Walls is...

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The Box

Anne Billson Monday, 30 November 2009

Looks can be deceiving. The first thing you should know is that Richard Kelly's third film isn't really about the box at all. It's more about what's inside, which is a big red button. The place is suburban Virginia and the time is 1976, for no reason I can fathom other than this was the heyday of the paranoid conspiracy thriller and Kelly fancied giving us the heebie-jeebies with some truly terrifying 1970s wallpaper.

The Girlfriend Experience

Sheila Johnston Monday, 30 November 2009

The porn star Sasha Grey - turned mainstream actress in Steven Soderbergh's new film - is a bit better looking than the schlubby, chubby hero of The Informant!, also directed by Soderbergh and released just two weeks ago (click here for our review). More attractive also than the unkempt and ultra-hirsute Che Guevara in SS's epic diptych about the Cuban revolutionary.