Film
Graham Fuller
In his previous films, the French director Bernardo Bonello has demonstrated a non-judgemental affinity for pornographers, prostitutes, and other transgressors. In his latest, House of Tolerance (House of Pleasures in the US), his sympathy is with the languid courtesans of a doomed high-class fin-de-siècle Parisian brothel, who are united in their contempt for the wealthy, condescending men who subject them to fetishes, diseases, and violence.Early in this gloomy elegy to the organised vice of the Belle Epoque, which implies the maisons de tolérance weren’t much safer then the sordid Read more ...
fisun.guner
Diehard Sebaldians may seek to retrace the footsteps that formed the basis of WG Sebald’s meditative masterpiece The Rings of Saturn. Or they may choose to watch Grant Gee’s film tribute instead. Patience (After Sebald) takes as its fulcrum the German expatriate’s category-defying memoir-cum-history, travelogue-cum-novel – which was published in 1995 and is considered by many to be his greatest work – and it attempts to recreate the book's physical and mental landscape. An ambitious undertaking, it only partly succeeds.Excerpts from the novel are beautifully read by Jonathan Pryce (one is Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It may be glimpsed only in brief flashbacks, but Vietnam is always on the mind of Rolling Thunder (1977), one of the earlier attempts by Hollywood’s generation of indie filmmakers to confront the conflict’s impact on its citizenry. William Devane plays Major Charles Rane, who returns from the war zone hardened after years in captivity to discover that women no longer wears bras and his wife has moved on. Worse, hoodlums come to steal the cache of silver dollars ceremonially presented to him by his grateful Texan hometown. When they can’t break him into submission with violence, they kill the Read more ...
Thomas H. Green
It’s not out until 8 June but fan excitement levels are already feverish. Ridley Scott, who directed the original, groundbreaking science-fiction-horror-classic Alien back in 1979, has said that his new film Prometheus – only his third ever sci-fi outing (the other was Bladerunner) - is not part of the Alien series and won’t feature the snap-jawed xenomorph, last seen battling fellow monster franchise Predator in a series of dismal B-movies. Prometheus, however, does clearly inhabit the same universe, as the latest trailer clearly shows, with Alien designer H R Giger advising and aspects from Read more ...
emma.simmonds
“Paradise can go fuck itself”: the candid words of a disillusioned middle-aged man in director Alexander Payne’s latest road-to-redemption dramedy. He’s referring to the irritating presumption that Hawaii’s idyllic surroundings in some way shield its residents from the mire and misfortunes of life. Although there’s a smattering of such sourness in Payne’s adaptation of the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, for the most part this tale of a father reconnecting with his daughters is surprisingly sweet.In The Descendants a pleasingly shaggy George Clooney plays Matt King, a Hawaiian lawyer and Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Michael Fassbender (Shame) got blanked (maybe Hollywood was put off by his manhood?), as did We Need to Talk About Kevin’s Tilda Swinton, for my money the year’s best performance by an actress, notwithstanding the marvellous Meryl. Gary Oldman, meanwhile, is in as Best Actor for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – his first-ever Oscar nod, incredibly - whereas Leonardo DiCaprio (J. Edgar) is out.Those are just a few of the surprises unveiled at today’s announcement from Los Angeles of the nominees for the 84th annual Academy Awards; the winners will be named on 26 February. In an eclectic and Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
Best known for comedies like Chasing Amy and Mallrats, indie-land workaholic Kevin Smith has made a handbrake turn with Red State. Set in the small-town American South, it's a hectic mash-up of slasher flick, horror-fest and muscular action movie, with a caustic political twist in its tail. It's too much to pack into one short-ish (80 minutes) movie, but Red State's hectic pace, stylish visual design and provocative checklist of hair-trigger issues make it bogglingly watchable.Plot-wise, we kick off with a trio of sex-crazed teenage boys looking to get laid by any possible means. They end up Read more ...
Matt Wolf
Romance follows a recognisably rocky path, and visa issues don't help much either, in Like Crazy, a small but seriously affecting movie that is sure to hit many filmgoers where they live. An Anglo-American tale of love's vagaries that doesn't follow the expected Hollywood arc, Drake Doremus's 2011 Sundance Film Festival darling raises niggling questions on various plot details while getting the large-scale issues right. And when it's over, you may experience something resembling a dying fall, as if in sync with a story about how tough it is to sustain the intensity of the kind of love whose Read more ...