For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside – Bombay Beach
What follows is a reprint of our review of Bombay Beach from last years DocFest. The film is on theatrical release in the UK from today. An inverted look at the “American Dream”, Alma Har’el’s Bombay Beach is a beautifully constructed work, ground in emotionally resonating touches that cannot fail to effect and inspire. From the … Read more
Aloha From Hawaii – Alexander Payne’s The Descendants
Alexander Payne returns to screens for the first time since 2004’s Sideways, with a work that while cut from the same cloth, is ultimately quite the diversion for the Nebraskan filmmaker. The Descendants charts the life of Matthew King, a man coming to terms with the impending death of his wife. As he struggles to … Read more
King Of The Hill – Kenneth Lonergan’s Margaret
Kenneth Lonergan’s film, to steal another critic’s summation of a different film entirely, is very much an “intimate epic”; a relatively small story told against the backdrop of a grand canvas. Margaret is essentially the tale of a young girl’s breakdown. In the wake of a horrifying accident to which she paid witness to and … Read more
Aloha From Hawaii – Alexander Payne’s The Descendants
Alexander Payne returns to screens for the first time since 2004’s Sideways, with a work that while cut from the same cloth, is ultimately quite the diversion for the Nebraskan filmmaker. The Descendants charts the life of Matthew King, a man coming to terms with the impending death of his wife. As he struggles to … Read more
“Buck up; Never Say Die” – Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist
With The Artist French filmmaker Michel Hazanavicius has achieved the seemingly impossible; he made the mainstream press sit up and take notice of the silent cinema. While there has been a contemporary movement in silent film, thanks most notably perhaps to the work of Guy Maddin, one wouldn’t be forgiven for thinking the multiplex days … Read more
Bible Noir – A Review Of Take Shelter
Take Shelter, the follow-up to director Jeff Nichols’ semi-breakthrough 2007 Shotgun Stories, sees the filmmaker reunited with the actor Michael Shannon. Here the two combine forces once again, in a work which is significantly more ambitious than anything the pair have ever headlined before. While Shannon has led a number of films in the past, the most … Read more
Calculating The Current; Moneyball
The premise of Moneyball might not make for the most appealing sounding of evenings at the movies. Based upon a book about baseball statistics, and featuring maybe 15 minutes of field action within it’s 133 minute running time, Bennett Miller’s follow-up to the Academy Award winning Capote was always going to face an uphill battle, … Read more
Of Gods & Men & Kings & Monsters – A Review Of Tarsem’s Immortals
From a purely aesthetic perspective Tarsem Singh is something of a maverick. While his theatrical output is nothing if not occasional, when the promo director turns his hand to feature length fiction the outcomes are always of interest, if not entirely successful on every level. Tarsem’s debut feature, 2000′s Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Cell impressed from … Read more
Mangy Dogs Whimper & Rain: Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights
In following up the wonderful Fish Tank Andrea Arnold turns her attention towards Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a classic of British literature and a mammoth task if ever there was one. The source of numerous existing film adaptations on both the big screen and the small, most notably by William Wyler and Laurence Olivier in … Read more
Anti-Social (Realist) – Paddy Considine’s Tyrannosaur
Paddy Considine, one of the UK’s finest actors turns his hand to directing, with an unsettling work that is as horrifically volatile as it is tender deconstruction of the typical romanticist Hollywood love story. Tyrannosaur explores the relationship between two very different, but ultimately drawn together figures, Joseph and Hannah. Joseph is an explosive, aggressive … Read more
