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Film reviews archive(500) Days of Summer
As Jean-Luc Godard famously observed, “Every film should have a beginning, a middle and an end – but not necessarily in that order.” This is a love story – or not, depending on who you believe and where you check out. The excellent Joseph Gordon-Levitt is Tom, who writes greeting cards for a living. Adorable Zooey... District 9
Almost a great movie, Neil Blomkamp’s first feature has a great premise; vivid, witty design; and a story that dumbs down the longer it goes on. District 9 is the worst shantytown in Johannesburg – which is saying something. It’s literally a no-man’s land. This is where they put the aliens they pulled out of the giant... Funny People
Heard the one about the stand up comic dying of leukemia? No? It killed. Okay, so that’s not too funny, but despite the risky title, the more serious subject matter and a running time that would accommodate three Woody Allen gems back in the day, Judd Apatow’s latest is consistently amusing. And for that we should be grateful. On... The Hurt Locker
“Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag,” the Tommies used to sing when they marched off to the trenches during the Great War. “And smile, smile, smile!” The hurt locker is where the US soldiers in Iraq pack up their troubles – a private space which no one else can see. Sneak a peek into staff sergeant William... Afterschool
A long way from the John Hughes school of teen tribulation, Antonio Campos’ arty independent film is set in an elite East Coast preparatory school for the scion of wealthy patrons. The kids here are groomed for the Ivy League. They will be doctors, lawyers, and Wall Street moves and shakers. First, though, they need an education in a safe,... I Love You, Beth Cooper
You want to see how influential John Hughes was? See I Love You, Beth Cooper. It’s an idea he might have come up with himself. The school valedictorian – a class A geek – gets up to address his peers and their parents at graduation, and he recklessly declares his love for the prettiest girl in school. She, of course, barely even Inglourious Basterds
A Tarantino film is always a notable event, even when (as with his last, Death Proof) it turns out to be a non-event for most people. I mean, at least it was a spectacular non-event. So far, the reactions to Inglourious Basterds, his atrociously-spelled WWII epic, have run from hot approbation (especially from the American press in Cannes) to... Bandslam
There’s been a glut of carefree, high school song and dance flicks recently, all of them taking their cue from the unexpected success of High School Musical. While HSM star Vanessa Hudgens is front and centre in Bandslam; this is not your average copycat teen-pleaser, yet it never quite figures out what it wants to be. The film starts with... A Perfect Getaway
What do we really know about the folks we meet on holiday – and why doesn’t that stop us from spilling our own secrets? Those are the questions percolating through this semi-inventive variation on a Deliverance style thriller. A honeymooning couple go hiking down a remote but beautiful Hawaiian coastal trail. Cliff is a screenwriter (S Sin Nombre
Emigrating to the US legally is hard enough, as the recent Angelino drama Crossing Over was at pains to illustrate. Illegally, it’s twice as tough. And if that makes you wonder why so many people risk their lives to do so, Sin Nombre offers a few clues. Produced by Gael Garcia Bernal, no less, this bleakly compelling movie tells parallel... The Time Traveler's Wife
This must be a metaphor for something, surely? I haven’t read Audrey Niffenegger’s best-selling novel and after seeing this silly, banal movie I very much doubt I’ll be seeking it out, but the book clearly speaks to some people, and maybe the film will too. There is a situation, not a plot: Clare (Rachel McAdams) is hopelessly... G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
If you brand it, they will come. Toy manufacturer Hasbro follows up Transformers 1 & 2 with the granddaddy of action figures, G.I. Joe. Joe – renamed “Action Man” in Britain, for obvious reasons – made his toy shop debut back in 1964, which makes him a veteran in department store circles, though he’ll always be... Imagine That
Twenty years ago who could have imagined that Eddie Murphy – the potty-mouthed, “raw” comedian who electrified in 48 Hrs and Beverly Hills Cop – would reinvent himself as a specialist in family entertainment with a fan base barely out of kindergarten? Unthinkable! Unless they had a ‘Goo-gaa’, a blanket that... August
George W is newly President. Ben Affleck is entering rehab. And the dotcom bubble has well and truly burst leaving a big red hole where billion dollar speculators used to dream. For Tom and Joshua Sterling (Josh Hartnett and Adam Scott) the timing sucks. One month they’re riding high, worth many millions of paper money on the back of Josh The Ugly Truth
Here’s a litmus test for young lovers. If you believe that men are more interested in sports than fine dining (particularly if it’s mud wrestling)… that they’re more likely to be interested in you if you’re not interested in them… and that a short relationship is the only honest relationship, then you’re... G Force
What does it take to beat Harry Potter? Animatronic 3-D guinea pigs kitted out like a high-tech spy squad, that’s what. Such is the genius of G-Force, the latest conceit from uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer – he of Pirates of the Caribbean fame. Not that the movie will do Potterish business in the long term, but it has toppled Harry... Crossing Over
“Jesus Christ, Brogan! Everything’s a goddamn humanitarian crisis with you!” No wonder Harrison Ford looks grim. His coworkers in the immigration department thinks he’s a wuss for the compassion he shows to the illegals, then he feels guilty for deporting a pretty young mother (Alice Braga) who has begged him to look out... The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
Tony Scott puts Denzel Washington and John Travolta through their paces in this big-ticket upgrade on a 70s underground classic. (That’s underground as in subway, not Andy Warhol territory, by the way.) Ostensibly based on John Godey’s novel, not Peter Stone’s screenplay for the 1974 film, this adaptation represents an evolution, Land of the Lost
It may take a swallow to make a summer, but the season is never complete without a turkey or two. This year that would be Land of the Lost, a big screen adventure based on a tacky but unpretentious Saturday morning TV show that probably cost about six bucks to make back in the 1970s. Today, of course, Hollywood realises the true value of... Once Upon a Time in the West
Nobody could make something out of nothing the way that Sergio Leone could. Just look at the first ten minutes of Once Upon a Time in the West: a fistful of tough hombres in ankle-length dusters are waiting for a train at a railway depot out in the middle of nowhere. Their faces are familiar yet strange: Woody Strode and Jack Elam are veteran... The Proposal
A middling romantic comedy given a boost by two stars who click, The Proposal isn’t a must-see, but it’s a good time – a fair proposition in anyone’s book. Sandra Bullock is Margaret Tate, successful editor in chief at a big New York publishing firm, and a dragon lady feared and reviled by the staff who work under her. Her Antichrist
The most controversial film of the year? Hard to imagine anything else coming close. Danish bad-boy Lars von Trier emerges briefly from the chronic depression that threatened to end his career and gives himself – and us – an audacious dose of shock therapy. After suffering a family tragedy in the gorgeous, slo-mo opening sequence (lens Moon
His time is nearly up. Sam Bell has been faithfully monitoring the Lunar energy harvesting systems on Selene for three years now, and he’s more than ready to return home to his wife and child on Earth. It’s been a long haul, and the isolation is getting to him. The company’s direct video link has been down for months now, so the Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Bellatrix Lestrange. Narcissa Malfoy. Romilda Vane. Jo Rowling certainly has a knack for names (including her own pseudonym – the “K” is pure affectation). Persecuted by such alarmingly exotic creatures, it’s no wonder the scrupulously mundane Harry Potter keeps his nose in his books and leaves the lovey-dovey stuff to his Frozen River
A compelling and original story fashioned from the fabric of social realism, Courtney Hunt’s film is a penetrating character study with a heavyweight central performance. Ray (Melissa Leo) is trying to keep it together, working as many hours as she can get at the local grocery store, trying to get ahead on the mortgage payments to get her... Bruno
Borat was always going to be a tough act to follow, and Sacha Baron Cohen’s second all-out assault on decency and decorum feels a little anti-climactic, even if there are still half a dozen sequences you’ll be talking about the next day. I suspect you already know Brüno is a flamboyantly homosexual Viennese fashionista who high-tails... Fired Up
Okay, maybe three out of five is a generous score for a crude teen sex comedy that thinks “F.U.” stands for funny – I should probably warn you it scores 3.1 out of ten on the aggregator site metacritic.com and 27 % on Rotten Tomatoes, so maybe my standards are way out of line. Put it down to low expectations and the mild shock... Cloud 9
Infidelity is always popular at the movies. From Double Indemnity through to Revolutionary Road, playing away is reliably pregnant with drama. It’s been done so often, though, in farce, in soap operas and tragedies, you wonder if there is anything new to say on the subject. This German drama does come up with a new wrinkle or two. Inge (Ursu Public Enemies
Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard) isn’t used to swanky restaurants. A hat-check girl, she’s self-conscious about her cheap dress. “Everyone’s looking at me,” she says. “That’s because they’re all about where you come from; not where we’re going,” returns her date, a gallant John... My Sister's Keeper
A tearjerker about an eleven-year-old girl, Anna (Abigail Breslin) suing her parents for emancipation of her body so that she can’t be made to donate her kidney to her cancer-ridden older sister… This is not the kind of movie I would normally pay to see, I have to admit. That said, in some respects this family melodrama did exceed my... Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Fox Animation may be languishing well behind Dreamworks, Aardman, Disney and Pixar as far as brand recognition goes, but the popular Ice Age franchise and last year’s hit Horton Hears a Who! suggests that the studio is doing something right. Subtitled “Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (nonsensically: it’s set after their supposed... Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
News that the BBFC is now classifying films with an eye for discrimination and prejudice, as well as the long-established parameters of sex and violence, is intriguing and welcome, on one level, perplexing and worrying on another. The new rules seem designed to look at a broader social picture, taking in the context and import behind cinematic... Rudo y Cursi
Carlos Cuaron has written and directed half a dozen movies in his own right, so it must be a bit galling that outside Mexico he’s really only known as the kid brother of Alfonso (Children of Men; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). The siblings collaborated on the script for Y Tu Mama Tambien, which Alfonso directed, and which made... Year One
It’s back to basics for Jack Black – though come to think of it, I’m not sure he ever put the basics behind him. The first thing he does here is throw a spear into the back of a fellow hunter, claim innocence, then blame the victim for “blocking his shot”. By now it’s clear that Year One has no pretensions... Katyn
Over a long and distinguished career Andrzej Wajda has repeatedly forged powerful cinema from political upheaval. A resistance fighter during WWII, he burst onto the international filmmaking scene with three great war films, A Generation (1955), Kanal (1957) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958). Each bore the imprint of raw lived experience, a quality... Sunshine Cleaning
The trick is in the casting, director John Huston used to say. But he neglected to add that timing is everything. New Zealander Christine Jeffs (Sylvia) certainly hit lucky with her two leads here. Both were promising up and comers two and a half years ago when they signed up for this independently financed, mid-budget comedy drama, but Amy Adams Red Cliff
A mere slip of an epic at 146 minutes (you think I’m kidding, but I watched the original two-part, five-hour Asian-market version), John Woo’s first Chinese film in nearly two decades is both a triumphant homecoming and too much of a good thing. When Woo went to Hollywood in the run up to the handover of Hong Kong in the early 90s he... Looking For Eric
Right, so, first things first: Eric Cantona is actually IN this film – it’s not just footie footage, or some clever CGI jiggery-pokery to make it look like he was there. I rather doubt that director Ken Loach has much truck with all that computerised mucking about anyway. Because this is very definitely a Ken Loach film. There’s The Hangover
Let’s begin at the end: the credits sequence is the funniest, and the most outrageous finale in ages. I’ve rarely seen an audience sent out on quite such a high. It’s such a spectacular coup, it puts a flattering gloss on a surprisingly ingenious but nevertheless uneven black comedy. This is the third movie in six months... Sugar
For a young man growing up in the shanty towns of Dominica, two career opportunities seem the likeliest prospects when it comes to finding work to support the family he soon hopes to have… selling mobile phones is one. Playing baseball is the other. No prizes for guessing which career path 19-year-old Miguel Santos (Algenis Perez Soto) opts Last Chance Harvey
Harvey Shine (Dustin Hoffman) is a composer… a composer of jingles. That is, he used to be – as the movie begins he’s been shown the door, he just refuses to go through it. Go he must, though, to attend his daughter’s wedding in London. Harvey’s wife has remarried and it’s clear he wasn’t around as much... Terminator Salvation
It was only a matter of time before the Terminator series went back to the future. We’ve seen snatches of the post-apocalyptic conflict between men and machines in the previous films, but only snatches. There was some forlorn hope that the worst could be avoided. On this fourth outing, we’re firmly in the future tense, in not so sunny Drag Me To Hell
After too long in the blockbuster business – taking great responsibility for the Spider-Man trilogy – Sam Raimi returns to what he does best: which is being very, very bad. Evil Dead fans are going to flip for this. It’s a mean little shocker and as funny as hell. In her best role since Matchstick Men, Alison Lohman is Christine, Sleep Furiously
One of the best British films I’ve seen in the last 12 months, Gideon Koppel’s Sleep Furiously is a portrait of a rural way of life largely ignored by the media. According to Koppel the feeling is mutual: the farmers and villagers who populate Trefeurig, Wales, don’t pay much heed to all that big city brouhaha. London might as... Obsessed
British actor Idris Elba is probably best known for playing the entrepreneurial drug kingpin Stringer Bell in The Wire. He’s a tall, good looking, very centred actor, who gives the impression that he’s always in control. In Obsessed he plays – ahem – Derek, a businessman whose investment firm is flourishing, and who seems... Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
You can’t argue with the talent onboard this sequel to the 2005 family film hit. Ben Stiller is, of course, back as museum security guard Larry Daley; Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as his diminutive buddies, the cowboy Jebediah Smith and the Roman Centurian Octavius; Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt (twice, actually); Hank Azaria as the... Pierrot Le Fou
“Film is a battlefield. Love, hate, action, violence, death – in a word: Emotions” – Sam Fuller in Pierrot le Fou If you haven’t made the acquaintance of Jean Luc Godard yet, this might be the best place to start. One of the touchstones of art cinema, Godard is among the most influential filmmakers of the medium,... Blind Loves
“What super power would you have?” someone asks Zuzana in an internet chatroom. “To be invisible,” she replies. “To walk through walls and to read peoples minds…” We get a taste of these wondrous gifts ourselves, courtesy of this beguiling and whimsical observational film by Slovak music video director... Synecdoche, New York
Well, you can’t accuse Charlie Kaufman of dumbing down for his directorial debut. The cult screenwriter has created a string of singular, post-modern philosophical comedies for Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich; Adaptation), George Clooney (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), but heR Angels and Demons
Catholics can relax. The sequel to The Da Vinci Code does not replay the previous film’s all-out assault on the Church and its central tenets. On the contrary, in this yarn, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is recast as the unlikely saviour of the Holy See. More polished but daffy as a duck, the new film begins a year or so after Langdon&# Coraline
Enter the Pink Palace at your own risk. Coraline’s new home out in the country is a faded old mansion with several permanent boarders and nothing much around it but countryside. It’s a place that encourages a hyper-active imagination, not least because there’s so little else to do, but daydream. Trouble is, those daydreams can... Star Trek
Wow! JJ Abrams just kick-started the summer movie season with a smart, thrilling blockbuster that exceeds all reasonable expectations. My first impression: this is the best Star Trek movie ever. Like Abrams, I wouldn’t call myself a Trekkie (let alone a “Trekker”). I liked the original show, found the subsequent movies hit-and-mi X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Actors call it “back-story”: all the stuff that happened in the past, before the movie begins… Stuff that might explain how the character became what he or she is today. It’s obvious why that might be fascinating to the actor playing the role (star Hugh Jackman has a producer credit here). But as for the rest of us, well,... Is Anybody There?
Although he’s sticking with the kids (at least on the face of it) this sentimental comedy drama is a change of pace for director John Crowley after his award-winning and rather tougher Boy A. Edward (Bill Milner) is ten years old, living in a not very attractive but quite typical seaside town, in a large house with mum (Anne-Marie Duff),... Hannah Montana: The Movie
I went into a corner shop today, one of those out of the way places that always seem to be empty. And there beside the till I noticed a teen magazine with Britney Spears on the cover. She looked young and fresh-faced in a way we haven’t seen in a long time, but the mag itself was faded by the sunlight. Then I noticed the date on the cover:... Observe and Report
Observe and report: that’s no way for a man to make a living. (Critic clears throat here.) Well, not if what you’re observing is shoppers, shopping. Consumers consuming. In a mall. What kind of hell is that? Hell enough to send Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) over the edge. Ronnie is a bit like Paul Blart: Mall Cop, Kevin James’... Encounters at the End of the World
Christopher McCandless – Emile Hirsch’s character in Into the Wild – would have felt right at home among the philosopher-outsiders Werner Herzog finds in Antarctica in his latest slice of ruminative non-fiction, Encounters at the End of the World. So too might Timothy Treadwell, the doomed bear-loving anti-hero of Herzog’s State of Play
If you’re going to remake something, remake something that didn’t work, and fix it. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of what the French critic and filmmaker Francois Truffaut observed. (And no, he didn’t remake any movies in his career, although he adapted numerous novels.) The filmmakers had a job on their... I Love You, Man
Clever title. See, it’s a movie about male bonding, about how platonic male friendships compare and sometimes compete with sexual male-female relationships. That doesn’t sound very original, I know, after The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Wedding Crashers and Role Models and all the rest. But there’s a twist. Peter... Fast and Furious
How fast and furious is Fast and Furious? Too fast and furious to waste time quantifying, that’s for sure. If we’re keeping count, this would be MKIV, though it’s the first sequel to recall the stars of the original 2001 hit, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez (Paul Walker made it to 2 Fast 2 Furious). Sadly,... Race to Witch Mountain
Back in 1975, when Disney made the first movie version of Alexander Key’s novel Escape to Witch Mountain, psychic siblings Tony and Tia didn’t know much about where their special powers came from, they were abducted by an evil millionaire (Ray Milland) and aided by a grumpy old man driving a caravan (Eddie Albert). A third of a... Let the Right One In
Film of the year so far! Imagine, say, My Life as a Dog, Ratcatcher, or even 400 Blows, one of those bittersweet portraits of lonely children bumping up against the hard knocks of parental neglect, abuse and poverty. Cross that kind of acute honesty and naturalism with an edgy near-the-knuckle horror movie – Near Dark, for instance, or... Monsters vs Aliens
Watch out! Another bloated, over-produced, high-concept monstrosity has escaped from the labs at Dreamworks Animation, and it’s out to devour your kids. But don’t be too alarmed. Monsters vs Aliens is fairly harmless – a toothless satire with a kneejerk female empowerment message and a sorry excuse for a plot. Bubblegum feminist Religulous
"Politically Incorrect" US TV comedian Bill Maher preaches to the unconverted in his first feature documentary, a collaboration with Borat director Larry Charles. Maher describes himself as an agnostic who was raised half Catholic, half Jewish. No two ways about it, as a rational being he considers religion a sop to the feeble-minded and a danger Two Lovers
This is a masterly film. Very simple, very direct and sincere, a movie that is simply about love, perhaps the most difficult subject any filmmaker can address. Joaquin Phoenix plays Leonard Kraditor. In the movie’s first images, we see him trudging home over a foot-bridge across the bay. He has dry cleaning in his hands. The bag carries the The Haunting in Connecticut
Based on "the" true story (so much more definitive than “a” true story, don’t you think?), The Haunting in Connecticut is cursed from the very start by associating scares with the US equivalent of Surrey. (Ironically the movie was shot hundreds of miles away in Manitoba.) If you somehow missed the 2002 Discovery Channel... Knowing
A cut above the crud that Nic Cage has been perpetrating on a regular basis lately, Knowing is a strenuously doomy sci-fi thriller that takes itself more seriously than something like Next, despite certain similarities in the story department. Cage’s MIT professor John Koestler is intrigued, at first, then dismayed, when he examines the... Traitor
Conceived in the aftermath of 9/11 by Steve Martin (yes, that one) and director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Traitor proved too topical for comfort and took six years to get made – and another to cross the Atlantic. The lull probably isn’t to the film’s advantage, especially as bigger budget items like Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies... Duplicity
Save for cameo roles in Ocean's Twelve and Charlie Wilson's War, it’s been five years since Julia Roberts appeared on screen – a long absence for our top female movie star. Probably the best thing about Duplicity (and it’s full of good things) is that this clever caper reminds us why she is such a big draw. The thing about... Il Divo
“The divine one”? Giulio Andreotti wasn’t a saint, a singer or a football star, but arguably the most important politician in post-WWII Italy. If he could be considered divine, that would be more of a reflection on his longevity at the top than his merit or sanctity. Andreotti was Prime Minister seven times and a government... Bottle Shock
The success of Sideways guaranteed more rom-coms for oenophiles, and this bland but inoffensive plonk is the result. Set in Napa Valley, California in the mid 70s, before it became synonymous with smooth and mellow reds, the movie concocts a phony semi-historical story about a stern, stubborn vintner and his lackadaisical son. This in the run up... Paul Blart: Mall Cop
Talk about boffo! The media hasn’t quite figured out how big a star Kevin James is, but the American public is in no doubt. His sitcom The King of Queens has been a fixture at the top of the ratings for most of the last decade. His first movie vehicle was I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry with Adam Sandler. Most critics hated it, but it... Marley and Me
Call it a pet project: a movie of the book of the newspaper column about the journalist’s difficult dog. The book was a best-seller in mutt-crazy USA and the movie features Owen Wilson as John, Jennifer Aniston as Jennifer, with Woodson, Jonah and Clyde as Marley, not necessarily in that order. It begins with John and Jennifer moving to the Watchmen
Don’t believe the hype! “Visionary” director Zack Snyder, as the marketing would have it, has filmed Alan Moore’s “unfilmable” graphic novel by treating the comic book panels as his storyboard and his bible. Doesn’t it bother anyone that this is about as far from the definition of “visionary”... Wendy and Lucy
Maybe the best American film not to get any Oscar credit this year, Kelly Reichardt’s follow-up to Old Joy is a simple, poignant movie that will resonate as tough economic times cut deeper. It’s not what you would call a starry performance, but Michelle Williams is superb as Wendy, a young woman driving up to Alaska in search of work. Flame and Citron
Or "Flammen and Citronen", as the Danes would have it. Now, this is a true story, but you would think that the resistance would have more imagination, and indeed more sense, than to give their top assassin the codename "Flame" when his most striking physical feature is his blazing red hair. Despite making it to the top of the Germans' most wanted The International
Clive Owen and Naomi Watts get heavy on rogue banks. It’s a lot sexier than Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, especially as Clive’s brand of punishment means jail terms and broken noses, not bail-outs and bonus caps. The International is hardly the first film to make arrogant capitalists the heavies, but the timing could hardly be... The Unborn
Casey (Odette Yustman) is out jogging when she spots a discarded glove in the path. On further investigation, this would seem to belong to a seriously creepy undead child with big blue eyes, or maybe it’s connected to that nasty masked dog? So what does she do but go digging in the woods nearby… Then she wakes up. Spooky dream... New in Town
There’s nothing new about New in Town, unless you consider it a new low for Renée Zellweger. As in Leatherheads, she’s shooting for a golden oldie screwball romantic comedy vibe – and missing. She’s Lucy Hill, a corporate executive on the fast track to success in Florida, the Sunshine State. Her sexist colleagues pack her... The Class
So real you might mistake it for a documentary, this portrait of a class of inner-city Parisian adolescents and their hard-working, well-meaning, but not entirely unblemished teacher has plenty to say about education in France and everywhere else traditional societies are struggling to address a multi-cultural generation. That documentary feel... Gran Torino
He’s an American classic, but does he still have any gas left in the tank? That’s the subtext in the new Clint Eastwood movie, the first for a while that he’s starring in as well as directing. Clint has been getting respectable in his old age, but not with this film he’s not; it’s intentionally crude and distinctly... Cadillac Records
“It feels like I met myself for the first time,” marvels McKinley Morganfield, after Alan Lomax plays back his field recording of McKinley playing the blues. The year is 1941, and within ten years, this southern sharecropper’s son will be at the wheel of his own brand new Cadillac, a first generation pop star, of sorts, courtesy Che: Part Two
The story so far… Argentine-born Marxist Ernesto "Che" Guevara (Benicio Del Toro) emerged from the victorious Cuban revolution as President Fidel Castro’s most charismatic and dedicated officer. Picking up eight years after the fall of Batista (and Part One), Part Two controversially elides many of the more problematic elements in... The Pink Panther 2
Something fishy is afoot. Has Steve Martin (64) settled on Inspector Clouseau as his retirement plan? It’s not as if his 2006 reincarnation of Peter Sellers’ most famous role set the world alight – at least, not in a good way (the Inspector burns down a restaurant here, twice). Even if Martin looks much as he always has, it’ Three Monkeys
First, let’s be clear: Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a major talent, one of the best you’ll find on the art-house circuit. If you haven’t already done so, you should check out Distant (AKA Uzak, 2002) and Climates (2006). Now, let’s be frank: Three Monkeys is a significant shift towards the mainstream, and, I’ Notorious
No, it’s not a gangsta rap remake of the Cary Grant-Ingrid Bergman classic (which might not be a bad idea, come to think of it). Notorious is – or was – Christopher “Biggie” Wallace, aka the Notorious BIG, the formidable east coast rapper murdered by person(s) unknown in 1997. Biggie was larger than life in more ways Hotel for Dogs
Dogs seem to be a big box office attraction these days. On the heels of Beverly Hills Chihuahua and Bolt, and just a nose ahead of Marley and Me, Hotel for Dogs is another shaggy family entertainment for the easily led. Andi and Bruce (Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin) are a couple of strays themselves, orphaned siblings who are currently housed... The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
In terms of ambition and risk, David Fincher’s grand and peculiar 166 minute movie dwarfs everything else around right now. It’s garnered 13 Academy Award nominations and broken the $100 million mark at the North American box office, but none of that makes it any less odd. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slim novella presents enormous... He's Just Not That Into You
I don’t know what it says about men that a movie about relationships is immediately described as a “chick flick”, but in this case, the cap fits. Right from the title, this film is addressed directly to women. Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin, from Big Love) has guy trouble. That is, she hasn’t got one. Set up on a blind date with... Bolt
The first Disney animated feature to come with an executive producer credit for Pixar’s John Lasseter, Bolt is also the name of the heroic American shepherd who stars in a popular TV kids show. He’s part Lassie, part Superdog. And here’s the thing: he doesn’t understand the show is pretend. That spells trouble when he... Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Two young American friends, Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) are spending the summer in Barcelona. Vicky has a fiancé back home. She’s all about getting down to work on her research. Cristina is quite different. She prefers to take life as it comes. She’s looking for a good time and hasn’t thought twice... Doubt
What happened between Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Donald Miller (Joseph Foster) in the rectory? Neither one is saying, but Sister James (Amy Adams) is concerned the boy came back to class flushed, with alcohol on his breath. Sister James is young and naďve, but not that naďve. She hesitantly takes her suspicion to Sister Aloysius (Me JCVD
I don’t know which is the bigger shocker: that Jean Claude Van Damme should pull off a brilliant late night cult movie – playing himself no less – or that the UK distributor, Revolver, should fail so abjectly to capitalise and give this terrific movie the theatrical release it deserves? It doesn’t really matter. The fans... Nick and Norah's Inifinite Playlist
Every generation deserves its own too-cool-for-school teen movie. For some of us it was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Others had Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Heathers, or Dazed and Confused, or Human Traffic… They may not seem cool to older folk, but what do the young care about that? Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist sets out to... Revolutionary Road
Ever felt that you’re wasting the best years of your life in drudgery? That your marriage has gone as stale as your all but forgotten youthful hopes and dreams? That things would be so much better if you walked out on your job and took off for a new start in… let’s say, Paris? Well if you haven’t, just wait, my child. At... Valkyrie
For some reason there seems to have been a lot of bad buzz around Valkyrie, the true story of a plot by a cabal of German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler in the summer of 1944. Maybe it’s the sight of Tom Cruise wearing an eye-patch… apparently the prologue, in which we see how Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg was wounded in... Milk
Sean Penn as you’ve never seen him before! Certainly one of the actors of his generation, Penn gets in touch with his feminine side in Gus Van Sant’s powerful, moving biopic about the activist and San Francisco city supervisor Harvey Milk. Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California, but was murdered Rachel Getting Married
The family get-together movie never goes out of style – in fact, if anything, it seems more popular than ever. Last week’s A Christmas Tale gave us a Gallic spin on the usual collection of crazy relatives, resentments and reconciliations; a bit more style, a lot less sentimentality. Mind you, Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting... Frost/Nixon
A duel: that’s how Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) anticipates his interview with David Frost (Michael Sheen). It’s a duel fought with words, not sabers, but there will be cut and thrust, lunge and parry, and at the end of the day only one of them will be vindicated. This was to be no ordinary interview. It was the first time the... The Wrestler
Washed up fighters make great movie characters. Think of Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, Marlon Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” speech in On the Waterfront, Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby and Stacy Keach, pissing blood in John Huston’s underrated Fat City. Add to their ranks Randy “The Ram& Seven Pounds
No, it’s not the price of your ticket. Actually, even after seeing Will Smith’s new movie I’m not entirely sure what the title refers to. And even if I knew, I probably couldn’t tell you. See, Seven Pounds is an enigma wrapped around a secret. It’s not a suspense thriller, but if you knew the sting in the tail there... Stuck
As traffic violations go, this one is a keeper. Driving home one night after partying with friends, professional care giver Brandi Boski (Mena Suvari) pays more attention to her mobile phone than to the homeless guy jaywalking in front of her. He comes right up through the windscreen – or at least the top of half of him does. His legs... Defiance
Poland, 1941: Three brothers – the Bielskis – escape a Nazi-ordained massacre at their farm by the skin of their teeth. They hide out in the vast Belarussian forest, while Tuvia (Daniel Craig) waits for a chance to exact his revenge on the collaborators who murdered their parents. Yet to the consternation of his brother Zus (Liev... Role Models
I have a feeling that this might be the year that Paul Rudd steps into the limelight. He’s already well known in the US, at least in certain circles, but he hasn’t had many leading roles yet (the last one was the dire Over Her Dead Body); he’s more often cast in supporting roles, notably in many Judd Apatow movies. He was the... Slumdog Millionaire
Only three 2008 films broke into the Internet Movie Database all-time Top 50 last year. The Dark Knight (#5), WALL-E (#34), and Slumdog Millionaire (#45). That’s some tribute to Danny Boyle’s high-energy Indian melodrama – after all, it has had nothing like the exposure of the other, mega-budget offerings, and outside of its... The Spirit
Happy New Year! And here’s the frontrunner for the worst movie of 2009 to get us going. Will Eisner’s 1940s comic strip about the dead or possibly immortal crimebuster was as influential for its hardboiled writing and shadowy graphics as his old school friend Bob Kane’s "Batman". And the two characters have a lot in common,... Che: Part One
Everyone’s favourite revolutionary poster boy, Ernesto “Che” Guevara is the subject of this ambitious, intriguing and frustrating movie from Steven Soderbergh. Kicking off in 1955, just four or five years after the events of The Motorcycle Diaries, this first panel in Soderbergh’s Che diptych is an account of his role in... The Reader
Why are Anglo-Americans making films about Germany’s collective shame over the Holocaust? And why now? No doubt it’s entirely coincidental that The Reader comes hot on the heels of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and just a few weeks before Tom Cruise plays a sympathetic German officer in Valkyrie. At a pinch we could throw in Defiance Australia
Bad movies come in all shapes and sizes. This one is a doozy, a big, sweeping national epic that cost Rupert Murdoch’s Twentieth Century Fox an arm and a leg ($130 million) and which has been hobbled by its weak US showing. Of course it’s doing nicely down under, but the real question is: what will the rest of the world make of it?... Yes Man
There is nothing remotely Christmassy about the new Jim Carrey movie – released in cinemas on Boxing Day – but it is a film of great good cheer. It’s been a while since Carrey did an out and out comedy – unless you count Fun With Dick and Jane, which we don’t. Yes Man isn’t going to figure in any top ten lists... Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S. Thompson
A writer’s writer, Hunter S Thompson is remembered above all for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, his drug-fuelled account of whatever became of the American Dream. Originally written for Rolling Stone magazine and then a best-selling book, Fear and Loathing exploded the boundaries between reportage and fiction with its impressionistic,... Twilight
Love bites and vampires suck. Stephenie Meyer’s teen lit hit comes to the screen very much intact, which is appropriate for a romance that has been embraced by abstinence advocates. Kristen Stewart – the sensitive guitar-plucker in Into the Wild – plays Bella Swann, new girl in Forks, Washington as she gives her mom some... The Day the Earth Stood Still
Hard to believe it’s half a century since Michael Rennie came down to earth and threatened to blow us all up unless we stopped threatening to blow each other up. The Cold War nightmare that fuelled a hundred sci-fi classics in the 1950s has subsided for the moment. How would you set about recreating such a stern sermon in a meaningful way... The Secret Life of Bees
Some movies start under such a heavy burden, they struggle to get out from under. The Secret Life of Bees boasts much more than an unwieldy title. We’ve got Dakota Fanning as a southern waif, Queen Latifah and Jennifer Hudson in the same movie, Paul Bettany doing a mean South Carolina accent, Alicia Keyes taking on the struggle for civil... Madagscar 2
Madagscar, the first one, gets a 70 percent approval rating from more than 10,000 LOVEFiLM members. Far be it from me to disagree. It had a snappy, original concept – semi-domesticated Central Park zoo animals are marooned in the wild – a bright, glossy look, and more fun characters than it knew what to do with. This being a... Lakeview Terrace
Remember that Eddie Murphy line in 48 Hrs? “I’m your worst nightmare: a black man with a badge.” (That’s the family friendly broadcast TV version.) In Lakeview Terrace Samuel L Jackson is Abel Turner, a long-standing officer with the LAPD, and he’s the source of sleepless nights for newlyweds Chris and Lisa Mattson (P Changeling
Los Angeles, 1928: “Everybody knows women are fragile…” Carol Dexter (Amy Ryan) tells Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) as she explains how Code 12 patients are processed in the psychiatric ward of the Los Angeles County General Hospital. See, Code 12s have been committed directly by the LAPD, and naturally the hospital staff... Four Christmases
They say the suicide rate always spikes at Christmas. Somebody alert the Samaritans – Christmas came early this year. Why are so many Christmas movies so bad? Maybe because they’re only interested milking the holy cash cow? Just a theory, obviously. But Four Christmases really takes the biscuit. This is one horrible, horrible movie.... What Just Happened
Talk about art for Art’s sake. Art Linson is by any measure a successful and respected movie producer. His credits stretch back all the way to Car Wash, in 1976, but they also include Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Untouchables, Heat, Fight Club and Into the Wild. Not bad, right? But Linson’s an independent, he isn’t tied to... Body of Lies
As topical as the next terrorist attack, Ridley Scott’s CIA thriller has all the ingredients of a powerhouse movie, but it takes an awfully long time to cook. Scripted by William Monaghan (who wrote The Departed and Kingdom of Heaven) from a novel by David Ignatius (like Monaghan, a political journalist), the movie aspires to be less James... Blindness
It opens beautifully: a car stalled at a traffic light that’s showing green. The cars behind honking in frustration. Pedestrians glancing to gauge the severity of the problem – then taking a harder look, because this doesn’t seem to be an automotive malfunction, the driver appears to be in some distress. A passer-by goes up to... Choke
Novelist Chuck Palahniuk struck lucky when the first movie made from one of his books turned out to be Fight Club. Even though it wasn’t a big hit at the time, this very faithful but also inspired adaptation quickly established itself as one of the cult phenomena of our times, and I’m sure Palahniuk’s sales went through the roof. Waltz with Bashir
Stupendous movie. Ari Folman has made a war film unlike any other. For a start, it’s animation. And it’s autobiographical (comparisons with Persepolis only get us so far, but it’s the closest counterpart I can think of). And it’s a kind of documentary exposé – a film intent on exposing a stain on the conscience of... Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Seth Rogen probably wouldn’t come up high on a list of actors you’d want to see doing porno. We’ve already seen rather more of him than we’d like. But don’t worry, all things considered, Kevin Smith’s latest is relatively discreet. When it comes to sex, Smith is all mouth and no trousers. Rogen is Zack, a lowly Max Payne
By the barely non-existent standards of movies based on videogames, Max Payne isn’t so bad. Yes, the plot is beyond predictable, a string of clichés from beginning to end. But think of it as, well, a wire on which director John Moore can hang gaudy ornamentals, flashing lights and Mark Wahlberg’s self-sacrificial hero… It may... W.
They should probably call it “Dub-ya” in this country. After all, W. doesn’t exactly spell George Bush to most of us. Think of Bush, we think of hanging chads in Florida and reading to nursery kids as the Twin Towers came down. Neither of these images show up in Oliver Stone’s film. Apparently he originally planned to make Pride and Glory
There’s more pride than glory in this throwback cop drama, a movie so firmly in the tradition of heavyweight thrillers like Serpico, Prince of the City and Q and A that you would think the script must have Sidney Lumet’s fingerprints all over it. In fact it’s written by Gavin O’Connor, who made Tumbleweeds and the hockey... Saw V
You have to give credit to the Saw team: five films in five years from a standing start, they’re fast and they’re efficient. Coming in to this hit horror franchise at this late stage is a bit like starting The Da Vinci Code on the penultimate chapter – there’s a lot of catching up to do. On the other hand, as the movie... Of Time and the City
The city is Liverpool. The time is the past. In particular, the past recalled by filmmaker Terence Davies, who was born there in 1945 and lived there for the next 28 years. This is not exactly uncharted territory for Davies, whose feature films Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992) are also autobiographical evocations... Hunger
This is an extraordinary film – surely the best British film of the year. It’s the first feature directed by (no, not that) Steve McQueen – a very personable Young British Artist who won the Turner Prize in 1999 for his film installations – including, as I remember it, a reproduction of the famously dangerous Buster Keaton Incendiary
Chris Cleaves’ novel attracted some notoriety when it was published just days before the London bombings of July 2005. It’s the story of a young mum (Michelle Williams) whose husband and four year old son are killed when suicide bombers wreak havoc at an Arsenal vs Chelsea match. As if that wasn’t bad enough, mum’s engaged Ghost Town
Bertram Pincus. Who else but Ricky Gervais could do justice to a name like that? Bertram is a British dentist in New York. A bone fide misanthropist, you have to say he’s in the right profession (and the right city). Social interaction is kept to a bare minimum. If anyone does try to get too chatty he tells them to open wide and leaves them Eagle Eye
Often, with a thriller, the motor for the plot really doesn’t matter that much. You might have seen North by Northwest half a dozen times and still not be able to remember what James Mason’s spy ring was up to or why. And while I think the denouement of The Game rings pretty hollow, that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy the ride Burn After Reading
Take an adulterous couple (Tilda Swinton and George Clooney). Add an angry but oblivious husband who has just been laid off by the CIA (John Malkovich). Throw in a rogue computer disc containing his private records, and let it fall into the hands of a dummy gym trainer (Brad Pitt) and his avaricious colleague (Frances McDormand) who sees it as a... The Rocker
Rock n roll lends itself to comedy. Anything that inspires grown men to act like kids (or half grown men for that matter) is already on that road. We’ve all seen This is Spinal Tap, but there are any number of its kind, from documentaries like Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and Anvil (playing at the London Film Festival this month) to sly... Young@Heart
It sounds like your worst nightmare: a documentary about a group of old age pensioners… singing… off-key, mostly. Trust me, anyone with a granny, an aging parent, or plans to get old should watch this movie. And what’s more, you’ll enjoy it too. Directed by Stephen Walker and produced by Channel Four last year, Young@Heart Nights in Rodanthe
Richard Gere and Diane Lane – together at last for the third time! And they still have next to no chemistry. They first crossed body fluids in Francis Coppola’s underrated The Cotton Club nearly a quarter of a century ago. He was 34. She was 18. Neither of them had enough pull to make the movie a hit. Cut to 2002. Adrian Lyne casts... The House Bunny
Snow White, 2008 style. Shelley (Anna Faris) may be pure as the driven slush but she’s got the proverbial heart of gold, and her ignorance more than counterbalances her lack of innocence. She’s spent the entirety of her adult life hanging with Hugh Hefner at the Playboy Mansion (I’m indebted to the imdb for the information that... How to Lose Friends and Alienate People
I’m tempted to say that the quickest way to lose friends and alienate people would be to recommend this movie… But that would be a cheap shot. It’s not that bad. It’s just a bit of a let down considering the talent involved and the buzz around Tony, sorry, Toby Young’s supposedly hilarious memoirs (I haven’t... Fly Me to the Moon
Admit it: you thought Space Chimps was bad. Well think again. This 3D animated kiddie flick (the first feature so designed) might as well have been written by monkeys, it’s an insult to the intelligence of toddlers. (Not mine though – he liked it.) Where to begin? The concept is that three young houseflies stow away on the Apollo 11... 88 Minutes
You wait years for a new Al Pacino movie – and then two turkeys come out back to back. The misleadingly titled 88 Minutes (it lasts 108 minutes and feels much longer) was filmed three years ago, before last week’s not-quite-so-terrible-in-retrospect Righteous Kill. The fact that Mr Pacino would agree to work with director Jon Avnet... Brideshead Revisited
Time to revisit Brideshead. It’s hard to believe it’s been a quarter of a century since the landmark Granada TV series won accolades and huge viewing figures. Back then Charles Ryder was most people’s introduction to Jeremy Irons (The French Lieutenant’s Woman came out the same year). Claire Bloom, Diana Quick, John... Swing Vote
US Presidential elections aren’t short of entertainment value, and this latest attempt to wrest satire from the spectacle of vote-grubbing was seen by a tiny fraction of the audience who tuned in for the speeches of Sarah Palin and Barack Obama at their respective party conferences. Which is shame, because it’s nothing if not relevant. Death Race
No one is about to mistake the output of British-born action director Paul WS Anderson for his namesake, Paul Thomas ‘There Will Be Blood’ Anderson, but he’s had a few commercial hits (Mortal Kombat; Resident Evil; AVP: Alien vs Predator) to offset some stinky reviews (Soldier; Shopping). He also gets a little extra credit for... Righteous Kill
I don’t know at what age the NYPD retires its homicide detectives, and no one ever comes out and says that Danny Glover line, “I’m getting too old for this shit”, but sexagenarians Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are looking a little long in the tooth here, as partners whose case load starts to shrink when one unconvicted... Then She Found Me
Kudos to Helen Hunt. Ten years ago she had the most popular sitcom on US TV (Mad About You) and won an Oscar for serving Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. But after a little flurry of movies around the millennium (including Dr T and the Women and What Women Want) she seemed to shrink from view. There was A Good Woman, a small part in Emilio... The Women
You’ve got to admire their balls: a big, star-packed chick flick, and not a single male on screen (well, there is one, but you will have to wait for him to appear). It’s happened before. In 1939, George Cukor directed Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Paulette Goddard in an adaptation of the Clare Luce play written by Tropic Thunder
Shooting difficulties don’t get much more serious than the myriad problems that afflict Vietnam war movie “Tropic Thunder”. The big conflagration scene, in which British director Damian Cockburn (Steve Coogan) tries to blow Apocalypse Now out of the water, is disrupted by squabbling movie stars Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), an... The Duchess
1774. Outside, Georgiana (Keira Knightley) is cavorting with young men and women her own age (late teens), while inside, her mother finalizes an arrangement with the Duke of Devonshire (Ralph Fiennes), one of the wealthiest men in England. Her mother calls her in. She is to be married to the Duke, she tells her. Georgiana is astonished and... Pineapple Express
The (fictitious) super-strong pot “Pineapple Express” plays a key role in Seth Rogen’s new film. It’s a bond between process server Dale Denton – Rogen – and his generous, eager-to-please dealer, Saul (James Franco). Saul is so excited by this new brand he’s desperate to share it with someone. If Dale isn& El Cantante
Jennifer Lopez first came to stardom in the US playing the tragic tejano singer Selena in a biopic of the same name. The movie was a hit – and Lopez earned raves for her performance – though it went straight to video in the UK, presumably because no one knew who Selena was. I suspect there is only a small minority of the UK audience... Step Brothers
Boys will be boys – and so will grown men, apparently. In Adam McKay’s first film since Talledega Nights, Will Ferrell and John C Reilly get back in touch with their inner child as two spoiled brats who are still living with their respective parents well into middle age. Ferrell is Brennan Huff, a 40-year-old virgin (probably) whose... The Wackness
“Never trust anyone who doesn’t smoke pot and doesn’t like Bob Dylan,” Luke’s psychiatrist counsels him – redundantly on one score, since Luke is paying for his sessions with weed. Can this long-haired, goateed, be-hatted bong-sucking, superannuated hippie really be Sir Ben Kingsley? You better believe it. Sir... The Strangers
It’s not like we haven’t been here before, but Bryan Bertino’s The Strangers is a five-finger exercise in stoking terror executed with the utmost deliberation and efficiency. Nothing more, and nothing less. Bertino is a thirty-year-old Texan who persuaded Universal to let him direct when they bought his screenplay (originally... Get Smart
If it’s the destiny of every fondly remembered US TV show to come around again in big screen format, then Steve Carell is going to be a busy man. He’s a natural stand in for Don Adams’s bumbling agent Maxwell Smart, just as he was for Paul Lynde as Uncle Fester in Bewitched. I’ll be he could fit into almost any 60s TV show Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Hellboy is growing up. Not physically of course, but emotionally. At least, he should be: he’s married now, to pyrokinetic Liz Sherman (Selma Blair). He’s also an institutional beast, like it or not (not, in his case), at the beck and call of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, where he lives and works. The trouble is, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars
As war sweeps through the galaxy, the Jedi Knights are stretched too thinly to maintain order. Anakin Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi are fighting a desperate battle against a Clone army. Instead of reinforcements Yoda sends them a young trainee, Ahsoka with instructions that Anakin shall be her mentor. Meanwhile, Jabba the Hutt requests the Jedis... You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Oy gewalt! Adam Sandler has been playing it relatively straight recently – yes, even in I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry – but he embraces his comedy nut here with such gusto, it’s as if he was afraid of becoming too respectable. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan is a seriously silly movie about an Israeli super spy who... Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day
Based on a 1938 novel by Winifred Watson, Miss Pettigrew is a slightly soggy trifle, a brittle West End comedy in the spirit of early Noel Coward (say, “Design for Living”) and American screwball comedies. Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand) is a dowdy governess, a brown smudge of a woman of indeterminate age with a starchy sense... CJ7
I think it was the Canadian filmmaker Don McKellar who observed that ET is nothing but a boy-and-his-dog movie, Lassie with supernatural powers. Take that literally and you wind up with CJ7, the latest from Hong Kong comedy actor-director Stephen Chow – best known here for the brilliant Kung Fu Hustle and the patchier Shaolin Soccer. Jackie The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
The problem with mummy movies has traditionally been that mummies aren’t especially scary to anyone over the age of about 11. The current resurrection of this venerable monster was achieved on the back of what were then innovative and eye-popping CGI effects in the 1999 movie and its 2001 sequel. Throw in Brendan Fraser’s genial... Man on Wire
What a story! A 17-year-old Frenchman, Philippe Petit, goes to the dentist with toothache. He idly reads the newspaper in the waiting room and sees a story about the construction of the World Trade Center Towers in New York City. Something in him clicks. He tears the story from the paper and rushes out of the office, forgetting all about his... Space Chimps
It can be tough living up to illustrious forbears. Ham III (voiced by Hot Rod star Andy Samberg) is the grandson of the first monkey in space. There’s no competing with that, so Ham prefers to be a big fish in a small pond, wowing the spectators with his cannonball act in a traveling circus. Why shoot for the moon when you can be a star? He& The X-Files: I Want To Believe
Ten years after the first X-Files movie, and seven years since the long-running TV show gave up the ghost; this sequel proves a grave disappointment. Yes, Mulder and Scully are back in the estimable forms of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, and yes writer-director Chris Carter is pulling the strings (along with X-perienced co-writer Frank... Baby Mama
The clock is ticking for 37-year-old Kate (Tina Fey), a successful executive with an organic food company, but still single, and worse, cursed with an abnormal T shaped uterus. Her chances of conception are a million to one, her doctor says. Adoption might be an option, but surrogacy (“outsourcing”) is quicker and more personal, she... Donkey Punch
At least this slick, nasty little thriller from Warp X is more imaginative than most nightmare vacation scenarios (see Hostel and its ilk). Three Yorkshire lasses hook up with a bunch of British lads in a Mallorca bar. Everyone’s up for a good time, and when the boys let slip that they have a boat at their disposal in the marina, well, it The Dark Knight
“Escalation.” That’s what Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) worried about at the conclusion of Batman Begins, throwing down The Joker’s calling card. And escalation is precisely what sequels demand: not just the same, but more of it. For my money, Batman Begins remains the best of the multiple superhero movies of the last decade,... Mad Detective
You know those signs, “You don’t have to be mad to work here, but it helps”? That should be the motto for the Hong Kong police department, if this exhilaratingly daffy thriller is anything to go by. The first time we see Inspector Bun (Ching Wan Lau) he’s giving multiple-stab wounds to a hanging slab of meat. The second... City of Men
Six years ago, a gangster film set in the favelas of Rio had a tremendous impact all around the world. City of God was co-directed by Fernando Mereilles (responsible for the flashy, Scorsese-style camera style) and Katia Lund (who worked with the cast, mostly kids who came straight from the same impoverished background depicted in the movie).... WALL-E
Currently ranked at number 19 in the Internet Movie Database list of the top 250 films ever made, WALL-E arrives on our shores riding a wave of rave reviews and box office success. No mean accomplishment for a movie about a trash compactor. WALL-E can’t even talk, though he does manage an ingratiating burble and squeak. The latest from... Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3-D
Resembling a blueprint for a theme park more than a movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth - 3-D updates Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel with a modicum of ingenuity, but only as an excuse to throw a bunch of 3D effects at the audience. Although it will be screening in 2D in cinemas not equipped with a Real D digital projector,... Savage Grace
Definitely not the movie you want to watch with mother, this true tale of sexual perversity, jealousy and madness among the decadent set is engrossing enough as a case study, but likely to leave you feeling a bit queasy before, during and after. Julianne Moore plays Barbara Daly, a former actress who married above her station. Brooks Baekeland (St The Forbidden Kingdom
Kung fu fans may feel a bit cynical faced with this Hollywood lite approximation of their favourite genre, a movie aimed square at the American teen market. But it’s not as though Hong Kong filmmakers never borrowed from their American peers. And speaking for myself, I’d rather have recycled Hollywood kung fu than no kung fu at all.... The Mist
It’s a strange kettle of fish when the latest film from the beloved Shawshank Redemption team of writer-director Frank Darabont and original author Stephen King is left languishing on the shelf for six months, then released against a couple of blockbusters. Such is the fate of The Mist, a rather anti-summer movie, and not only because of... Kung Fu Panda
Dreamworks Animation (the studio that gave us Shrek and A Shark Tale) keeps on ploughing the pop culture row in this savvy, beautifully designed riff on the traditional Hong Kong kung fu movie. Directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson have obviously steeped themselves in the sumptuous silk, gilt and cherry blossom textures of the old Shaw... Hancock
Talk about a train wreck! There are bad films and bad films, but it takes a lot of talented people and the accumulated weight of Hollywood wisdom to come up with a blockbuster as defective and maladjusted as this one. What makes it all the more bizarre is that Hancock – a superhero movie with a difference – begins very brightly. The... Priceless (Hors de Prix)
“Charm is better than good looks,” Irene (Audrey Tautou) assures Jean (Gad Elmaleh), though she has both. I am afraid Tautou will always be Amélie no matter what else she does with her career, but here her charm is absolutely necessary to counteract the mercenary instincts that might otherwise alienate the audience for this trifling... A Complete History of My Sexual Failures
It's not often that the funniest and most outrageous film around is a documentary, but Chris Waitt's toe-curling confessional is Borat without the camouflage, a fearless self-exposé bound to inspire strong reactions across the board. Waitt is a lanky unkempt sadsack in the Mackenzie Crook mould; disheveled, a bit gormless-looking, but smart... Prince Caspian
London during the Blitz. For a while it looks like the Pevensie children have wandered into a sequel to Atonement by mistake. Happily they take the tube to Narnia instead, even if they're dismayed to find their old castle at Cair Paravel in ruins. Nazi rockets aren't to blame, just the passage of time. The four kings and queens have returned from Mongol
They say that Russia is in the ascendant again, flush with oil money and billion pound football teams. Next week sees the release of Timur Bekmambetov's first Hollywood film, Wanted, with Angelina Jolie. Bekmambetov is a Kazak, but his international hits Night Watch and Day Watch are as Russian as Vladimir Putin. Mongol, directed by Sergei Bodrov, Teeth
Dawn (Jess Weixler) is a virgin, and proud of it. She gives pep talks on abstinence to her fellow high school students and wears T-shirts emblazoned with the mantra, 'Love is worth waiting for'. This is just as well. She doesn't know it, but when Dawn talks about the dangers of pre-marital sex she's put her finger on the button. That gnawing... The Happening
M Night Shyamalan is drawn to the supernatural like a moth to a light. So when a bunch of high school biology students kick around theories for the unexplained disappearance of tens of thousands of honey bees in the last couple of years, it's no surprise that the hypothesis their teacher, Mr Moore (Mark Wahlberg) likes best is that this is a... Taxi to the Dark Side
The Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature this year is a sterling piece of hardnosed journalism by Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room). It's the story of Dilawar, a young Afghan taxi driver who was arrested in December 2002 on suspicion of involvement on a rocket attack on US forces. He was taken to Bagram prison and... The Incredible Hulk
Imagine Jason Bourne in stretchy pants. That's the basic idea in Marvel's relaunch for Stan Lee's Jekyll and Hyde character. Five years ago Ang Lee produced a thoughtful but self conscious and only half successful version starring Eric Bana, Jennifer Connelly and Nick Nolte. Reviews were good and bad. Business was just okay. No one from Hulk 2003 The King of Kong
Over the last few years documentaries have taken onboard a lot of the visual flash of dramatic films ' you only have to look at the graphics in Morgan Spurlock's Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden to see that. But the secret to a gripping doc is a lot more straightforward. Strong characters make all the difference. Middle-aged video game geeks Gone Baby Gone
A child is missing. Little Amanda McCready was left alone in her apartment. Her mom, Helene (Amy Ryan) was nearby with a friend, she says. Her aunt and uncle (Amy Madigan and Lionel McCready) were just next door. Boston's finest are mobilized but clues are in short supply. The aunt shows up on the doorstep of Patrick Kenzie and Angie Gennaro (Case Sex and the City: The Movie
I may as well confess here and now: until about a week ago I was a Sex and the City virgin. Course, I had a pretty good idea what I was missing. You can't open a magazine these days without having Sex and the City thrust down your throat. I wasn't sure I was that way inclined: to be frank, I wouldn't know my Manolos from my elbow. Then there was... Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
It's been a long, long time since Indiana Jones last threw his hat into in the ring and rode off into the sunset. Nearly 20 years in fact. Long enough for George Lucas to make three more Star Wars episodes and Steven Spielberg to put his name to three Jurassic Park movies, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, AI, War of the Worlds and Munich,... Terror's Advocate
This long but enthralling film by Barbet Schroeder puts the radical defense laywer Jacques Verges in the dock. Verges is a well known figure in France, not least for defending the Nazi Klaus Barbie. With his cigar and his smug civilized air he seems every inch the establishment figure, but the truth is far more complicated. Verges first came to... Caramel
The recent headlines out of the Lebanon are depressing, in part, because they are so familiar. This corner of the world rarely gets noticed except when bombs are going off and bullets are flying. But there is normal life too, and you may find yourself identifying with the women in Nadine Labaki's warm, likeable film much more than you would... Smart People
Lawrence (a bearded and tweedy Dennis Quaid) is a professor of literature and a pompous ass. Maybe the death of his wife made him that way - maybe he always had it in him, but he's organized his life in such a way that no one else gets much of a look in. Not his pissed off teenage son, James (Ashton Holmes); not his colleagues on the faculty;... Charlie Bartlett
What's a preppie to do when he's been expelled so many times his mom decides he's going to have to cut it in the public system? Charlie (Anton Yelchin) doesn't have an axe to grind, but he's clueless about his privileged background (he even wears a blazer to school) and genuinely shocked to find his head used as a toilet plunger. Despite his... Speed Racer
There's a scene towards the end of Act I in the Wachowski brother's madcap live action-anime mashup when Speed's scamp of a younger brother Spritle and his pet chimpanzee Chim Chim secretly gorge themselves on a cupboard full of brightly coloured jellybean candies ' then collapse in a heap on the floor. That's how I left watching this movie. As... Honeydripper
What a great name for a blues movie! 'Honeydripper' just oozes innuendo in the best way. Mmm-hmmm. If Big Bill Broonzy didn't come up with it, well, he should have. The year is 1950 and Tyrone (Danny Glover) is the proprietor of the Honeydripper Lounge, a gin mill on the outskirts of Harmony, a rural Alabama cotton town. Business is bad. The juke Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?
Morgan Spurlock on the trail of the world's most wanted man? That's a real grabber. Too bad he doesn't follow through with it. Not that you would expect the Super Size Me filmmaker to succeed where (we assume) the CIA has failed. After all, binging on Big Macs is no qualification for this kind of work. Perhaps Errol Morris should have tried ' he... Iron Man
Iron Man rocks. At least that's how it feels in a packed cinema, with the sound cranked up, for long swathes of the night. A kind of Batman-Robocop cross, but with a special interest in the international arms trade, Iron Man may not be as well known as some of the other Marvel superheroes ' he's making his film debut here ' but he's been around... Made of Honour
Could Patrick Dempsey ride his small screen popularity in Grey's Anatomy to a big time movie career? It's been done before: just look at George Clooney. The comparison comes to mind not just because the roles and the shows are similar, but because Dempsey exudes a similar relaxed, sexy charm. Like Clooney, he seems deeply comfortable with himself, Nim's Island
Another above average children's film from Walden Media, the company behind the Narnia films, The Water Horse and Bridge to Terabithia (not to mention The Seeker). Based on a novel by Australian author Wendy Owen, this is a Robinson Crusoe/Swiss Family Robinson story, crossed with a bit of Romancing the Stone, and a subplot about a mariner... Forgetting Sarah Marshall
He's done it again. Producer Judd Apatow's policy of keeping faith with his friends paid off handsomely with last year's Superbad and Knocked Up. Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor were a little disappointing, but Forgetting Sarah Marshall looks like it will be another popular smash, and it breaks another new comedy star in Jason Segel. Segel wrote... Stop-Loss
Ryan Philippe explored the difficulties of a WWII marine coming home in Flags of Our Fathers: a touch of shell-shock; guilt at no longer being on the front line; and shame at the disparity between the propaganda machine's version of the war and the reality that he knew. Philippe is coming home again as Sgt Brandon King in Stop-Loss, this time... Persepolis
In 1979 Marjane is a nine-year-old Bruce Lee nut in Tehran. The fall of the Shah is cause for celebration in the Satrapi household: Marjane's family of cosmopolitan Marxists has suffered imprisonment and intimidation. The revolution is a time of hope and opportunity. But it doesn't last. Religious fundamentalists seize control, Marjane and her... Street Kings
James Ellroy (LA Confidential; The Black Dahlia; Cop) is to the Los Angeles Police Department what Michael Moore is to George W Bush. He's a one-man black wash, a PR flak's worst nightmare. Even so, I'll bet his books are well thumbed in the precincts. His down and dirty detectives don't spend too much time filling out forms in triplicate. Street In Bruges
Although Colin Farrell spends the entire movie whining and moaning about it, the city of Bruges has every reason to be happy with Martin McDonagh's gangster comedy. It looks lovely, of course. "A fairy tale place" says hard man Harry (Ralph Fiennes), the most unlikely of romantics; all medieval battlements, cobbled streets, canals and gothic... Fool's Gold
This feeble Caribbean adventure comedy makes Sahara look like Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Matthew McConaughey plays Finn, and Kate Hudson is his estranged wife, Tess. She wants nothing more to do with him - but soon they're on the same billionaire press baron's yacht, chasing down another clue to the shipwrecked Spanish gold that has eluded... Leatherheads
American football is rarely a major selling point for a movie over here - even in the US it doesn't have a very strong box office record. An American football film set in 1925 is even less sexy, but Universal hasn't done itself any favours by holding George Clooney's latest back from the critics. Such timidity only gives the impression... The Devil Came on Horseback
We have heard quite a bit in the news media about genocide in Darfur and the war the government of Sudan has waged on its own people - it's become a popular cause for celebrities like George Clooney and Mia Farrow, and the Olympics has put further pressure on China to take a stand. (China is the biggest customer for the oil piped from this part... [Rec]
There's something about zombies that has caught moviegoers' imagination in the last years - something to do with the fear of viral epidemics and social breakdown, probably. A zombie's major handicap would traditionally be its speed, or the lack of it. Danny Boyle got around this by giving them a fuel-injection of adrenaline in 28 Days Later, to... 21
In the mid 90s, around the time Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were concocting Good Will Hunting, a story about a janitor at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) with a genius for numbers, along with half a dozen real MIT students, were cashing in on their talent. Every Friday night they would board a plane from Boston to Las Vegas, Nevada Awake
This movie should carry a government health warning. If you're facing surgery in the foreseeable future you might want to skip this one, or risk sleepless nights before going under the knife. Awake is also the most contrived thriller I've seen in a long time. But that's not all to the bad. It's more fun watching something twisty (not to say... Funny Games
An exercise in control, manipulation and frustration, this post-modern suspense thriller is brilliant, aggravating, and utterly redundant. Ann, George and little Georgie (Naomi Watts, Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart) drive to their summer home, a big, roomy spread with its own dock on the lake. They seem like a nice family. There is nothing to... Son of Rambow
Set in the early 80s, this delightful comedy applies modest cinematic means to create a hyper-real slapstick world as perceived by ten-year-old Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner). Will has had a sheltered life in the Plymouth Brethren, a puritanical religious group that forbids worldly contamination by music, TV, or films. No wonder school rebel Lee... Drillbit Taylor
In Drillbit Taylor Owen Wilson plays a confrontationally-averse bodyguard to a trio of 12-year-olds. Wilson's funny in small, almost wistful touches, but it's arguable that his sensitive approach actually undermines the material's belly-laugh potential. Like too many of his recent movies, this one doesn't feel like it has any pressing reason to... You, the Living
Roy Andersson is not a household name even among film buffs, and the shy Swede is not likely to become one either. But he is one of the world's most idiosyncratic moviemakers with a vision that is instantly identifiable, a perfectionist who operates his own private film studio. He's something of a genius, and funny as hell. Condemned to the world 27 Dresses
Katherine Heigl went on record last year to the effect that, yes, her breakthrough movie Knocked Up was "a little bit sexist". So what does that make 27 Dresses? Written by Aline Brosh McKenna (The Devil Wears Prada) and directed by Anne Fletcher (Step Up), this cookie cutter entertainment is the story of a super-capable, sensitive, attractive... Horton Hears a Who!
Jim Carrey and Steve Carell together again! Not that either of the Bruce Almighty stars appear in the flesh. Just as well really. Carrey plays Horton, a big, goofy, unassuming elephant - a role that might stretch even this rubber-faced star to breaking point. Carell supplies the voice for the Mayor of Whoville, a character who's nervous, pompous... The Spiderwick Chronicles
These are big times for kid lit. As someone who grew up on BBC serializations of CS Lewis and co, it's mindboggling to see how much money is going into the Narnia, Potter, and Lord of the Rings movies, and the size of the audience there is for these extravaganzas. More modest than The Golden Compass, and in some ways better for it, Mark Water's... The Orphanage
Some things never change, like the scary properties of an old dark house and things that go bump in the night. American horror seems transfixed by graphic sadism right now, but the acclaimed Spanish chiller "El Orfanato" harks back to an older tradition of psychological scares epitomized by classics like The Innocents, The Haunting, and Cat... Lars and the Real Girl
It's not unusual for children to have imaginary friends. Parents usually take an indulgent - if uneasy - view of such a fantasy, confident that it will soon pass. The Orphanage and The Spiderwick Chronicles both play on just such an understanding, but in each case the imaginary has more teeth than you would expect. When it's an adult labouring... Redacted
Those blacked out words, lines and paragraphs in government and military reports? They've been redacted. So has the true face of the Iraq conflict, maintains Brian De Palma - and not just by the authorities, as you would expect, but by the news media. His question is simple: "Where are the images of this war?" It's obvious that he has a point.... 10,000 BC
Sometimes legends last longer than Truth. I paraphrase, but that's more or less the first thing we hear from the narrator - Omar Sharif, no less - as we settle down with our popcorn. It's a tip that Roland Emmerich doesn't aspire to pre-historical accuracy, or perhaps a get-out clause to answer those pedants who complain that putting dinosaurs in Mister Lonely
Harmony Korine is a character. He was just 18 years old when Larry Clark filmed his screenplay, Kids (1995), a portrait of sexually predatory New York teenagers that scandalized their parents. He went out with Kids star Chloe Sevigny for several years and quickly directed two films of his own. Gummo (1997) is an in-your-face provocation involving Vantage Point
Salamanca, Spain. The President of the US of A (William Hurt) is in town to sign a new international security accord. At his side: secret servicemen Kent Taylor (Matthew Fox) and Thomas Barnes (Dennis Quaid), back on active duty after taking a bullet for the Prez the year before. Among the crowd gathered to witness this historic event we find... The Other Boleyn Girl
Anne (Natalie Portman) we've all heard of, her sister Mary (Scarlett Johansson), not so much. But it was Mary who first slept with Henry VIII (Eric Bana), and (according to Philippa Gregory's best-selling historical novel at any rate) she even bore him a son. In one of the more risible scenes in what is for the most part a brisk but decorous... The Game Plan
Dwayne Johnson, aka The Rock, seems like a genial sort. The ex college footballer, ex WWE star broke into movies playing the Scorpion King in The Mummy Returns seven years ago and proved his box office credentials with Walking Tall in 2004, but he's resisted the obvious action movie route. Instead he played gay in Be Cool and managed to retain... Diary of the Dead
Zombie maestro George A Romero proves us all wrong again: you really can flog a dead horse. Just watch that it doesn't bite you back. This isn't exactly a sequel to the unfolding Night of the Living Dead series (so far 68-year-old Romero has given us Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and Land of the Dead, and not a dud among them). Rather, it... The Boss Of It All
Lars von Trier tries his hand at comedy! There's usually a mischievous twinkle in his eye even when Denmark's most daring director (and its most celebrated neurotic) is tackling such serious subject matter as slavery (Manderlay), hypocrisy and exploitation (Dogville), and gun culture (Dear Wendy - which he wrote). But the sour ironies that... Semi-Pro
Will Ferrell, he got game. But his impressive winning streak could be petering out if this lukewarm basketball comedy is all he has left in the tank. He plays 70s one-hit wonder Jackie Moon. His disco-funk anthem "Love Me Sexy" was such a hit it enabled him to buy his own basketball team, the Flint Tropics. Not only is he the owner, he's also the Untraceable
If the World Wide Web were an actor it would be declared box office poison. Over the years several films have attempted to position themselves as topical and on the pulse by tackling cyber crimes (I'm thinking of The Net, Firewall and Perfect Stranger, for starters), but invariably they're stuck with the visual tedium of a someone sitting at a... Margot at the Wedding
No disrespect to the four nominees for Best Actress this year, it wasn't their fault, but they highlighted a real gender gap in what was, by common consent, a good year for American movies. The best films were all about the men, with the partial exceptions of the British production Atonement and two independents written and directed by women,... Rambo
Not to be confused with Rambo - First Blood, Part II, Rambo is the fourth episode in a life story that's survived a lot longer than anyone would have predicted. When we first met John Rambo more than a quarter of a century ago he was already an anachronism, a soldier who had outlived his war and his usefulness. Or so we thought. Just a couple of... Be Kind Rewind
It's better to create than to consume, that's the liberating message in Michel Gondry's new comedy, though this declaration of independence inadvertently highlights some of the drawbacks associated with "am-auteurs". There's an authentic touch of genius in Michel Gondry. He's like one of those mad inventors in old black and white movies, devising Jumper
Teleportation: For Seth Brundle in The Fly it was a leap too far. For Captain Kirk and crew, a relatively laborious business. And for Nightcrawler in X-2, a superpower with some unpleasant side-effects, like blue skin and yellow eyes. David Rice (Hayden Christensen) doesn't realize he's been born with the ability to transcend space until he's 15... Away From Her
After 40 years of marriage, Fiona (Julie Christie) decides it is time to move on. This is no reflection on her husband, Grant (Gordon Pinsent), but an acknowledgment that her mind is already drifting out the door. As the Alzheimer's worsens she will require round-the-clock attention. Grant agrees in principle, but he's distraught when the nursing The Bucket List
Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson both turned 70 last year. You would think two actors of this caliber and experience would have better things to do than peddle sentimental twaddle like this superannuated buddy movie, but apparently not. Granted, we're not likely to go to the movies to see the reality of cancer suffering (if that's what you're... The Water Horse
It may seem pedantic to complain about factual liberties in a film concerning a mythical beastie - the Loch Ness monster, no less. But it's one thing to ask us to imagine the monster living and breathing, and quite another to relocate the loch itself so that it becomes a saltwater estuary. Apparently Hitler's fleet could pop up at any moment (the Still Life
It's just an educated guess, but when people look back at today's era in movies from the perspective of, say, 2040, I reckon the Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke will be seen as one of the four or five most important figures. Partly this is a matter of being in the right place at the right time - Jia was born in 1970, in the province of Shanxi,... Arctic Tale
It's a safe bet that, if not for the unprecedented popularity of March of the Penguins, we wouldn't be seeing this National Geographic nature film on the big screen. The photography is impressive. Husband and wife filmmaking team Adam Ravetch and Sarah Robertson have drawn on eight years' spent filming in the arctic. The nephew of screenwriter... National Treasure: Book of Secrets
In an era when one action blockbuster is very much like another, the first National Treasure was a refreshing digression from the norm. An oddball mix of Indiana Jones, The Da Vinci Code, and Antiques Roadshow, Jon Turteltaub's movie dared to put brains above brawn - not that you would want to take its conspiratorial revisionist history at face... Juno
It all starts with a chair. Or rather, it starts with Minnesota teenager Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) reminiscing about a chair. The chair's sentimental value is inextricably tied to the first time she had sex with her friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera, from Arrested Development and Superbad), the only time actually, and now the chair has been... The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jean-Do Bauby suffered a stroke at 42 that left him entirely paralyzed, save for his left eye. "Locked in" syndrome is a very rare and almost unimaginable condition. Yet thanks to Bauby and his medical team we now have a good idea of what it involves, mentally as well as physically. Paralysis might not seem the most promising basis for a movie,... There Will Be Blood
In the beginning there is darkness. And in the darkness, a man with a pickaxe claws at the earth as if he's looking for the way back in. He grunts from such heavy labour but he keeps right on digging. Paul Thomas Anderson's fifth film - his first unalloyed masterpiece, and nothing less than a twentieth century foundation myth - shapes up like... Things We Lost In the Fire
Audrey (Halle Berry) has forgotten to invite Jerry (Benicio del Toro) to the wake. It's a terrible oversight - he was Brian's best friend - but an understandable omission. She never understood the relationship. Nobody likes to see a loved one hanging out with a junkie. Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier has established a reputation for weighty... Cloverfield
The party crasher from Hell, the monster at the heart of Cloverfield doesn't have a name. He might be the son of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, or second cousin to Godzilla. We do know he's big, angry, and like countless other immigrants, he made his way into Manhattan by way of the port. He sends the disembodied head of Lady Liberty uptown as a... Battle For Haditha
When politicians talk about the battle for hearts and minds in a conflict situation, they are usually talking about winning over the support of the local citizens caught in the war zone, though it could also apply to their own constituents, whose tacit approval allows the fighting to continue. In the Vietnam War, the phrase was a favourite of... In The Valley Of Elah
I wasn't a fan of Paul Haggis's Oscar-winner Crash, but I liked this engrossing thriller much better. Yet it's been such a box office bust in the US (grossing less than $7 million in three months), it must now be considered unlikely to figure in the Academy Award nominations that will be announced Wednesday 22. Of all the current crop of Iraq-them The Savages
It's a funny thing, the movies bring us psychopathic killers on a near-weekly basis, but common or garden dementia rarely gets a look in. Not that I'm agitating for it. Two movies on senility this year are plenty to be getting on with. It says something that both of them are written and directed by women. If Sarah Polley's Away from Her trod... Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
In case you're not familiar with Stephen Sondheim's macabre musical, or the (maybe true?) urban myth that inspired it, Tim Burton's movie wastes no time in establishing the appropriate tone. The grand, gloomy opening features Johnny Depp glowering from the brow of a clipper as it cuts through the murky waters of the Thames to dock in East London. AVPR: Aliens vs Predator � Requiem
"Requiem" is right: this deadly sequel could kill off a horror franchise that goes back nearly three decades. As someone who grew up with the Alien series (hell, I don't mind telling you I misted up at Alien 4) it's depressing to see just how far the mighty have fallen. Course, as soon as they announced the first AVP flick, it was obvious the... Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
Legendary rock n roll rebel Cox gets the biopic treatment he surely deserves courtesy of writer-director Jake Kasdan and writer-producer Judd Apatow. It kicks off in time-honoured fashion with Cox on the point of receiving a lifetime achievement award, then flashes back to the infamous childhood machete trauma that forever alienated him from his... No Country For Old Men
Many fine novels buck and bridle under the constraints of movie adaptation. Others open up to the form as if it was a natural evolution, the film complimenting the book and vice versa. John Huston's The Maltese Falcon is a classic example, the movie and Dashiell Hammett's novel are now virtually indivisible to anyone who is familiar with them... Paranoid Park
Alex (Gabe Nevins) says he wasn't there. And the cop (Dan Liu) doesn't have much reason not to believe him. He's not a bad kid; there's no indication he'd get mixed up in something like this. There is the matter of the witness who saw someone throwing a skateboard off the bridge that night - and Alex has a new board. But that's no crime, even if... Dan In Real Life
When I interviewed the lovely Juliette Binoche at the Toronto Film Festival in September 06, she told me she had films lined up with the Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsaio-hsien (Flight of the Red Balloon will be released later this year); the Israeli Amos Gitai (Disengagement); the Frenchmen Olivier Assayas and Cedric Klapisch (Summer Time and Paris... Before The Devil Know's You're Dead
Things fall apart, as any student of crime will tell you. And if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has a plan. He's in accounts, and he's been embezzling funds to feed his coke habit and keep his pretty wife happy, but he knows he can't go on indefinitely. What he doesn't know, is Gina (Marisa Tomei)... Charlie Wilson's War
Mike Nichols' new film opens on a ceremony honouring a Texas congressman for his role in liberating Afghanistan and bringing down the USSR. Chances are, you've never heard of him. (I know I hadn't.) Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) is a strange sort of hero, a far cry from the innocent idealists you find in everything from Mr Smith Goes to Washington... Lust, Caution
Ang Lee's new film - his second filmed in China, after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and his first since the acclaimed Brokeback Mountain - begins with such an intensely observed game of mahjong you half expect the Hulk to appear from underneath the table and scatter these society ladies who have so little to talk about but their husbands,... PS I Love You
This is a good chick flick, if you will pardon the possibly derogatory term. What I mean by that: if you were looking for a girls' night out at the pictures, just you and your mates, maybe your mum or your sisters, P.S I Love You has all the requisite ingredients. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll bond. You'll cry some more. All this, and Gerard... Alvin and the Chipmunks
The singing rodents turn 50 next year; the same age as the Hula Hoop, which Alvin pines for in their evergreen favourite, "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)", top of the Billboard charts for three weeks in December 1958. This may come as a shock, but it has since come to light that the chipmunks - Alvin, Simon and Theodore - weren't much The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini's best-seller arrives on the big screen just in time for Oscar season - and has already been rewarded with two Golden Globe nominations. It's a middling effort overall, although it has some good passages and points of interest. I haven't read the novel, but apparently this is a reasonably faithful condensation, with a few... I'm Not There
Bob Dylan casts an elusive shadow. This year we've seen Hayden Christensen playing Not Bob (at the insistence of Mr Dylan's lawyers) in Factory Girl. Adam Sandler looking awfully like him in Reign On Me. And we've heard the real McCoy growl out a new blues on the soundtrack for Lucky You. Now we get no less than six Bobs (though none goes by that I Am Legend
Beware Emma Thompson bearing gifts. In the opening minutes of I am Legend our uncredited Em is interviewed on a US TV news show (you would think her news would merit a press conference). She can barely suppress a smug delight. You see, she has reversed the effects of the common measles virus and transformed it into a cure for cancer. Cut to three Youth Without Youth
"Sometimes I ask myself if I will ever finish my life's work. " There is an extraordinary moment just a few minutes into Francis Coppola's first film in a decade. Dominic Matei (Tim Roth), an old man, is crossing a downtown street in Bucharest when he's struck by lightning. The force from the blow lifts him up off the road and into the air. When... Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium
The store is the star in this candy-coloured kids' extravaganza, a whimsical fantasy about a magic toy shop. Natalie Portman does her darndest Audrey Hepburn impression as Molly Mahoney, the manager of said establishment. She seems happy and fulfilled in her work - and who wouldn't be, when all she has to do is open the stock book to conjure up... We Own the Night
How often have we seen a car chase in a cop thriller? It's a mark of the artistry in James Gray's austere, powerhouse drama that he finds a new way to film this generic staple. The camera basically stays with Joaquin Phoenix as all hell breaks out around him: a car pulls up alongside, there's gunfire, broken glass, confusion; has his girlfriend... Bee Movie
Jerry Seinfeld's celebrated sitcom was famously about nothing. It's proved a tough act to follow. Nearly ten years since Seinfeld called it a day, the key creatives haven't exactly flourished. Only the show's co-creator Larry David has thrived with his reality-style Curb Your Enthusiasm. Michael Richards crashed and burned just last year, while... A Very British Gangster
Dominic - or sometimes Domenyk - Noonan is the first to say a name is important: if your name commands respect, it's half the battle. Especially in his trade, which is largely intimidation. Strange, then, that he should have chosen to change his name by deep poll, to LATTLAY FOTTFOY. The acronym tells us a lot about Noonan: Look After Those That... The Golden Compass
"I wish I had a daemon," my son said to me, after we finished chapter five. I said I knew how he felt; it's hard to imagine anyone reading Philip Pullman's "The Northern Lights" and not wanting one. In case you haven't read it (or "The Golden Compass", as it's known in the US), everyone in this alternate universe has a daemon, an animal companion Hitman
The curse of the videogame movie strikes again! The Eidos shoot-em-up game gets the Luc Besson treatment here, by way of proxy director Xavier Gens. Apparently Vin Diesel was first choice for the role of two-gun killer Agent 47. Instead we get Timothy Olyphant, a more limited actor (!) best known, I guess, for having Ian McShane run rings around... Fred Claus
The sort of Christmas treat that makes global warming look like a good idea, this cynical seasonal cash-in doesn't have a story to tell, just a concept to sell. To wit: the sibling rivalry felt by Saint Nick's neglected older brother, Fred (Vince Vaughn). It's rarely a good idea to toy with tried and tested folklore, and warning bells start... The Nines
Fans of TV's The Prisoner, and the tricksy post-modern screenplays of Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich; Adaptation; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) should give The Nines a go. This is the first film directed by John August, a well known screenwriter who counts Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie's Angels among... The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
It sounds like the name of a painting. Or possibly the name of the theatrical sketch in which Ford reenacted his inglorious deed several hundred times for the benefit of eager Easterners. It suggests a pivotal moment, frozen in time. And that's what it's about. There are things you should know going in. This isn't an action-packed celebration of... Cocaine Cowboys
The Drugs. The Money. The Violence. The Incredible true story that inspired Scarface and Miami Vice hits cinemas this week. The cocaine trade of the 70s and 80s had an indelible impact on contemporary Miami. Smugglers and distributors forever changed a once sleepy retirement community into one of the world's most glamorous hot spots, the... Beowulf
Gore-blimey! Employing a similar CG-animated motion control process to 300, but a far superior script, Beowulf is hearty sword and sandal fare and more 3D effects than you can shake a stick at. If it's an option, you'll want to see Beowulf on an IMAX screen in 3D. If that's impossible, the movie is still a rousing entertainment mixing ancient... Rescue Dawn
Ten years ago Werner Herzog made a brilliant documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly. It was the story of Dieter Dengler, a German boy who grew up with vivid images of the Allied planes that destroyed his village - he made eye contact with the pilot of a plane that flew so close to his bedroom window he could almost touch the wing, he said. Later, Sleuth
First, a confession: I never did get around to the famously well-received 1972 version of Anthony Shaffer's play, directed by the esteemed Joseph L Mankiewicz, and starring Sir Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine. In part, my negligence may have been because I read something that gave away a crucial twist. I shall endeavour not to do the same,... The Darjeeling Limited
Firstly, don't miss the supporting film. Hotel Chevalier is a 13-minute short starring Jason Schwarztman and Natalie Portman, and it serves as the perfect appetizer for the main feature. Set in a Parisian hotel room, it's a very slight story about a man preparing for the arrival of a female friend. Schwartzman's character isn't named here, but to Weirdsville
As a rule, stoner comedies work best with the willing sacrifice of a few brain cells and Weirdsville is no exception. But it's funny enough to stand up to viewing stone cold sober if you're willing to cut it a little slack ' and forgive its trivializing of heroin addiction. Best buddies Royce (a hirsute and befuddled Wes Bentley) and Dexter (cynic American Gangster
Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) is welcoming his brothers, cousins and nephews to their new life in Harlem with a celebratory lunch. He's brought them here from rural Carolina to guarantee a loyal crew now that he's all set up to become the number one drug dealer north of 110th Street. Then he spots one dude, a loudmouth dealer by the name of... Silk
It's possible to make a film about very little the veteran French filmmaker Eric Rohmer has fashioned a wonderful career out of examining romantic ardors that are rarely consummated, and sometimes barely articulated. Still, it's a delicate art, and when it doesn't come off the results can be excruciating. Sadly, Silk is a case in point. French... Lions for Lambs
Redford, Streep and Cruise. Lions for Lambs has attracted an arresting box office combination. Especially in a drama that engages with arguably the most contentious and certainly one of the most important political issues facing the world today: US intervention in the Middle East. The trouble for the marketing department is that most people are... Planet Terror
When it showed in the US as part of the ill-fated Grindhouse package, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror preceded Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Now it has the unenviable task of following in the wake of that film's resounding bellyflop in UK cinemas. It's hard to be optimistic about its commercial chances, but the good news is there is a lot to... Into the Wild
Ever wanted to walk out into the wilderness, feel the wind on your face and just breathe ? It's not easy to find a wilderness these days, but even if you did, the experience wouldn't be the same if you had a return ticket in your pocket, or a people-carrier parked around the corner. Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch, from Alpha Dog) didn't... In the Shadow of the Moon
It was Norman Mailer who suggested NASA should have sent a poet up to the moon instead of a pilot. (You can be sure he had himself in mind.) Only a wordsmith could have conveyed the awe and import of the moment, he suggested. It's true that Neil Armstrong didn't do so bad - "A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind" - but within three years The Lookout
"Start at the end," Lewis (Jeff Daniels) urges his friend and roommate, Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who has had trouble keeping things straight since the accident. Actually the end of The Lookout peters out with a bit of a shrug. The opening is much more dramatic: four teenagers take a nocturnal joyride down a country highway without any... 30 Days of Night
'That cold ain't the weather. That's death approaching.' So says a stranger Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett) has locked up after he got into a dispute down at the bar. All the man wanted was a plate of fresh hamburger meat, nice and juicy and raw. No crime in that surely? But this stranger - another vividly ratty performance by Ben Foster, who stole... Elizabeth: The Golden Age
"Overblown" would seem to be an appropriate description for this Armada saga. Not exactly a sequel, but a follow up to Shekhar Kapur's successful 1998 biopic, this picks up the story in 1585. The Virgin Queen (Cate Blanchett) is still astride the throne of England, busily fending off unsuitable suitors from the courts of continental Europe, but... Sicko
Part four of the Michael Moore Manifesto - you'll recall he tackled the economy in Roger and Me, home affairs in Bowling for Columbine, foreign affairs and the war on Terror in Fahrenheit 9/11 - Sicko tackles the divisive issue of health care. Like his previous films, Sicko is aimed squarely at a domestic audience, and Brits may find Moore's... Eastern Promises
David Cronenberg gives every impression of being at the peak of his powers. He's followed up the widely acclaimed A History of Violence with another sleekly grim gangster thriller trespassing between the safe, conventional world most of us live in and the illegitimate danger zone that exists, often unacknowledged, on the dark side of the street.... The Dark is Rising
Susan Cooper's popular children's fantasy novels finally get a big screen adaptation, some 30 years after they first appeared in print. Undoubtedly the producers have an eye on the success of The Lord of the Rings and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Master H. Potter, Esquire. Unlike those successful franchises, however, The Dark is... Rendition
"This is my first torture," admits CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), wincing as Moroccan policeman Abasi (Igal Naor) puts the screws on an American businessman of Egyptian descent. We know how he feels. Since September 11 we've all had our faces rubbed in rationales for interrogation practices that were long deemed unthinkable for a... Once
There have been a number of excellent films this year. But when it comes to the movie I'm most looking forward to re-watching on DVD nothing competes with John Carney's wonderful Once, a very simple, sweet love story that left me humming with pleasure, no matter that it has a story you could write on the back of a matchbook, no stars, and all the Nancy Drew
According to her publishers, perennial teenage sleuth Nancy Drew has sold more than 200 million books over the course of some 170 adventures since 1929. And unlike Sherlock Holmes, she's never found an adversary she couldn't outwit. In the books (churned out by the Statemeyer Syndicate under the nom de plume Carolyn Keene) the formula is always... Stardust
A box office fizzle in the US, Stardust should do better on this side of the pond, where the mix of Monty Python-ish silliness, surrealism and romantic derring do is in our bones. Not just your basic, average everyday, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, ho-hum fairy tale, this is a dazzler very nearly from first to last, a live action film that rivals... Mr Brooks
Is Kevin Costner a good guy? If the script is strong enough (in Bull Durham for instance) he's a credible hero. But he can be even more effective letting that question hang in the air - as he did in Clint Eastwood's A Perfect World. Now that the shine has gone off his looks, there's something about his flat, monotonous voice he's seems so... The Invasion
The body snatchers are back for another earth invasion (if memory serves, they've already infiltrated our ranks successfully three times in films by Don Siegel in 1956, Philip Kaufman in 1978, and Abel Ferrara in 1993). This time they've hitched a ride on a NASA space shuttle. Safely landed, they spread as a germ during the exchange of fluids.... Ratatouille
It's hard to comprehend the fascination animators seem to have for rodents. Perhaps it stems from over exposure to Tom and Jerry in formative years. At any rate, first Aardman gave us the underrated Flushed Away; now Pixar strikes back with Ratatouille. Neither title would seem an easy sell - indeed, Disney's marketing department has been moaning Seachd: The Inaccessible Pinnacle
Lŕn fhěrinn na sgeňil. The truth is in the story. Seachd , pronounced 'Shack', is Scotland's first - or second, no one seems quite sure - Gaelic language film. It means 'seven', and again, I'm not quite sure if this is in reference to the age that Aonghas (Angus) is orphaned in a mountaineering accident (Padruig Moireasdan, the lad who plays him... Feast of Love
A change of pace from the usual high concept fare, Robert Benton's adaptation of a novel by Charles Baxter is a gentle philosophical comedy that will primarily appeal to older viewers' (older than the usual teenagers Hollywood caters to I mean). `It's true that we've seen Morgan Freeman playing sage counselor and friend rather often over the... The Kingdom
The US review for The Kingdom have been fascinating: of the 114 listed on Rotten Tomatoes as I write this, 58 are generally positive ('fresh') and 56 are negative ('rotten'). A lot of the highbrow press fall into the first category ( The New York Times; Village Voice; Time; Newsweek ), while many other critics have been quick to condemn the movie' Control
Debbie (Samantha Morton) is introduced to Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) by her boyfriend Tony. He's a tall, angular Bowie clone; the eyeliner and make up aren't particularly radical in 1977, but he's more exotic than most of her Macclesfield school friends. He writes poetry and songs, and he's good at it too. She and Tony come to Ian's bedroom to kiss... The Brave One
Is the vigilante movie making a come back? Many of the upcoming films previewed at the Toronto Film Festival last week featured Americans kicking back in frustration for some Old Testament justice, most notably perhaps, two films set in Iraq, Brian de Palma's Redacted , and Nick Broomfield's Battle for Haditha , both airing real life cases of US... Hot Rod
Call it the Napoleon Dynamite effect. Jared Hess's indie hit has created a niche for comedic geek chic, and it's clearly the principal influence on recent release Eagle vs Shark and this week's Hot Rod. The former is a New Zealand film, but it was developed at the Sundance Institute, and its story of two misfits hooking up is aimed squarely at... Evening
It's been a while since a single movie mustered a roster of actresses like this (in order of seniority): Vanessa Redgrave, Eileen Atkins, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Toni Collette, Natasha Richardson, Claire Danes, and Mamie Gummer. I suppose the closest challenger I can think of would be The Hours. Coincidentally, or not, novelist Michael... Atonement
It is in the artist's nature to want to improve on life. After all, a little embellishment never hurt anyone, did it? Young Briony Tallis learns the danger of such foolish romantic illusions the hard way when her own rash intervention sends an innocent man to prison in Atonement, with devastating consequences for those she loves most dearly. But... 3:10 to Yuma
Trains play a key role in several important Westerns, including John Ford's silent epic The Iron Horse, High Noon (which is when the gunmen shooting for Gary Cooper are due in town), and Once Upon a Time in the West. In 3:10 to Yuma (first filmed with Van Heflin and Glenn Ford in 1958), the title refers to the train which will transport Ben Wade ( A Mighty Heart
Michael Winterbottom directing Angelina Jolie in a movie produced by her beau, Brad Pitt? Has Britain's most prolific filmmaker finally sold out and gone Hollywood? Don't you believe it! Only a complete cynic would question the motives behind this gripping, honest movie about the disappearance of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, January,... Death Proof
A new Quentin Tarantino movie is always an occasion, though Death Proof is the first serious setback in his fitful career. As you probably know, this was originally conceived as a 60-minute segment in Grindhouse, a tribute to the exploitation movies that played in double bills at drive-ins and sleazy inner-city fleapits in the early 1970s. The... Opera Jawa
I realise the chances of persuading anyone to give an experimental musical from Indonesia a go are fairly slim, but all the same, the fact is Opera Jawa is one of the most extraordinary movies I've seen from anywhere in the past 12 months, so I'll try. Based on a traditional love story from the Sanscrit epic Ramayana, and featuring a (sometimes... Superbad
Destined to become a classic of the teen sex comedy (if that's not too much of a contradiction in terms), this is the second boner-fide smash of the season from Knocked Up producer Judd Apatow and chums. Seth Rogen and his pal Evan Goldberg wrote the first draft of the script more than a decade ago, when they were still in high school. If they... Disturbia
Troubled teen Kale Brecht (Shia LaBeouf) goes off the rails a little after his dad is killed in a car crash. He winds up sporting a brand new ankle bracelet, sentenced to spend the summer under house arrest. With his mom turning into the warden from Shawshank and nixing his iTunes account things are looking pretty grim - that is, until Ashley (Sar 2 Days in Paris
Paris je t'aime, moi no plus- Julie Delpy's cheeky unofficial follow up to Richard Linklater's Before Sunset is a kind of anti-romantic comedy about an earnest expatriate Parisienne introducing her neurotic American bf to her parents. Jack (Adam Goldberg) is anxious to make a good impression, but more anxious about the mold in the bathroom, the... 1408
Mike Enslin (John Cusack) gave up writing novels a long time back (though it's surprising how many people have good things to say about the first one). Now he churns out bestsellers for the horror fact-ion market, insider guides to the best haunted houses you can visit across the US. (Does such a book exist? If it doesn't, surely it should.) His... Breach
In February 2001 US Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that veteran FBI agent Robert Hanssen had been arrested for treason. Although the full extent of the information Hanssen passed to the Russians remains classified, it is known that over 22 years he compromised at least 50 agents, some of whom were subsequently murdered; he leaked plans... No Reservations
If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the cinema! Kitchen movies are quite the fad right now, what with Waitress on release, and Pixar's Ratatouille at your local car boot(-leg) sale. A remake of the well-liked German film Mostly Martha, No Reservations is a polished, upscale Hollywood romance. The menu may be somewhat predictable, but the... Seraphim Falls
This terse, grueling chase film shot against the punishing landscapes of New Mexico feels like a throwback to something from the early 1970s - though it's set a century before that, in the aftermath of the American civil war. Liam Neeson is Carver, a Confederate veteran and paymaster to a party of three hired guns hard on the trail of Pierce... Knocked Up
The summer's biggest sleeper hit in the US, Knocked Up arrives trailing rave word of mouth and the highest expectations. It's not a perfect film, by any means, but yes, this one lives up to the hype. It's regularly laugh-out-loud funny, and should do for Seth Rogen what writer-director Judd Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin did for Steve Carell.... Copying Beethoven
With few exceptions, films about the great composers have been a rum bunch. Grieg got the egregious Song of Norway. Ken Russell did well by Delius in Song of Summer, okay by Tchaikovsky in The Music Lovers, so-so for Mahler, then perpetrated Lisztomania, with Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt, Paul Nicholas as Wagner, and Ringo Starr as the Pope. And... The Bourne Ultimatum
There is no ultimatum in The Bourne Ultimatum. Nevertheless, this may be the ultimate Bourne. It certainly feels like the end of the road, even if Universal will be desperate to persuade Matt Damon otherwise. Kicking off where The Bourne Supremacy left off, with the rogue spy limping out of Moscow, the movie initially seems intent on replaying... Surf's Up
Last week, Walt Disney Co. paid a cool $350 million for online site Club Penguin, a place where kids can assume a penguin identity, play and chat with other penguin avatars. The site already has more than 700,000 paid up users, and Disney could wind up paying twice as much if it hits its growth targets. Penguins are very hot right now. And hot is Rush Hour 3
I can just about understand what the French see in Jerry Lewis, why the Americans embraced Roberto Benigni in Life Is Beautiful, and how some people believe Lee Evans is a comedy genius. But Chris Tucker I just don't get. Least, not as Detective James Carter in the Rush Hour films, which is the only role he's played in the last decade. (I seem to Waitress
Sweet yet surprisingly tart, this summer sleeper is one of the feel-good movies of the year - or it would be, if it didn't come with such a sad back-story. We'll get to that later, let's talk about the film first. The lovely Keri Russell (best known for her long-running US series Felicity) plays Jenna, one of three waitresses at Joe's Diner, an... Daratt
Whether out of guilt or just an enlightened belief in movies, the French have a commendable record for fostering filmmaking in their former colonies in Asia and West Africa. Mahamet Saleh Haroun was born in war-torn Chad, but he was wounded in the conflict and escaped in a wheel barrow. He went on to study filmmaking in France, and has two... The Hoax
File it under: Strange but True. In 1971 Clifford Irving was a writer on the verge of greatness - at least he thought so. Unfortunately his publishers at McGraw-Hill were less convinced, and knocked back the manuscript for his latest novel. With an ego as big as his debts, Irving retaliated with a wild claim. He had the book of the century in his Evan Almighty
Well, they've certainly got the weather for it! You have to wonder if the good people at Universal have got hold of some infernal rain-making device just to soften up audiences for this modern day rerun of Noah and the great flood? An unusually imaginative approach to franchise-building, Evan Almighty is the sequel to the 2003 Jim Carrey hit,... The Simpsons
'Terrible things are going to happen,' warns Grampa, rolling down the Church aisle in spiritual fervour. (In a typically sharp touch, someone whips out a cell phone to record his religious experience for posterity.) And terrible things do happen: to the polluted local lake, which turns toxic. To Bart, who is supplanted in his father's affections... SherryBaby
Sherry Swanson (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is two and a half years clean. But now she's out of prison and it's nowhere near as easy to pull herself back together as she imagined. She needs to get a job. She needs to get away from the halfway house that feels like it's sucking her back inside. And more than anything she needs to reestablish a relationship Transformers
Pop quiz: what movie unites the late, great Orson Welles, Mr Spock, our very own Eric Idle, Hart to Hart's Lionel Stander, and Judd Nelson from The Breakfast Club? If you answered Transformers - the Movie you go to the top of the class. Released at the height of the transfomers' craze in 1986, this modest animated spin off from a short-lived TV... Hairspray
The movie of the Broadway show of the movie 'Ah, the circle of life! Once upon a time little John Waters was condemned to the cult midnight movie circuit for cheapo bad taste extravaganzas like Multiple Maniacs , Pink Flamingos, and Desperate Living. Gradually, though, something shifted. It wasn't so much that Waters sold out, more that the... Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
It's a difficult age: going into his fifth year at Hogwart's, young Potter is at the mercy of his hormones. He's having trouble sleeping, the Dursleys want no more to do with him, and when the Ministry for Magic threatens to expel him from school after an unlicensed public display of sorcery, it feels like the whole world is against him. That... Edmond
'You are not where you belong,' the fortune teller informs him. Edmond (William H Macy) knows this is the truth. He goes home and tells his wife it's over. 'You don't interest me spiritually or sexually,' he says. She shows him the door and he walks through it, out into the night. His first stop is a bar. 'A man has to get away from himself,' he... Die Hard 4.0
Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Technophobe police detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) has some catching up to do when he is asked to escort computer hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long) up to the FBI headquarters in Washington DC. It sounds like a routine assignment, but they haven't even left the building before bad guys are... Golden Door
Released as 'Nuovomundo' in its native Italy - 'The New World' is taken, right? - Golden Door is the second film to reach these shores by Emanuele Crialese, the writer-director of Respiro. Set at the turn of the twentieth century, it's a film about a family of illiterate Sicilian peasants coming to America, spurred on by doctored photographs of... Shut Up & Sing
It's not often careers are derailed as dramatically as the Dixie Chicks'. One minute the country/pop trio are singing at the Superbowl - one of the most coveted gigs in the showbiz calendar - and launching their Top of the World tour and just a few weeks later, fans are trashing their cds and radio stations across the US are refusing to play... Paris, Je T'aime
'Portmanteau' comes from the French word for a suitcase with several compartments or attributes. Somewhere along the line it came to be applied (in English) to mean a blended word (as smog blends smoke and fog). In movie terms, it refers to a feature length anthology made up of two or more separate stories, often by different filmmakers. Almost... Shrek the Third
Unless I'm losing count, this is the fourth of this season's blockbuster threequels (after the continuing adventures of Danny Ocean, Peter Parker and Jack Sparrow). Fear not, next week there is progress: Die Hard 4. At 92 minutes (five of them credits) Shrek the Third is nearly half the length of a certain Pirate extravaganza, and none the worse... La Vie en Rose
The great French singer Edith Piaf was physically small (4 feet eight inches), working class, and grew up in her grandmother's whorehouse. Her career started out on the street corners of Paris, singing for centimes. Even when she came under the wing of her first manager she brought trouble along with her. He was murdered and Edith was tainted by... Lucky You
Remember Swingers? 'You're money, baby!' Well Huck Cheever (Eric Bana) is so not money, he's flat broke. And that may as well stand for Lucky You, too. Curtis Hanson's film has been sitting on the shelf for some time now, and was finally released in the US the same week as Spider-man 3 (not even the incredible hulk would relish that fight). Not... Exiled
Fate knocking at the door: If it was good enough for Beethoven's Fifth, it's good enough for Johnnie To's 43rd. Fate, in this case, comes in the form of Cat (Roy Cheung), a Triad foot soldier looking for an old friend, Wo (Nick Cheung). His knock is echoed shortly afterwards by Blaze (Anthony Wong), a hitman sporting the appropriate Hong Kong... Vacancy
Coming on the heels of Paradise Lost and The Hitcher, (and before them, Hostel), this is yet another American film that cautions us not to leave the straight and narrow. In this case: the highway. David (Luke Wilson) thinks he's on a short cut. But it's late, he doesn't know the country, and he gets turned around after braking to avoid an animal... Ocean's Thirteen
If Danny Ocean and co frittered away a lot of their gloss in the irritatingly frivolous Ocean's Twelve, Thirteen restores much of the original luster. It's a stylish, confident caper movie that cruises along for two hours without breaking into a sweat. The crew's second reunion is occasioned by the collapse of an ailing Reuben (Elliott Gould),... The Chumscrubber
Welcome to suburbanville. Mom (Allison Janney) is peddling vitamins as a radical life system solution. Dad (William Fichtner) is prescribing stronger medications to patients across the country by way of his best-selling self-help books. Even the town motto promises 'Carefree Living'. So when Dean (Jamie Bell) discovers his best friend Troy - the... Black Gold
Sales of coffee have gone through the roof over the last 15 years (if Wikipedia is to be believed, Starbucks alone posted revenues of $7.786 billion in 2006). According to Nick and Marc Francis's film, coffee is the second most heavily traded commodity on the New York stock exchange. And it grows on trees! You might think this added up to good... Water
India, 1938. A dozen widows live together in penury on an ashram in Banares. According to Hindu tradition because their husbands are dead, they are themselves only half alive. Officially they are prohibited from further contact with men (save for an arranged marriage with a younger brother-in-law). In reality, the only way they can survive is by... The Hitcher
It takes some determination to dumb down a movie as bare bones as The Hitcher. In its 1986 incarnation C Thomas Howell stops for the wrong guy - Rutger Hauer - who turns out to be a psychopath. He escapes, but Hauer is only just getting warmed up. He butchers a family a little further on down the highway and frames Howell for the killings. Then... Flyboys
There haven't been many WWI dogfight movies since I dunno The Blue Max? A popular genre in the 1920s and 30s (you will recall Leonardo DiCaprio's Howard Hughes going for broke in The Aviator) it fell by the wayside after WWII for all the obvious reasons. You would imagine that the primary motivation to revive the genre today would be to reflect... Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
It takes an age before Johnny Depp shows his face in Pirates the Third, and when he does, it's the tip of his nose that looms into screen left, eventually succeeded by a flaring nostril. I doubt there's been a larger, longer close up of a proboscis this side of Seabiscuit. There's no rhyme or reason for it, really, but our indulgence is rewarded... Jindabyne
Stewart (Gabriel Byrne) has been looking forward to his annual fishing expedition with his mates ever since he returned from the last one. Jindabyne is a no-nothing town, work in his garage is wearing, and his marriage to Claire (Laura Linney) has seen better days. But out in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales he can breathe again. The air is Conversations with Other Women
A middle-aged man and a woman - Aaron Eckhart and Helena Bonham Carter - meet at a wedding. He's flirtatious. She plays along. Her husband is a cardiologist back in London. She came over to New York at the last minute, an alternate bridesmaid for a friend she used to know. The man says he's seen her before: he has a picture of her reading a book... Black Snake Moan
Oh, Lordy! If you've had the good fortune to see the trailer for Black Snake Moan, you'll know that it's an incredibly salacious, sleazy and provocative number involving Cristina Ricci looking very nubile in a t-shirt, panties and chain, while Samuel L Jackson sings the blues. What you may not realise is that underneath the skin, this is actually Zodiac
Some murders just won't lie down and die. The man who called himself Zodiac is officially linked to five killings, though in letters to the press he claimed as many as 37. For several years from 1969 he terrorized the San Francisco area, taunting the authorities with frequent cryptic messages that received front-page treatment. Despite this... 28 Weeks Later
Most sequels fail by scrupulously remaking a story that we've already seen. This fierce, frenzied follow-up to Danny Boyle's propulsive zombie movie works harder than that, abandoning the original characters (whatever was left of them) and acknowledging the real draw was a vision of Britain overrun with raging psychopaths (something we can all... The Night of the Sunflowers
Hollywood doesn't have a monopoly on the best stories, or the best storytellers - though I wouldn't be surprised if an inferior American remake of this gripping Spanish thriller showed up in a couple of years. Written and directed by debut filmmaker Jorge Sanchez-Cabezudo, The Night of the Sunflowers involves a serial rapist and murderer, cops,... Spider-Man 3
More! More! More! In this season of the three-quel it seems only fitting that Spider-Man faces a triple threat. First, his old friend and rival Harry Osborn (James Franco) aka New Goblin, still swears he will avenge his father's death. Escaped convict Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) aka Sandman doesn't have a personal grudge against Spidey... The Upside of Anger
Hard to see why it's taken more than two years for this Kevin Costner vehicle to cross the Atlantic - it's the best thing he's done in a good while. Plus it features another excellent performance from Joan Allen, this time in a more comic register than we usually get to see from her. Allen plays Terry, middle-aged mother of four teenage daughters Mutual Appreciation
Writer-director (and actor) Andrew Bujalski is the most highly-touted filmmaker in what is being talked about as the next new wave of American independent movies - a wave so new (if it even exists) no-one has settled on a name for it yet. 'Mumblecore' is one suggestion. 'Bedhead cinema' is another; 'Slackavettes' a third. The filmmakers in this... Bridge to Terabithia
The best surprise of the year so far, this entrancing, heartbreaking family film is a rare movie I would recommend without reservation to almost anyone. (Well, okay, anyone over the age of 8 or 9). Sure, the target audience is probably that tricky 10-to-12-year-old demographic who think they want to see Spider-Man. But let's assume you're over... Fast Food Nation
There is a scene late in Richard Linklater's Fast Food Nation when a group of student environmental activists break down a fence in a holding pen to free hundreds of cattle destined for the slaughterhouse. But the cows won't budge. 'What's the matter with them, don't they want to be free?' groans exasperated Alice (pop princess Avril Lavigne). 'Ma The Painted Veil
Picture poor Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts), in a white summer dress, kicking her heels in a Chinese paddy field, wondering what on earth she is doing here. The answer is banal enough: she married in haste. Not out of love, but peevishness. She knows her very respectable family has already written her off as a lost cause, so she accepts Walter's... This Is England
Father figures, mentors, men and boys, these are relationships that crop up in all five of Shane Meadows' films, and most often they are central. In This Is England, twelve-year-old Shaun (a brilliant performance from newcomer Thomas Turgoose) is mourning his dad, killed in action in the Falklands. The year is 1983, and Thatcher is riding a wave... Reign Over Me
'I am a simple man/So I sing a simple song/Never been so much in love/And never hurt so bad at the same time.' Graham Nash's song Simple Man is an unusual choice for a title tune, especially since the title is actually a reference to The Who. Maybe the marketing men figured 'Simple Man' starring Adam Sandler would send the wrong message - this is Fracture
'Does it bother you that I call you "Willy"?', Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) demands of prosecuting attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling). Gosling/Beachum laughs and shakes his head. No. 'Very well then, Willy' Hopkins teases out every ounce of absurdity in the name. A boy's name, not a name for a high-powered attorney, surely? The two men don't The Reaping
For a country so self-righteously Christian as the United States, it's curious that the only American movies that regularly touch on God and religion are horror films. The Reaping is fairly typical. Hilary Swank is Katherine Winter, who lectures on the subject of Faith vs Science to rapt students, eager to hear how she travels around the world... Alpha Dog
A murderous desperado called Jesse James Hollywood? To say that life imitates art doesn't begin to do it justice. Premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006, Nick Cassavetes' true crime drama Alpha Dog was immediately overtaken by events in March, when Hollywood was finally apprehended after months on the lam, and his defense... Half Nelson
Ryan Gosling's Dan Dunne is the most inspirational teacher I've seen at the movies since Jack Black in School of Rock. Or at any rate, the most credible. Sure, he splits from the History curriculum to teach dialectics to his class of Angelino eighth graders. Yes, he illustrates his theorem by arm-wrestling the students. But what really sets Mr... Perfect Stranger
It's six years now since Halle Berry won the Academy Award for Monster's Ball. In that time she's played a Bond girl in Die Another Day, reprised the role of Storm in two X-Men sequels, made Gothika, Catwoman, and now Perfect Stranger. And that's it. Not much to show for an actress at her peak (probably - Berry turned 40 last year). In Perfect... The Curse of the Golden Flower
Miami Vice and Hannibal Rising star Gong Li was roundly criticized in the Chinese press recently after speaking up for environmental issues in the senate while wearing fur. So it goes: Gong is as close to royalty as China allows these days, and that privilege doesn't come without scrutiny (she has also used her delegate status to try to curb... Wild Hogs
I must admit, when I saw the trailer for Wild Hogs, my first reaction was, wild horses couldn't drag me to it. Paunchy, punchy over-the-hill 'stars' (John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence) pulling on their leathers and mounting their Harleys for what promised to be mucho gay gags and lame-o slapstick - who wants to see that? And what the heck Shooter
The best action movie in a while, this tight, focused Mark Wahlberg vehicle puts a canny post-9/11 spin on a Rambo type scenario. Actually, make that post-WMD/Iraq, because the film is steeped in mistrust of the powerful elite who (it suggests) really pull the strings in the US of A. A well thumbed copy of the 9/11 Commission Report has a... Lights in the Dusk
Whacky Aki Kaurismaki is Finland's finest filmmaker; though that may not be saying much in a country with a population of just five million (17 inhabitants per square kilometer). Not surprisingly, solitude is a recurring theme in Kaurismaki's films, which are often portraits of morose introverts stuck in dead-end jobs. You know: comedies. There's Close to Home
In Israel, military service is compulsory for men and women. There are numerous films about the former, but this is the first one I've seen about women in the army. It begins with at a checkpoint descending into anarchy when a rebellious conscript decides to let everyone pass through unchecked. As the CO reestablishes order and tries to find out... Blades of Glory
Real men do skate - just ask Kyran Bracken - but even he might think twice about some of the routines Will Ferrell performs here - with unlikely pairs partner Jon Heder. Not to mention some of the costumes. How much spandex, sparkle and feather trim can one man take? Like most Ferrell heroes, Chazz Michael Michaels is oblivious to any reality... The Last Mimzy
Most kids films these days are technically sophisticated CGI extravaganzas littered with knowing pop cultural references, product placement, and talking animals. Perfect if you're bringing up a brood of uppity junk-food devouring rodents (no comment). The Last Mimzy has its share of whizzy special effects, but it's old-fashioned in a good way: it' Days of Glory
1943. Native North Africans in Algeria and Morocco are enlisted to fight the Germans for 'the Motherland', France. They do so out of pride, to prove themselves, and to escape grinding poverty. Given rudimentary training (they don't even recognise a grenade) and shipped across the Med to Italy, they're soon thrust into the front line, leading a... The Namesake
The distributors of Mira Nair's new film missed a trick when they decided to release it a couple of weeks after Mother's Day. Father's Day would have worked too. Far as I know there is no such thing as Children's Day (every day is children's day), but what I'm getting at, The Namesake is the kind of movie you should take your folks to, or your... TMNT
It's a sobering thought. The first independent movie to gross $100 million wasn't Pulp Fiction or sex, lies and videotape, it was a comic book spin-off featuring men in turtle-suits scrapping it out with a gang of martial arts thieves, The Foot. Back in 1990 the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles craze was sufficiently alarming to the British... Catch a Fire
Originally known as 'Hotstuff' but changed to avoid unwarranted blaxploitation/disco era connotations, Catch A Fire is further proof that Africa has become fashionable continent for Western liberal filmmakers. Not that you could accuse screenwriter Shawn Slovo of following a trend. Born and bred in South Africa, where her father Joe was leader of 300
A new age is dawning. Seven years ago Gladiator used CGI to paint in crowds and armies and even resurrect actor Oliver Reed after he died during the shoot. But Gladiator looks like an artifact from a bygone age beside 300. Ridley Scott dragged his crew to Italy, Malta, Morocco and Britain. Zack Snyder recreated Sparta and the battle of... Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus
True stories come in all shapes and sizes, but this one is stretching a point. Anyone looking for a conventional biopic is hereby dispatched to see Factory Girl instead, though the two films do have some similarities. Both follow a heroine from moneyed respectability as she ventures into a bohemian subculture of artists and 'freaks' that allows... Factory Girl
Legend has it that Edie Sedgwick inspired at least two great songs on Bob Dylan's seminal 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde: 'Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat' and 'Just Like a Woman'. (Some suggest she was the subject of 'Like a Rolling Stone' too, but the dates don't seem to fit even if the lyrics do.) With her Charlie Chaplin eyebrows, lopsided earrings... The Good German
The marketing for the new George Clooney-Steven Soderbergh film is a conscious throwback to the poster for Casablanca: Clooney cutting a heroic profile with Cate Blanchett tucked in behind his shoulder, both of them in shadowy black and white. There is truth in advertising! The Good German is set in Berlin during the summer of 1945, and it has... Norbit
Poor Eddie Murphy! Not only did he not win an Oscar last week, despite being the bookings favourite (and you have to reckon his chances of getting another shot are slim), but many commentators blamed the release of Norbit during the campaign for his fall from grace. Whether or not Academy voters would have been likely to see it, the reviews were... Freedom Writers
What is it Judi Dench says in Notes on a Scandal? 'Teaching is just crowd control - we should be a branch of social services.' Imelda Staunton echoes those sentiments here, as an initially sympathetic school principal who becomes increasingly irritated by the dedication and enterprise of new teacher Ellen Gruwell (Hilary Swank). It's not that... The Illusionist
Fans of The Prestige will want to compare and contrast The Illusionist, another mystery thriller set in the world of magic at the tail end of the nineteenth century. Edward Norton stars as the great Eisenheim, an illusionist whose acclaim reaches the court of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) is sufficiently amused... A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Dito Montiel grew up to be a model for Versace and Calvin Klein. His punk band, Gutterboy, were signed to Geffen Records for a million dollars (though you could be forgiven for never having heard of them.) He was befriended by Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and even enjoyed 15 New York minutes in Warhol's Factory. None of this colourful material makes... The Number 23
February 3. Walter Sparrow (Jim Carrey) is late for his own birthday date. Which means his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen) has time to kill. She wanders into a bookstore, 'A Novel Fate', and idly picks up a self-published manuscript by one Topsy Kretts: 'The Number 23', a novel of obsession. When Walter reads it he can't believe it. Here, in the... Letters from Iwo Jima
You don't have to have seen (or enjoyed!) Flags of Our Fathers to appreciate Clint Eastwood's companion piece, a bold reverse angle on the battle of Iwo Jima, this time from the Japanese perspective. Written by Japanese-American Iris Yamashita (a first time screenwriter and a protégé of Paul Haggis), Letters is based on documents and accounts... The Good Shepherd
Palmi (Joe Pesci): 'We Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; The Irish they have the homeland, jews their tradition; even the niggas, they got their music. What about you people, Mr Wilson, what do you have?' Edward Wilson (Matt Damon): 'The United States of America, and the rest of you are just visiting.' One of the best American The Science of Sleep
It's taken over a year for Michel Gondry's movie to get a UK release since its Sundance premiere. During that time it's twice been pushed back in the calendar, presumably because Warner Bros - who picked up international distribution rights at the festival - don't have a clue what to do with it. In the US, it made less than $5 million. I mention... Because I Said So
According to statistics in the US, 82 percent of the opening weekend audience for Diane Keaton's new film was female, and 61 percent was over the age of 30. What the stats don't tell us is how many were disappointed by what they saw. There's always a reservoir of goodwill towards Keaton, a dramatic actress (The Godfather) who became a star... Charlotte's Web
It was only a matter of time before Elwyn Brooks White's early reading favourite was hauled out for a computer generated / live action makeover. Evidently modeled on the familiar 1973 animated film (with Debbie Reynolds and Henry Gibson vocalizing Charlotte and Wilbur), but sensibly dispensing with the eminently forgettable songs, this new live... For Your Consideration
A timely cinema release for the latest from Lord Haden Guest and his band of merry pranksters: For Your Consideration satirises the annual madness to which even the most hardened film industry veterans succumb as Oscar season approaches. His Lordship - known outside Westminster as Christopher Guest, and to film fans everywhere as Nigel Tufnel -... Climates
No, not another global warming documentary - this is an art film from Turkey's Nuri Bilge Ceylan, who made Uzak (Distant). Before you switch off, it's worth knowing that Ceylan is one of the most admired filmmakers in the world right now, and a prodigious talent who not only wrote and directed, but also stars, produced and edited. (On Distant, he Epic Movie
Four (grown) orphans - Edward, Peter, Susan and Lucy - separately come into possession of chocolate bars bearing a special golden ticket within the wrapper. Little do they suspect that the candymaker, Willy (Crispin Glover) means to turn them into sweets. Hiding from him, they shelter in a large old wardrobe - a portal into the magical world of... Hannibal Rising
Origin stories are all the rage in Hollywood these days, though the motives are purely mercenary. No profitable franchise can afford to overlook its genesis. Alternate titles that have been attached to this prequel over the last few years range from the pragmatic Hannibal 4 (which at least has a certain candour) to the classical The Lecter... Notes on a Scandal
Remember the stink when the first Basic Instinct was released? The film was protested and picketed by lesbians and bisexuals because, they said, it traded on negative stereotypes. They even persuaded screenwriter Joe Eszterhas to apologise for what he had wrought. (Come to think of it, I guess a serial ice pick killer isn't a great role model.)... Dreamgirls
It's taken 25 years to transfer from stage to screen, but Dreamgirls the movie is everything its fans could have hoped for. And more. Director Bill Condon has found the right cast to put over a classic theatrical extravaganza, smartly reworked Tom Eyen's book to create a more rounded dramatic arc, and whips the whole thing along at a dizzying... Running With Scissors
Augusten Burroughs' memoir has been at or near the top of the New York Times best seller list for non-fiction these past 127 weeks. Call me crazy, but I wonder if it would pass the Oprah veracity test if it had been published in the post-James Frey era. This tale of a camp 13-year-old boy adopted by his divorced mother's blithely uninhibited... Little Miss Sunshine
Correction: A film review on Wednesday about "Little Miss Sunshine" referred incorrectly to contestants in the fictional children's beauty pageant of the title. The critic intended to compare the contestants to underage prostitutes, not to "underage fleshpots." The New York Times, 31 July 2006 A lot of people are going to love Little Miss... Venus
Premiere magazine recently rated Peter O'Toole's performance in Lawrence of Arabia the greatest ever committed to celluloid. It was his fourth film, his first lead, and a hell of a break - though he lost the Oscar to Gregory Peck and To Kill a Mockingbird. He's been nominated six times since (for Becket, The Lion in Winter, Goodbye Mr Chips, The... Blood Diamond
In Blood Diamond Leonardo DiCaprio is Danny Archer, a former soldier of fortune from Zimbabwe - 'Rhodesia', he pointedly calls it - who has put his considerable skills to more lucrative ends, smuggling diamonds out of Sierra Leone and into the eager fists of the gem trade (and subsequently onto a finger near you). If this black market serves to... Bobby
Something of a marketing challenge in the UK (no, it's not that Bobby Charlton biopic some of you have been dreaming of), this tries to tap in to the residual pain many Americans still feel for the lost hopes of the 1960s. More than his older brother, Robert F Kennedy passionately espoused the cause of civil rights, and could have gone head-to-hea The Fountain
It's been six years since Darren Aronofsky wowed a generation of young filmgoers with his sensational treatment of addiction, Requiem for a Dream. Now he's back with a stab at the kind of personal, visionary cinema his new-found reputation seemed to demand: a metaphysical sci-fi movie starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz (Mrs Aronofsky).... Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
I know you doubt it. You think it should be Vince Vaughn, or Will Smith, Owen Wilson, or Ben Stiller, or maybe even Steve Carell, but I'm afraid I have to insist: the funniest man in American film right now is Will Ferrell. And this is the movie to prove it. Ferrell is Ricky Bobby, a natural born speed-freak and a mechanic on the NASCAR circuit... Babel
It's ironic, given that this is a film about the difficulties of making yourself understood and those forces that keep people apart, but over the past couple of months (ever since seeing the film at the Toronto Film Festival in September) I've had more arguments about Babel than anything else. And not just about the correct pronunciation of the... Infamous
Last year we saw how the feted gay novelist Truman Capote (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) played on the trust of killer Perry Smith to write his masterpiece, In Cold Blood . Infamous, which was shot at the very same time but held back from release, tells exactly the same story, and hits all the same beats. Comparisons may be invidious, but unless you... Black Book
Maybe it's too early to say it, but I shouldn't be surprised if two of my top ten movies for 2007 turn out to be WWII dramas. Clint Eastwood's grim, compassionate Letters from Iwo Jima is released here Feb 23rd, and supplies a Japanese perspective on the same crucial battle featured in Flags of Our Fathers. I think it's his best film since... Rocky Balboa
Rocky 60. Who'd a thunk it? The big lug just doesn't know when to stay down. Last seen some 15 years ago, broke but not quite broken, Rocky reemerges here as a celebrity restauranteur in the old neighbourhood. He's living off old glories, the walls of his place lined with mementos from yesteryear. The customers come to hear his war stories and... The Pursuit of Happyness
Chasing after thieves, ducking out on cab drivers. Will Smith does a lot of running in The Pursuit of Happyness, as if he's taking that title literally. It's a reference to the American Declaration of Independence of course, as Steve Conrad's screenplay spells out: you have the right to pursue happiness, not the right to happiness itself. And... The Last King of Scotland
A big, hulking actor with a lazy eye, Forest Whitaker has always been a very physical actor - when you think of his performances, you think of how he carries himself. The way he seemed to pour himself into the saxophone in Clint Eastwood's Charlie Parker biopic, Bird, for example; or his solitary grace in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai; or the An Inconvenient Truth
Mostly in the cinema actions speak louder than words. But even though the filmmaking here rarely transcends the kind of educational documentaries they made for public edification back in the 1950s (man in suit stands in front of a graph) the message is persuasive enough to ensure that this may be the scariest movie you see all year. Essentially a A Prairie Home Companion
Sometimes film-makers sense when the jig is up. John Huston's final film was The Dead, and John Cassavetes waved adieu in the last images of his last masterpiece, Love Streams. Robert Altman was a late starter, making his first film in his 40s, but once he got going there was no stopping the prolific and prodigious director. Yet it's clear from A Apocalypto
No one goes for the jugular quite like Mad Mel. I doubt there is another filmmaker in Hollywood who could have made a movie about the ancient Mayan civilization in the Yucatec language, with no stars, and then having got the greenlight (owning your own studio has its perks) proceeded to trample that civilization under foot, metaphorically... Over the Hedge
Fans of 90s TV comedy The Larry Sanders Show will be pleased, so far this year Rip Torn (Artie) has had the opportunity to shine in the art house drama 40 Shades of Blue (and Marie-Antoinette), while Larry himself (aka Garry Shandling, who played him) gets his biggest movie role yet in Over the Hedge. That said, you might not recognise him: he's... Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
It's hardly surprising it's taken 20 years to bring Patrick Suskind's best-seller to the screen. Suskind himself apparently believed the material to be unfilmable, and refused to sell the rights for many years. When he did so, German producer Bernd Eichinger decided to take a crack at the script himself, a collaboration with British screenwriter... Flags of Our Fathers
There has never been an American filmmaker as productive in his old age as Clint Eastwood. He was 62 when he made Unforgiven back in 1992, and he's directed a dozen more in the 15 years since, including such heavyweights as Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. He sustains his high scoring innings with Flags of Our Fathers, the first of two films Grounded
It's never easy reviewing so-called 'family films'. No critic can speak on behalf of adults and children of all ages. Apparently it's not easy to make them, either, because the ratio of hits to misses is hardly encouraging. Throw in the constraints of making a Christmas movie and the odds of something worthwhile emerging are slim. My idea of a... Déjŕ Vu
I know, I know, you've seen it all before. And this being a Jerry Bruckheimer slam-bang action thriller, you have too. There will be the kind of cast that immediately inspires confidence (Denzel Washington, Val Kilmer, Jim Caviezel, Bruce Greenwood). There will be a demolition derby car chase through the streets. There will be big explosions at... Nacho Libre
When so many comedies try to knock you out with a sheer overload of gags - watching Scary Movie part 4 you have to wonder how long it will be before they start adding a sit-com style laugh track to these things - Nacho Libre turns out to be a pleasingly easygoing affair. The premise is so silly we're already smiling from the get-go, and director... The Nativity Story
My favourite version of the Nativity story was directed by my mum at a village elementary school in North Yorkshire with a cast of five and six year olds. "Is there any room at the inn" asked Joseph. "Yes" replied the eager inn-keep, sowing much confusion on stage and hilarity off it. Catherine Hardwicke's big screen version plays it by the book - The US vs John Lennon
Richard Nixon was no Lennonist. And Lennon wasn't crazy about Tricky Dick either. In the politicized climate of the early 70s he went much further into the radical fringe than his Beatles brethren, hanging out with the Black Panthers and key figures in the anti-war movement, like 'yippie' Jerry Rubin. These associations did not go unnoticed. The... Happy Feet
In a nutshell, this is March of the Penguins, the animation; though in fact George Miller's film was already well into production before the documentary turned into an unexpected global smash. In the original version of March the penguins talked to each other in French, but as far as I know they didn't also burst into song at the drop of a hat.... Miami Vice
Movies based on TV series trail all sorts of preconceptions, usually not to their advantage. Writer-director Michael Mann handles the problem with customary efficiency. He doesn't waste a moment - not even for opening titles - but just plunges right back into the throbbing criminal night life which keeps Miami's Vice squad so busy. Sonny Crockett Stranger Than Fiction
Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) is a numbers guy. He's obsessive about counting: the number of brush strokes he applies to cleaning his teeth; the number of steps it takes from his front door to the bus-stop; the time it takes to get to work. Everything adds up. Harold works for - who else? - The Internal Revenue Service. But that nagging voice he... Shortbus
Talk about beginning with a bang! There is more graphic, varied and athletic sex in the first five minutes of Shortbus than you would see if you laid the year's Hollywood movies end to end. Sophia (Sook-Yin Lee) and Rob (Raphael Barker) seem to know the kama sutra back to front. James (Paul Dawson) has perfected the art of auto-erotica - a talent Flushed Away
Watching the trailer, I had a strong suspicion this was going to be a load of merde (pardon my French). It's the story of a pet mouse, Roddy Saint James, who inadvertently goes down the pan, finding himself in a subterranean sewer world he hardly knew existed. Call me squeamish, but rodents and turds didn't seem like an ideal combination for a... Pan's Labyrinth
From the director of Hellboy and Blade II comes Pan's Labyrinth, a potent mix of fantasy and reality set in the confusion of post civil-war Spain. 11 year-old Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) is forced to move with her heavily pregnant mother to a remote Spanish outpost to live with her newly adopted father Capitán Vidal (Sergi López), who he is in charge... Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Elizabeth Swann: 'I know there will come a moment when you will have the chance to do the right thing.' Jack Sparrow: 'I love those moments. I like to wave at them as they pass by.' I can't imagine what Tom Hollander has against Keira Knightley, but after his oozy proposal to the poor girl in Pride & Prejudice, here he is ruining her wedding to... Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
Jack Black's Tenacious D side project began as a series of ten-minute skits for HBO with an old actor buddy, Kyle Gass (it was Gass who taught Black how to play the guitar). It's taken a few years - and the runaway success of School of Rock - for the movie to happen, and in the meantime "the D" has become a semi-legitimate band in their own right, Jackass Number Two
Whether it's coincidental or just something in the air, the two funniest films of the year are both big screen versions of TV skit shows, produced by HBO and MTV respectively. Both exploit candid camera pranks pioneered by, yes, Candid Camera, and both test the boundaries of good taste and political correctness. There isn't a whole lot separating Hollywoodland
When the tabloids dig up that old story about 'the curse of Superman', they always go back to poor old George Reeves, a B-movie actor who played the role on a kids' TV series in the 1950s. Reeves' first film role was in the very first scene of Gone With the Wind. He seemed to be on the cusp of stardom in the early WWII years, then he signed up... Casino Royale
Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale has been filmed twice before, once for US TV (with Barry Nelson as an American 'Jimmy Bond') and once as an all-star spoof, with David Niven, Woody Allen and Peter Sellers all claiming Bond bragging rights. Now the rights are back with the Broccoli dynasty, and it provides a sensible launching pad for the... Requiem
Even atheists are fascinated by the idea of exorcism, if only because it seems such an extreme throwback to the Dark Ages. Hans Christian Schmid's film is based on an actual case from Germany in the early 1970s, when a young Catholic student, Annliese Michel, believed herself to be possessed. The same story was the inspiration for Hollywood's The Gabrielle
Patrice Chereau reinvented - or at least, re-energised - the costume drama with La Reine Margot , a rip-roaring vehicle for Isabelle Adjani which would be a primary influence on our own, relatively demure Elizabeth . Since then he's tried on radically different styles for the operatic contemporary drama Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train , and... The Host
No monster movie (except maybe King Kong ) has had as many off-spring as Jaws . Not only did Bruce (as Spielberg & co christened their mechanical nightmare) beget three sequels, there were illegitimate children too: Piranha was one of the better ones (and that came with sequels too). Alligator was another. I guess you could call The Host a... Breaking and Entering
Breaking and Entering is Anthony Minghella's first original screenplay since Truly, Madly, Deeply a long time ago, and it's a return to North London and a smaller-scale, more personal type of filmmaking after the historical adaptations The English Patient , The Talented Mr Ripley and Cold Mountain . In the process, he has also dispensed with the... The Prestige
Christopher Nolan is up to his old tricks again. The devious filmmaker behind Memento has come up with another teasingly clever and original suspense movie about obsession and identity. The Prestige was probably the smartest movie to top the US box office charts in 2006. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play two Edwardian era magicians - Borden... The Page Turner
The old joanna is getting a bad rep these days. Ever since Jane Campion sexed up piano practice in The Piano it's been the classical instrument of choice for discerning art-house snobs. It went through the Nazi occupation in Roman Polanski's The Pianist , then suffered the outrageous depravities of Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher (imagine what Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Gut-bustingly funny and mind-blowingly outrageous, Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movie is maybe the best American movie of the year so far. A mock doc, with essentially the same guiding principles as Cohen's TV show (ie anyone is fair game), the film begins by casting outrageous slurs at Borat's native Kazakhstan, a backwater where inbreeding is rife, Candy
Dan (Heath Ledger) loves Candy (Abbie Cornish). Candy loves Dan. They both love heroin - the drug of choice for bohemian art school grads who presumably haven't seen Trainspotting, Requiem for a Dream , or Christiane F any of the ever-longer litany of modish cautionary tales which fill up the DVD shelves. Maybe every generation of reckless young... Little Children
Horribly miscast in All the King's Men , Kate Winslet more than redeems herself in Little Children , and should certainly earn a Best Actress nomination for her trouble. Sarah is a smart, self-aware stay-at-home mum - maybe too smart for her own good. She doesn't fit in with the soccer moms at the park, but she doesn't want to abandon her... Red Road
Jackie (Kate Dickie) has a great movie job: she spends all day staring at live images from CCTV cameras dotted around Glasgow. I must admit I never imagined anyone was actually watching those things, but apparently so. Jackie is. And if she sees trouble brewing, she dispatches a police car to the scene double quick. Of course most of the time... All the Kings Men
You may remember Sean Penn defending Jude Law after Chris Rock took a crack at him at the Oscar ceremony back in 2005. They were filming All the King's Men together at the time, but the film has taken what seems like an age to get a release; whether that's because the studio wanted to position it for next year's Oscars, or whether they knew they... Freedomland
‘I never met-a- phor I didn’t like,’ Richard Price told me several years ago on the publication of his novel Freedomland. The metaphor in question was an old public amusement park in New Jersey he frequented as a kid in the early 60s. But the place fell on hard times, the area turned bad, and the drug pushers moved in –... The Dukes of Hazzard
According to the joke, you might be a redneck if your idea of high-quality entertainment is a six-pack and a bug-zapper. Actually I like beer and my new favourite toy is an instrument shaped like a squash racket which electrocutes mosquitoes, so you can draw your own conclusions. Heck, for about 30 seconds there I thought I might even sit back... Exorcist: The Beginning
Talk about back-story. This prequel to The Exorcist came thirty years (and a number of sequels) after Linda Blair's head-turning performance. Set two decades before that, it's the story of Father Merrin - played by Max von Sydow in the original - and tells how he lost and then regained his faith confronted first with the all too human wickedness... Melinda And Melinda
Woody Allen’s umpteenth return to form, at least on the surface, looks like classic Woody. Opening in an affluent restaurant in uptown New York, a group of wealthy filmmakers are debating which genre is better: tragedy or comedy. Allen dives into the debate with gusto, using actress Rhada Mitchell (Finding Neverland; Phone Booth) - and a... The Wedding Planner
Best do's The Godfather Do ask the Don for a favour on this very special day. The Deer Hunter Do something special for your bachelor party. It might be the last chance you get. The Wedding Singer Do invite Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore to sing and cater. They're such a lovely couple. Monsoon Wedding Do transcend the weather. And listen to your... Brokeback Mountain
In a piece in The New York Times last week, Curb Your Enthusiasm's Larry David confessed he would be boycotting Brokeback Mountain for fear it might stir uncomfortable homosexual leanings in him: 'If two cowboys, male icons who are 100 percent all-man, can succumb, what chance to do I have, half- to a quarter of a man, depending on whom I'm with... Kinsey
This excellent biopic stars Liam Neeson as Alfred Kinsey, an etymologist who switched his studies from gall wasps to human copulation, conducting the first scientific research into the sexual behaviour of American men and women. In so doing, he scandalised a nation steeped in ignorance and denial and laid the ground work for the sexual revolution Hustle & Flow
The big deal at Sundance this year, Hustle and Flow sold to Paramount for a reported $9million+ and went on to win the Audience Award. This after writer-director Craig Brewer's screenplay had been turned down by every studio in town. And no wonder: the story of a Memphis pimp, DJay (Terrance Howard) who decides to change his life by cutting a rap The Pink Panther
What is it about Inspector Clouseau that we just can’t let him go? Most iconic comic characters are really extensions of the clowns who played them – in the slapstick era it was always just another Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin or Harold Lloyd picture, regardless of the story. In modern times there aren’t many funny men who... 16 Blocks
The idea of a law-abiding man putting his neck on the line to deliver a prisoner safely to court has fuelled a lot of good movies over the years. Elmore Leonard is at the National Film Theatre next month to talk about one of the best, the Western 3:10 to Yuma, which he wrote. Clint Eastwood's The Gauntlet may be another inspiration for Richard... De-lovely
owbiz biopic. Done right, you come away with Oscars and roses. Hit a bum note, it's raspberries and whine. Despite the best of intentions, Irwin Winkler's Cole Porter biopic falls into the latter category. 'De-lousy', the LA Times called it. Porter - played here by Kevin Kline - was a national treasure, probably the wittiest songsmith of the... Team America: World Police
Imagine a Hollywood action movie in which a top secret team of crack combat experts tackle the terrorist threat around the globe, including Chechens, al-Qaeda, and North Korea dictator Kim Jong Il (actually it's pretty easy to imagine if you've seen Swordfish, which Warner Brothers pulled from cinemas after September 11). Their most dangerous... The Manchurian Candidate
How I stopped worrying and learned to love the (global private equity) Funds Back in the days before the moon landings, Watergate and a year before the assassination of JFK, a successful TV director made a film, starring Frank Sinatra, about a Korean-war hero who had been brainwashed into becoming a communist-controlled sleeper. John... The Constant Gardener
Ralph Fiennes is Justin Quayle, the gardener of the title, and a typical John Le Carré semi-hero: a British diplomat so impeccably schooled he fancies good manners are synonymous with virtue. Yet there is hope for Justin. ‘Learn me’, commands Tessa (Rachel Weisz), a radical free spirit with whom he falls in love. Tessa cannot let... Basic Instinct 2
The last time Sharon Stone uncrossed her legs there was a Bush in the White House. So controversial even screenwriter Joe Estzerhas condemned it, the first Basic Instinct remains the most maligned erotic thriller: like most of its ilk, it's glossy psycho porn at heart, but between them director Paul Verhoeven and star Sharon Stone made Catherine... Coffee And Cigarettes
Talking of narcotics, as we are this week, there is a scene in Wayne Wang and Paul Auster's free-for-all, Blue in the Face (1995), where hipster indie director Jim Jarmusch extols the praises of the cigarette. It's a long and brilliant monologue: 'Coffee and Cigarettes', he says, smacking his lips, 'Breakfast of champions!' At the time, Jarmusch... Good Night, and Good Luck
There's not much in common between George Clooney's first film as director, the larger-than-life Confessions of a Dangerous Mind , and this, his second picture, an austere, black and white flashback to 1953. The first is an extrovert's calling card, full of flashy transitions and extreme contrasts. The second is introverted, operating in a narrow New York Doll
You can't put your arms around a memory, as Johnny Thunders very eloquently put it, but you'll have the impulse to do just that after seeing this documentary portrait of New York Dolls bass player Arthur 'Killer' Kane. Don't think you need to be a Dolls fan to appreciate Greg Whiteley's movie either. It's part of the legend that this band was... Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-rabbit
The fate of the world hangs in the balance. Well, maybe not the entire world, but the fate of Tottington’s annual Giant Vegetable Contest at any rate – which is a pretty big deal in Tottington, the sort of place where a chap may be judged by the size of his prize marrow, and a lady’s melons are not to be sneezed at. There is... Comme Une Image (Look at Me)
Like Agnes Jaoui's first film, the delectable The Taste of Others (Le Gout des Autres), Comme Une Image is an ensemble comedy of manners. Co-writer Jean Pierre Bacri plays a famous writer and publisher whose over-weight 20-year-old daughter Lolita (Marilou Berry) struggles to get his attention;or anyone else's for that matter, until they find out The Passion Of The Christ
Mel Gibson's controversial film gets right down to it: Jesus in the garden of Gethsamane, his betrayal, arrest and condemnation. Anti-dramatic in structure, this is a bold piece of filmmaking, forcing us to suffer along with Christ as he is whipped and beaten, carrying the cross to Golgotha. The brutality is not realistic. No man could sustain... Land Of The Dead
George Andrew Romero takes his zombies seriously. And when I say 'his', that's exactly what I mean - he practically invented the genre. If Mr. Romero wants to add a fourth film to his 'Dead' trilogy, then so be it. You can be sure that this is no mere cash-in; it's been twenty year since 'Day' broke, and the man has something more to say. Kicking Seducing Doctor Lewis
French Canadian cinema is a remarkable success story. Last year seven out of the top ten box office hits in Quebec were homegrown. On the other hand neither the rest of Canada nor the rest of the non-Franco-speaking world shows much interest in what they're getting up to. Denys Arcand's Oscar-winning The Barbarian Invasions was the exception to... Grizzly Man
Four or five years ago you might have been forgiven for writing off Werner Herzog. Certainly an impartial observer forced to take a look at Invincible , his first, misbegotten dramatic feature in over a decade might well have decided that title rang a little hollow. One of the prime figures in the New German Cinema movement of the 1970s, Herzog... The Alamo
All in all, Hollywood would rather forget The Alamo. The biggest flop of 2004 cost somewhere in the region of $100 million to make, and topped out at $22 million at the US box-office. And you can be sure that if the American audience wouldn't go for a Western commemorating one of the most famous battles in its relatively brief history, the... Failure to Launch
Despite the silly title, Failure to Launch had a huge opening in North America, taking in nearly $24 .5 million from over 3,000 screens. Impressive for a romantic comedy with not a Roberts, a Grant or a Bullock in sight. The premise is just as out to lunch. Screenwriters Tom Astle and Matt Ember have noticed a socio-illogical trend: the growing... Memoirs of a Geisha
Nine-year-old Sayuri (Zhang Ziyi, or Ziyi Zhang as her American agent prefers) is sold into indentured labour in a geisha house. An attempt to run away with her sister fails, and she soon wins the undying enmity of Hatsumomo (Gong Li/Li Gong), the most celebrated geisha in Kyoto. Only a chance encounter with a kindly businessman, known to all as & The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
We tend to imagine the traffic on the US/Mexican border heading primarily in one direction: North. But these borderlands exert a substantial pull on the Yankee imagination too, including possibly the most famous curtain-raiser in cinema, the five minute tracking shot which kicks off Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil. In Hollywood cinema, Mexico... Broken Flowers
The latest from cult American independent director Jim Jarmusch resembles a comedy with all the punchlines removed. That may not sound like a great night out, but this somber, wry midlife crisis movie exerts a distinctive charm, and it's perfectly tailored to the deadpan melancholy of star Bill Murray. He plays Don Johnson - no, not that Don... The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
Writer-director Wes Anderson is an absurdist. His films (four so far: Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and now The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou) exist in an imaginary bubble that might as well be popping out of his head, cartoon-style. It takes a bit of getting used to, this Anderson-world. When I first saw Rushmore, reviewing it... Love/hate Huckabees
Look at the breakdown for LOVEFiLM members' ratings on I Heart Huckabees - my favourite movie of last year - even before it came out on DVD, it attracted more than 100 votes. The average rating (as I write) is 4.4, but the ratings breakdown reveals just what a slippery movie this is. While a fairly significant proportion of viewers share my... Prime
This piffling romantic comedy is a surprising change of direction from Ben Younger, who made Boiler Room some years ago. That promising macho drama played like a superior David Mamet knock-off. This time Younger seems to be channeling Woody Allen, but not half so convincingly. In Another Woman and Everyone Says I Love You Allen riffed on the idea Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Hollywood continues to do its bit for the Kyoto protocol. Is there any industry in North America with a higher commitment to recycling? Still, it's been 34 years since the last definitive re-imagining of Roald Dahl's kid-lit classic, time enough for Mike Teevee to grow up, make his way in the biz, and greenlight the inevitable remake. Being... The Devil and Daniel Johnston
The first time I heard Daniel Johnston sing I thought it was some kind of sick joke. He has a voice that wobbles between a whine and a distressed cat, while he thrums his guitar with what sounds like ten thumbs. Even the recording sucks. There’s lo-fi and underneath that there’s Daniel Johnston. Simon Cowell would show him the door in The Incredibles
No more heroes anymore? That's because, according to the latest Pixar sensation, they've been litigated out of existence and into a government witness-protection programme. Which is where Mr Incredible (aka Bob Parr)and his spouse Elastigirl (aka Helen) wind up. She's a housewife and mother. He's an insurance clerk, and hating it. (I don't... March of the penguins
There is a scene in the likeable animated movie Madagascar involving three movie-stealing penguins. Having tunneled out of Manhattan zoo only to be recaptured at Grand Central Station, the pesky penguins are shipped off to pastures new - only to commandeer the transport ship and make their own way to Antarctica. Once there, however,they find it... The Island
Ewan McGregor is Lincoln Six Echo. Like everyone else in the colony, he wears a dinky white jump suit, performs menial tasks, and studies Dick and Jane. His food intake is carefully calibrated to maintain optimum physical fitness. Like everyone else, Lincoln is waiting for his number to come up in the lottery, the prize a one-way ticket to the... Batman Begins
'What are you afraid of?' Liam Neeson's emissary from the League of Shadows asks Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), a millionaire seriously slumming it in a Mongolian prison camp. Bruce has an issue with flying rodents, as you might have guessed. But what he's really scared of is himself: the fear which paralysed him when his folks met their maker at... Collateral
As anyone who regularly has to deal with London cabbies knows, sometimes you just have to take a chance and go with the ride. And that's the best way of enjoying this Tom Cruise thriller too. The taxi driver in question is Max, played by Jamie Foxx (the same Jamie Foxx who just won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Ray Charles in Ray and the... Guess Who
For all the predictable critical outrage that someone (anyone) should remake Stanley Kramer's Trojan warhorse, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, the truth is that the original is a badly dated slice of liberal paternalism which must have looked old fashioned even in 1967. And who better to do the dirty deed than Bernie Mac? Mr Mac is not as well... North Country
Pale and resolute, Charlize Theron stares out of the poster for North Country, eyes uplifted, her blonde coif hidden beneath a pale yellow headscarf. The anonymous masses at her back underline the poster's echoes of Stalinist-era Soviet propaganda: she's a prole heroine in a transcendent heavenly light. St Charlize of the Oscar. If the movie... xXx2: The Next Level
It would be quite possible to make this sequel to the Vin Diesel no-brainer sound fun... even cool. For a start, the big Vin isn't even in it (he's been killed in Bora Bora, we're told). Then, this is an action movie in which America is at war with itself. President Peter Strauss is about to announce sweeping cuts in military spending, with a... Constantine
After The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell and sundry misadventures in the screen trade, acclaimed comic-book writer Alan Moore has reportedly decided to have nothing more to do with the movie business. Not only is his name not attached to Constantine - which is based on his Vertigo comic-book Hellblazer - but he refused to sully his... Shaun Of The Dead
Laughter and fear may not seem the likeliest bedfellows. One sensation is pure pleasure, the other is something we usually prefer to avoid in our everyday life. There isn't a great tradition of horror comedy in novels, music or theatre. But at the movies, it's different. By venturing into a cinema we're already stepping into the dark, braving the Last Days
A straggle-haired blonde man is stumbling through the woods. He is walking purposefully, yet without direction. He seems to be lost. Physically and mentally. He comes to a pool and plunges in. Later, over a makeshift campfire, he begins to sing in a broken, defiant, ironic voice: 'Home, home on the range' We might be watching the end of Gus Van... She's the Man
First there was Clueless. Then there was Cruel Intentions, O, and 10 Things I Hate About You; apparently English literature is a big turn on for today's teenagers. Having brushed up The Taming of the Shrew , the writers of "10 Things" (that is: Kirsten Smith, Karen McCulloh Lutz and William Shakespeare) have turned to Twelfth Night for... Syriana
If they were doling out gongs for best new facial hair, George Clooney's beard would win hands down for the gravitas and maturity it brings to an actor better known for his smirk. And in fact Mr Clooney has been recognized with a Supporting Actor nomination to go alongside his directing nod for Good Night, and Good Luck. He plays CIA field agent... The Aviator
It says something about Howard Hughes that he's been played on screen quite convincingly by such different actors as Tommy Lee Jones, Jason Robards, Dean Stockwell, Terry O'Quinn, and now Leonardo DiCaprio in 'The Aviator'. Hughes (1905-1976) was one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century - even though he was born a multi-million Finding Neverland
Reeling from a flop play, James Matthew Barrie (Johnny Depp) takes to Kensington Gardens in search of fresh inspiration. There, he becomes friendly with the four Llewelyn Davies boys, Peter, Jack, George and Michael, and with their bereaved mother, Sylvia (Kate Winslet). His playful imagination rejuvenated, he embarks on what will become Peter... MirrorMask
While it’s not entirely unknown for comic book writers to take a script credit on adaptations of their work, Neil Gaiman and his sometime illustrator Dave McKean have gone one better here, respectively writing and directing an original modern day fairytale. Their collaboration is a feast for the eyes, but a feast that leaves you feeling... Thumbsucker
Some of the best movies in new American cinema derive from novels which often don’t get the recognition they deserve. Fight Club (by Chuck Palahniuk); Election (by Tom Perrotta); and About Schmidt (by Louis Begley) all come to mind. Thumbsucker is another example – and first-time writer-director Mike Mills was quick to credit novelist The Brothers Grimm
Mr. Terry Gilliam and his sometime writing partner Tony Grisoni (Tideland, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) take an unusual credit for The Brothers Grimm Dress pattern makers. This would be a coy reference to the fact that the Writers' Guild has allocated sole script credit to the prolific Ehren Kruger (The Ring; Scream 3; The Skeleton Key;... M*A*S*H (Disc 2)
The 1970 movie which inspired the TV series turned out to be a cultural landmark of sorts. It was set during the Korean War, but director Robert Altman suppressed anything too specific, so that it was understood to be about Vietnam - which was then at its height. The studio, Fox, expected a conventional comedy. What they didn't expect was... Junebug
This is one of those quiet little films that lingers in the memory. I saw it at Sundance back in January 05, so I know what I'm talking about. Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz) is an art dealer from Chicago. The chance to land a new client - an eccentric 'outsider artist' - brings her down to North Carolina to meet her husband George's family for the... Proof
Gwyneth Paltrow can make you suffer for your art. One of the most talented actresses of her generation, no doubt, she gravitates to bookish material that can be quite deadly on screen: AS Byatt's Possession, for example, a biographical detective story that was fascinating on the page became sluggish and trite in the movie. Sylvia, Great... Crash
The melting pot is boiling over in this overheated drama from the screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby, Paul Haggis. Probably the most racially charged mainstream movie since Do the Right Thing, Crash crams Sandra Bullock, half a dozen major characters, four significant story strands and at least as many ethnic types into a 24 hour rondo. Spike... Dig
Seven years is a long time to hang out with a subject, especially if that subject is borderline schizophrenic, given to violent outbursts, and addicted to alcohol and drugs. Still, documentary maker Ondi Timoner knew she was getting great footage. And hell, Anton Newcombe – creative force in the Brian Jonestown Massacre – might just... The Village
Everybody always talks about M Night Shyamalan's surprise endings. But the shocker here is the opening. What on earth is this hip, contemporary director doing making a period film? Set among some fearsome woods, The Village is entirely cut off from the rest of the world - which makes it hard to say exactly what period we're supposed to be in. But The Matador & Lucky Number Slevin
There is life after Bond. Pierce Brosnan may have been retired from 007, but he's retained his license to kill in The Matador , a comedy about a burnt out hitman (he prefers 'facilitator of fatalities') who befriends a down on his luck businessman (Greg Kinnear) in Mexico City. Julian Noble (Brosnan) is very good at what he does. But he's also... The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Bereft of Lord of the Rings this Christmas, Disney have come up with the next best thing and have gone all guns ablazin' with an adaptation of C.S Lewis' classic children's tale, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The similarities between Lewis' work and Tolkien's is abundant, hardly surprising considering they met as young professors at... The Beat That My Heart Skipped
The Americans are constantly remaking French movies, and the results usually aren't pretty (compare and contrast Clouzot's classic Les Diaboliques with the Sharon Stone/Isabelle Adjani Diabolique to see just how diabolical things can get). Here, writer-director Jacques Audiard (Read My Lips) has reversed the trend, firing off a Gallic take on the Harold & Kumar Get The Munchies
By day, Harold Lee (John Cho) is a conscientious up-and-coming investment banker, the very model of sobriety. But of an evening, he falls under the influence of his party-hearty room-mate Kumar Patel (Kal Penn) - not to mention certain illegal narcotics - and then, well, anything could happen. In theory. Like, they might decide they need to go... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
In order to get into a preview of Harry Potter the 4th my seven year old and I had to get up at the crack of dawn, drive for an hour out into the burbs, then queue another hour in a line that snaked out of the cinema, out of the shopping mall, and into the wet and windy parking lot. Breakfast was popcorn and frozen yoghurt. And the movie? Like... Oliver Twist
Whether the world really needed another screen version of this oft-filmed novel I don't know, but no less an authority than the novelist John Irving has declared it not only the best adaptation but (in some respects at least) 'better than Dickens'! According to Ronald Harwood, who did the script, Roman Polanski wanted to do something lighter... Yes
Sally Potter is a filmmaker who inspires and infuriates in equal measure. Best known for Orlando, she cast herself in the nakedly autobiographical The Tango Lesson (which I loved but many hated), then came unstuck with the egregious melodrama The Man Who Cried (that would be be Johnny Depp as Cesar the gypsy horseman). Yes is absurdly ambitious.... Corpse Bride
Although he didn’t write it and likely didn’t direct it either in a practical sense (leaving the stop-motion minutiae to co director Mike Johnson), Tim Burton’s name is all over Corpse Bride. And rightly so. Like most Burton films, it feels underwritten. And like most Burton films it compensates with visuals full of kinks and... The Shawshank Redemption
Ten years ago I reviewed a Tim Robbins movie for London's Time Out magazine. It was written and directed by a man I'd never heard of (Frank Darabont was his name) and it was based on a novella by Stephen King I'd never read. I liked the movie well enough. It struck me as intelligent, engrossing and beautifully acted, and I said so. But I balked... The Legend of Zorro
It's been seven years since Antonio Banderas donned The Mask of Zorro. The sequel finds his marriage on the rocks because he's too busy saving the people to spend time with his family. (A common problem for superheroes these days: as Mr. Incredible and Spider-man will testify.) After a blazing row, Elena (Catherine Zeta Jones) instigates divorce... Shopgirl
One of the more poignant interviews I ever saw was Dennis Pennis (aka Paul Kaye) sticking a microphone in Steve Martin’s face on a red carpet somewhere and asking: ‘Didn’t you used to be funny?’ Mr Martin was not amused. But what made it cruel was that it was true. There aren’t many better cinematic pick-me-ups than... Take the Lead
Is there music in the air? The other day I went to see Take the Lead, and while it's not quite a musical - it really falls into the small but samey category of inspirational teacher films - there was enough music and dance - and Antonio Banderas - to make you wish that it were. The story of a class of inner city delinquents who find self-respect... Before Sunset & Before Sunrise
Rumour has it that director Richard Linklater is shooting a movie in annual increments which will be a fictional counterpart to the long-running TV documentary series, 7-Up , which documented a group of children through their lives at regular intervals of seven years. I can well believe it. Linklater, more than any American director I know, is... Flightplan
Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night. Kyle (Jodie Foster) and her young daughter are returning from Berlin with the coffin of Kyle's husband. Traumatised, the couple curl up in their seats and fall asleep. But when Kyle wakes, the girl is gone. Still, even in a huge brand-new super jet (which Kyle happens to have had a hand in... Mr. And Mrs. Smith
All appearances to the contrary, the Smiths do not have the perfect marriage. Stuck in suburbia, working their high-powered big city jobs, they may look like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, but there's no getting around the fact they have nothing left to say to each other. Apparently neither even suspects their partner is also their competition in... Transamerica
Debutant director Duncan Tucker sets out to make a point and uses a road trip across America's heartlands to drive it home. But there's more to the title than that: it also refers to the journey of Bree (Felicity Huffman), in the process of male to female gender realignment. Spliced together, the message is clear, if a bit sappy: as the song says, Cache (Hidden)
Haneke is the most rigorous and demanding of talents. His forte is the long hard stare, and in Caché it’s Georges Laurent (Daniel Auteuil) who is on the receiving end. The film opens with a long shot of an apartment in Paris, shot from a little side street across the way. It seems a perfectly banal, neutral establishing shot, except that... Mondovino
Whine, whine, whine Tom Charity talks to Mondovino director Jonathan Nossiter. Last May, while the Cannes festival was already underway, Jonathan Nossiter's Mondovino was a last minute addition to the Official Competition selection, the second documentary on the list (the first was Fahrenheit 9/11). Not all the jurors appreciated having to sit... Kicking And Screaming
Will Ferrell – the force is strong with this one. Pitted against a dozen pre-teens and a join-the-dots screenplay about the trials of coaching a kids's soccer team against his super-competitive dad, Ferrell throws himself into the proceedings with the kind of commitment serious thespians reserve for Ibsen or O'Neill. Once upon a time Steve... Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge Of The Sith
This time it's War! After the sluggish scene-setting of The Phantom Menace and the juvenile dramatics of Attack of the Clones, it's a relief to report that George Lucas has pulled out all the stops for the sixth, central and final installment in his cosmic saga. Revenge of the Sith is not just in a different league from its two immediate... C.R.A.Z.Y.
Another movie about the love between men (but not necessarily in the way you're thinking), director Jean-Marc Vallée's transgressive crowd-pleaser swept the board at the Canadian film awards earlier this year, winning 11 of the 13 Genies for which it was nominated. That statistic may tell us more about the state of Canadian cinema than about the... Domino
'My name is Domino Harvey,' says Keira Knightley, vowels as plummy as high tea. 'I am a bounty hunter.' Domino was (you probably know she died of an apparent overdose last summer) the daughter of a movie star (Laurence Harvey, from The Manchurian Candidate); a British St Trinians gal who loathed the Beverly Hills 9021 set her mother thoughtlessly The Usual Suspects
I must have seen Bryan Singer's brilliant 1995 mystery thriller three times, maybe more, but this supplementary disc (a) told me all sorts of background details I never knew; and (b) made me want to watch the movie all over again. Singer was only 27 when he made ' Suspects ', from a script by his schoolfriend Christopher McQuarrie. This was well... The Matador & Lucky Number Slevin
There is life after Bond. Pierce Brosnan may have been retired from 007, but he’s retained his license to kill in The Matador , a comedy about a burnt out hitman (he prefers ‘facilitator of fatalities’) who befriends a down on his luck businessman (Greg Kinnear) in Mexico City. Julian Noble (Brosnan) is very good at what he does. The Perfect Catch
On the face of it, Nick Hornby's non-fiction book about his love for 'boring boring Arsenal' would seem an unlikely bet for a movie adaptation. Part overgrown adolescent confessional but mostly straight sports reportage, Fever Pitch became a best-seller on home ground and played surprisingly well away. Eight years ago it was made into a mediocre... Being Julia
Produced by a Canadian immigrant (Robert Lantos), directed by a Hungarian (Istvan Szabo), but written by a Brit (Ronald Harwood), based on a novel by Somerset Maugham and set in and around London in the 1930s, Being Julia is a quintessential star vehicle. That star is, of course, American: Annette Bening. Ms Bening is Julia Lambert, the toast of... Hotel Rwanda
Of all the films included in this year's Oscar nominations, Hotel Rwanda is the crudest in strictly aesthetic terms. It is also the most powerful. It is based on the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, manager of the Milles Collines, a swanky Belgian-owned hotel in Kigali. As played by Don Cheadle, Paul is a smooth operator, a natural diplomat who... Hell (L'Enfer)
This is the second of three films envisaged as his last testament by the late, great Polish director Kryzstof Kieslowski, a God among cinephiles for his masterly Dekalog (aka The Ten Commandments) and the Three Colours Trilogy. Sadly, Kieslowski died too young to get the movies beyond the planning stage, but a few years ago we saw Tom Tykwer take Ong-Bak
In case you haven't heard, there's a new martial artist in town. His name is Tony Jaa, and he's the real deal. That's the pitch anyway. I bet it wasn't advertised in Thailand this way, but in the Western world Ong-bak comes with the tag-line: 'No stunt doubles, no computer images, no strings attached'. No computer images! Here I was thinking CGI... Dark Water
Hideo Nakata's original Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara) hasn't quite got the classic status of his earlier chiller Ring, but for my money it's just as scary and a more human, moving story. Both are based on novels by cult writer Koji Suzuki, who is known as Japan's Stephen King, and both pick on a single mother divorcee as a heroine/victi Spider-Man 2
At the climax of Kill Bill: Vol 2, Bill lets loose with a lonnggg speech about comic book super heroes - how they're all essentially much of a muchness, being humans who have lucked into their special powers one way or another. The exception is Superman: "Superman did not become Superman, Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the... L'enfant (The Child)
"Good Belgian Movie Shock!" Fifteen years ago, my editor at Time Out magazine thought that headline was so amusing he slapped it on the front cover. I don't remember, but I bet it didn't sell too many copies. The Belgian movie in that case was something called Toto the Hero, which sadly has never been made available on DVD in this country. But... Silver City
John Sayles' failed intervention in last year's Presidential election gets a belated UK release this week. It's a mystery thriller in the classic mould laced with broad political satire: in the opening scene Dickie Pilager (Chris Cooper), 'the next Governor for Colorado', hooks himself a dead migrant worker while demonstrating his fly-fishing... 9 Songs
Despite Ann Widdecombe's prudish umbrage (she complained that by passing it uncut for consenting adults, the BBFC had 'thwarted the will of parliament'), the 'most explicit movie in British cinema history' turns out to be a rather beautiful experimental film. Or as The Sun newspaper would have it: 'boring'. It lasts just over an hour, over the... Birth
I just saw Birth in a near empty cinema. What an extraordinary movie! It's so rare, these days, to get lost in a film. I don't mean that director Jonathan Glazer and his screenwriters (Milo Addica, who wrote Monster's Ball, and Jean-Claude Carriere, who collaborated with Spanish surrealist Luis Buńuel in the 60s and 70s) lose control of their... Friday Night Lights
Billy Bob Thornton has two modes: he can be gloriously OTT, chewing the scenery under layers of make-up, putting on his thickest molasses accent, or he can underplay so deftly it's not like he's acting at all. It's this subtle Billy Bob we get in Friday Night Lights, a very watchable sports movie based on a highly regarded piece of non-fiction by Mysterious Skin
When Todd Solondz broached the subject of child abuse in Happiness seven years ago, it felt groundbreaking. Lately though, pedophilia is almost as popular as bank robbery among the indie set. We've seen Tim Roth's The War Zone, L.I.E., Capturing the Friedmans, Mystic River, The Woodsman and Palindromes (Solondz again), and it cropped up in... Two for the Money
Ex college football star Brandon Lang (Matthew McConaughey) parlays his knowledge of the game into $9 an hour tipping the winners on a Las Vegas 1-800 number. The thing is - he's really good at it: an 80 percent success rate. Next thing you know New York bigshot Walter Abrams (Al Pacino) has taken Brandon under his wing, set him up in a corner... Capote
Philip Seymour Hoffman doesn’t look much like the novelist Truman Capote. He’s several inches taller and altogether a bigger, bulkier figure. He barely approximates his voice either, which Gore Vidal described as ‘so high only a dog could hear it.’ If you’re curious to see the real Capote (and a very curious fellow... Finding Nemo
Some of the earlier Pixar releases had surprisingly bland 'making of' features which didn't make any concessions to the films' biggest fans - ie. kids. That's definitely not the case with the Special Features disc for 'Finding Nemo', which is a light-hearted affair with lots of playful touches. First up, there's an oceanographic documentary by... King Kong
If the Lord of the Rings trilogy represents one of the biggest gambles in the history of cinema, its success gave writer-director Peter Jackson a free hand. He chose to go back to a dream project, and remake the movie that had inspired him above all others, the 1933 King Kong. A questionable move, you might think, considering Hollywood’s... Revolver
Oh dear. Guy Ritchie’s gone all serious on us. Having had the world at his feet, on both sides of the Atlantic, after the success of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, Revolver, his forth film to date, has been heavily touted as a return to mockney-gangster form after the dismally disappointing, straight-to-DVD Madonna-vehicle... Eight Below
Before there were action films, which are aimed exclusively at teenagers with their hormones on the throttle, Hollywood used to make 'adventure films', which appealed to a much wider base by providing thrills and spills at a more measured pace - and that's exactly what we have here. Paul Walker (The Fast and the Furious) plays Jerry, a guide... Don't Come Knocking
I expect Wim Wenders will make more films in the future. He is only in his 60s, after all. Nevertheless, Don't Come Knocking feels like a fond adieu: it reverberates with the director's love affair with the American West, the lonely romance of the road, the bittersweet distractions of a life devoted to making movies. It's the story of a veteran... Elling
Elling is a homebody. He has lived his first 40 years with his (single) mother, but when she passes away the government generously finds an alternative home for him in an institution. His new roommate is a big oaf twice his size, obsessed with losing his virginity, but happy to listen to Elling's war stories of his life at sea, carousing in... Match Point
Tennis pro Chris Wilton (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) is befriended by a young toff, Tom Hewitt (Matthew Goode) and begins to date his sister (Emily Mortimer). She's smart and nice, not very exciting but a key to a whole new social stata. When Chris meets Tom's fiancée Nola (Scarlett Johansson) his eyes practically pop out of his skull. If he could have The Proposition
The Proposition begins with a bang: a bloody shoot-out that dispatches Noah Taylor to an early grave almost as soon as you recognise him. This is an Australian western, backed by the UK's Film Council, written by rock singer Nick Cave, and directed by John Hillcoat (with whom Cave collaborated nearly two decades ago on the cult prison movie... Breakfast on Pluto
You will probably know Cillian Murphy from 28 Days Later, Batman Begins and Red Eye. But you may not recognise him as Patrick Braden here: an Irish orphan and natural born transvestite, Patrick, or 'Kitten' as he renames himself, affects the persona of a flamboyant debutante whose gentility, grace and rose-tinted spectacles create merry mischief... I Heart Huckabees
Even though I loved the screwball farce Flirting with Disaster and admired the politically acute Three Kings, the trailer for I Heart Huckabees left me fearing the worst, despite a super-hip cast including Jason Schwarzman (from Rushmore), Mark Wahlberg, Jude Law, Isabelle Huppert, Dustin Hoffman, Lily Tomlin and Naomi Watts. To start with, that... Herbie: Fully Loaded
Plucked from the not-so-proverbial scrapheap by Maggie Peyton (Lindsay Lohan) as a graduation gift from her dad, the world's least glamorous movie star is back, some 35 years after he made his debut in Disney's The Love Bug. Our Herbie hasn't changed much. His basic repertoire consists of a flirty flick of the headlights, flapping doors and a... Paradise Now
For all the qualms of the protestors who picketed the Academy Awards, after the anarchic mythology romanticized in V for Vendetta, Hany Abu-Assad’s film is much more conflicted about any recourse to terrorism, and indeed makes a useful counterpoint to Spielberg’s Munich. While it’s certainly sympathetic to the two men at the... Dead Man's Shoes
British as a chip butty, Shane Meadows is just about as tasty (and probably about as good for you). His A Room for Romeo Brass is one of the underrated gems of the last ten years - and if you haven't seen it yet, you should. It's when Meadows has tried to step up from the quirky personal films he does so well and make something more commercial... This Is Spinal Tap
As we know, most out-takes end up on the cutting room floor because they just don't cut it. Sometimes though, there is such a surplus of outstanding material, those decisions must have been truly cruel to make. There isn't a better example than 'This Is Spinal Tap', universally acknowledged as one of the funniest movies ever made. Disc 2 consists The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers
Geoffrey Rush (from Shine and Pirates of the Caribbean) is too old and a bit portly to play the young Goon Show radio star, and has the unenviable task of recreating Sellers' indelible chameleon-like performances in films like Dr Strangelove, I'm Alright Jack, and After the Fox. Not to mention Inspector Jacques Clouseau of the Surete. Rush has... Sin City
Frank Miller's Sin City doesn't look like any movie you've seen before, although the pick-n-mix noir stylings, graphic production design and a posse of movie stars camouflaged under heavy prosthetics all hark back to one previous big screen comic book adaptation. Miller, his co-conspirator Robert Rodriguez and 'Special Guest Director' Quentin... A History of Violence
Highly praised at the Cannes and Toronto film festivals, A History of Violence could turn out to be Cronenberg's most popular movie since The Fly. It’s the story of Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), a family man who works hard and is capable of a decisive act of courage should push come to shove. When armed men attempt to rob his diner, Tom... Black Hawk Down bonus disc
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer is, financially speaking, probably the most successful moviemaker in Hollywood. His credits include 'Armageddon', 'Pearl Harbor', 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and 'King Arthur'. His philosophy might be summed up this way: more is more. That certainly goes for 'Black Hawk Down', Ridley Scott's 2001 film about the battle of Fun With Dick and Jane
Dick Harper (Jim Carrey) has a high powered job at Globodyne, a beautiful wife (Tea Leoni) and a kid who speaks Spanish (because he spends all his days with the Mexican babysitter). Tapped for a promotion, Dick tells Jane to give up her job and crack open the champagne. But the new position turns out to be a poisoned chalice: Globodyne is a... Garden State & Napoleon Dynamite
Prime cult-film material, vintage 2004, Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite both premiered at last year's Sundance film festival, where their 20-something, first-time writer-directors landed big studio distribution deals. The two films went on to become sleeper hits at the US box office. Napoleon Dynamite cost about half a million dollars to make... All in the Family
HBO have a knack for finding families. Just not the kind mainstream America would like the rest of the world to believe populates its shores. If it ain’t Tony Soprano making whoopee with a one-legged whore one minute and calmly ordering a murder the next, it’s the weird Fisher folks taking care of your loved one’s remains. But... Casanova
For a film about history's most notorious lothario, Casanova indulges in remarkably little rumpy-pumpy. Indeed, the opening montage of Venice's seducer running from various boudoirs, and coy shots of multiple pairs of feet dangling from covered gondolas could be considered something of a tease. For we enter the story as Casanova (Heath Ledger)... Ocean's Twelve: Return of the caper movie
Look up the word caper in a dictionary and you'll find that it's a prickly shrub or a frolicsome leap, a romp or gambol; a carefree escapade. If your dictionary is not too stuffy, it might also tell you that a caper is an informal word for a crime, usually a theft or a heist, usually involving deception. I haven't been able to track down when the Kingdom of Heaven
Just what the world needs right now, a film about the crusades… and from Ridley Scott, the man who made Gladiator and Black Hawk Down. You detect sarcasm in my words, but I'm half serious. After all, why shouldn't filmmakers address history's longest running sore? Whatever liberties Scott and screenwriter William Monahan may have taken with Riding Giants
The natives of Hawaii had been surfing for a thousand years when nineteenth century Christian missionaries banned the practice. You have to wonder if it was the lack of modesty which offended them - and by that I don't just mean the proto-surfers' beach wear, or lack of it, but the sheer hubris which drove them to swim out and master waves ten... Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
Most of us have a fairly limited understanding of high finance and the stock market. I used to think it was just me, but after watching Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room it became obvious that the reason these guys can get away with what they do is precisely because the market is a mystery even to those who are profiting from it the most – Downfall
Berlin. April, 1945. The jig is up. The Soviets are only 10km from city centre. In the bunkers under the chancellery, Hitler (Bruno Ganz) decrees there will be no surrender, rages against the traitors and cowards who have brought Germany to its knees, and concocts brilliant flanking strategies with armies that no longer exist. The High Command... Enduring Love
It's common practice to reserve the climax for the end of the story, but Ian McEwan did things differently in his novel Enduring Love, and the film version stays faithful to his intentions. The opening 15 minutes make for one of the most extraordinary pieces of filmmaking you'll see all year. It begins with a couple picnicking in a field. Joe (Dan Mean Creek
In Jacob Aaron Estes' excellent Mean Creek, George (Josh Peck) is the sort of kid who doesn't fit in. He's seriously overweight, and the other kids at school won't let him forget it. The constant abuse has taken its toll, and George gives as bad as he gets. At the beginning of the film we see him throwing his weight around in the direction of... The Weather Man
The Weather Man is a strange and unusual film, the kind that Hollywood doesn't make too many of any more. In the US it was sold as a surreal comedy, picking up on the hero's hobby, archery. It was a distinctive campaign, but the film missed its audience by a wide mark, making only about $12 million on general release. In fact, for all its... Brick
You don't have to have read Dashiell Hammett's crime novels to have a sense of the cynical, hard-boiled style he helped forge in the 1920s and 30s. The definitive Humphrey Bogart movie The Maltese Falcon (1941) was the first American film noir, and it set the template for every private eye movie which followed. Then there's the Coen Brothers'... The Woodsman: Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon is Walter, a parolee after serving 12 years for a sex offence with a minor. He lands an apartment opposite a school and a job at a lumberyard. He keeps himself to himself, but Vickie (played by Bacon's wife, Kyra Sedgewick) is having none of that, she wants to get to know him, and won't take no for an answer. What's remarkable about... Hostel
It only seems like last week that John Carpenter was telling us horror movies these days had to be pitched at teenage girls and a PG-13 certificate. Evidently no one told Eli Roth, who has followed his bacterial Cabin Fever with the even more disgusting Hostel (released this week). That remake of The Hills Have Eyes takes no prisoners either.... Guerilla: The Taking Of Patty Hearst
The Patty Hearst story remains irresistibly surreal. That a bunch of middle-class college militants could take up the armed struggle inspired as much by Ché Guevara as by Robin Hood and snatch Ivy League princess Patty Hearst (relative to the media magnate William Randolph Heart, the model for Citizen Kane), that the Hearst's would comply... Dear Wendy
Lars von Trier is a filmmaker who relishes the role of provocateur. Dear Wendy is directed by his Dogme associate Thomas Vinterberg (Festen; It's All About Love) but the screenplay is prime LVT. Set in a mining town in the mid-West, it's a film about a group of teenage losers (led by our own Jamie Bell) who form an underground pacifist gun club,... Super Size Me
The other top documentary of 2004, Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me is very 'school of Michael Moore'. Which is no bad thing. More than anyone, MM has laid to rest that dangerous and facile myth about documentary objectivity. In an age when dramatic filmmakers tend to play everything safe, shying away from the hot-button issues of the day, it's... Lord of War
Nicolas Cage – a businessman standing in a sea of spent shells in the middle of a deserted war zone. “There are 555 million firearms in the world,” he tells us. “That’s one for every 12 people on the planet. The only question is, how do we arm the other 11?” Cute. For an encore – and a title sequence ̵ The Aristocrats
Unless you're on the stand up circuit, chances are you won't have heard the one about the agent and the vaudeville act... Not because it's a new gag – in fact it dates back to the early twentieth century – but because the pros deemed it too filthy for public consumption. It was an insiders' joke, something to be passed on and savoured The Assassination of Richard Nixon
All those film lovers who complain they don't make films like they used to in the 70s should take a look at this. Written and directed by first-timer Niels Mueller, it's based on a real incident in 1974, when a guy by the name of Sam Bicke decided he was going to knock off the President. As we know, he failed, and Bicke's name has faded from the... City Of God bonus disc
Actually this extra is included with 'City of God' on the one and only disc, but it's such a good one it's a shame if people overlook it. ' News From a Personal War ' is a 1999 documentary by Katia Lund, who co-directed 'City of God' with Fernando Mereilles, although the Academy managed to leave her name off the ballot when Mereilles was... Goal!
Making football appeal to international audiences – especially in the US – is no easy task, but after the international success of Bend It Like Beckham and with the aid of official backing from FIFA - which means numerous cameos from a glitterati of football mega stars (Beckham included) - things look promising for Goal! So promising... National Treasure
It's been compared to Indiana Jones, and the marketing played up the action angle so heavily, that it turned at least one potential customer right off. To judge by the trailer, National Treasure was just another dumb blockbuster with more balls than brains, a ludicrous plot about stealing the Declaration of Independence, and hokey-looking... V for Vendetta
Evey (Natalie Portman) happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is to say, London, November 4th, after curfew. She runs smack into a pack of 'finger men' - secret police - and is only saved by the intervention of a gallant masked man on a mission to blow up the Old Bailey. 'V' sports a cape and a grinning Guy Fawkes face mask. He Chicken Little
Disney's latest attempt to duplicate Pixar's witty and whizzy digital animated marvels probably convinced the board that they were better off biting the bullet and buying up Pixar outright. Based on the much loved but very short children's story about the chick who believes the sky is falling down, Chicken Little soups up the material with the... Oldboy
Read our exclusive interview with the director and star of Oldboy Tom Charity on the rise and rise of South Korean Filmmaking. The best genre movies in the world are coming out of South Korea these days. Especially when it comes to thrillers and horror films, the Koreans are consistently coming up with startlingly original, audacious and stylish... Kung Fu Hustle
You wouldn't expect to find yourself clicking your fingers as an axe-murderer breaks into an impromptu rhumba over the sliced corpse of his victim, but such is the sheer bloody bravado which kicks off Kung Fu Hustle, only a saint would refrain. Of course, it helps that the corpse was a brutal gang boss, but what really alleviates our moral qualms Saraband
'Who the hell said damnation was supposed to be fun?', that's what Ingmar Bergman wants to know. The gloomy Swede may be a living legend, but he's not about to change his spots. His alter-ego here (though I suppose all four characters vie for that honour) is octogenarian Johan (Erland Josephson), a sad but defiant recluse living out his days in... |