I scarcely remember grinning as much during a film as I did while watching “Let Me In.” Grinning during a horror movie, you ask? Allow me to explain. It was an all-encompassing smile of pleasure, joy, satisfaction, surprise, and a little bit of awe at how carefully and reverently this film was adapted by American [...]
Now that the 54th London Film Festival has drawn to a close, it’s time to look back at all of the feature films that I reviewed. Here is the list, ordered from best to worst. 1) Dhobi Ghat 2) The Kids Are All Right 3) How I Ended the Summer 4) The Tillman Story 5) [...]
To mark the approaching end of the festival, the BFI kindly invited me to a lunch where they presented their programme for 2011. I have to say that there was little there to make me sit up and take notice, let alone stand up and cheer. The programme announced so far for 2011 is dominated [...]
Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are All Right is one of those films that’s fun to watch at the cinema, just for the appreciative reactions of the audience. I’m sure I saw a few eyes being wiped during its emotional yet happy ending, too. During the first few minutes of the film, I wasn’t entirely convinced [...]
Like Werner Herzog’s half-satirical, half awestruck documentary Encounters at the End of the World (2007), Aleksei Popogrebsky’s Kak ya provyol etim letom (How I Ended the Summer) offers a surprising take on life in the polar regions. The object of Herzog’s satire was the eccentricity bordering on madness that characterises those who live in these [...]
“Catfish” is one of those films that will have as many interpretations as it has viewers. The middle-aged hipster-loathing intellectual will see it as nothing more than an outlet for the filmmakers to glorify their modern, pseudo-bohemian cookie-cutter coolness. The bleeding heart will see it as bad form, an exploitative fame-grab at the expense of [...]
Initially, Ayub Khan Din was hesitant to write a sequel to East is East (1999): the film was among the most successful independent British films ever made, and he knew that sequels rarely live up to the original. Finally, though, he realised that East is East left audiences with several questions that they wanted answers [...]
Colin Firth stars as King George VI in Tim Hooper’s historical drama about a ruler struggling to make the transition into the mass media age by overcoming a speech impediment. Geoffrey Rush, who stars as rogue speech therapist Lionel Logue, helps the king overcome the odds.
Eadweard Muybridge (Tate Britain, 8 September 2010 – 16 January 2011) Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Natural History Museum, 22 October 2010 – 11 March 2011) The place of photography in the evolution of cinema means that there is always some reason for speaking about the two art forms together. Of these two exhibitions currently [...]
It’s been an exciting week with lots of premieres and gala screenings in London. Here’s a selection of images from this past week. You can read up on many of the films screened here. So far, I have reviewed: Never Let Me Go, Love Like Poison, Dhobi Gat (Mumbai Diaries), The American, E-pigs, The Magic [...]
We’ll always have Casablanca
‘Carnage’ slaughters dialogue with theatrics
Loco: London’s 1st Comedy Film Festival
Orlando: Does Sex Matter?
A soothing demise: Lars von Trier’s ‘Melancholia’ considered
The Power of Limits in The Five Obstructions
Surviving ‘Surviving Life’
‘The Other’ at The 2nd London Iranian Film Festival
‘Leaving’: Made in Prague
A Step Forward: New African Film in Paris
