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Dear
Frankie Shona Auerbach
Auerbach
is at heart a photographer, and her work in Dear Frankie on this front
is laudable, but she not writer Andrea Gibb manage to distinguish between
dreams and reality, and this is arguably the film's greatest shortcoming.
Ion Martea
Enduring
Love Roger Michell
The
film is much more interested in vague themes than in its characters,
so the screenplay is littered with pretentious speeches about the nature
of love and evolution.
David Haviland
The
Merchant of Venice Michael Radford
An
inevitable problem with Shakespeare on screen, but particularly with
this film's exquisite Venetian backdrop, is that the spectator is distracted
from the sound of Shakespeare's verse. We are so drawn to the visually
stunning that his words do not resonate.
Rhona Foulis
The
House of Flying Daggers Zhang
Yimou
Zhang
dwells on the universal tradition of the power of love, but despite
the richness of the concept, he limits himself to the pure, straightforward
principle of 'the superiority of love'. And even if we allow that he
takes simple things to make them grand, one can't but leave with a feeling
of dissatisfaction.
Ion Martea
Ground
zero, as seen from the art house
The Time We Killed, by Jennifer Todd Reeves and Yes, by
Sally Potter
Whilst
both films have moments of aural or visual appeal, the content is lacking.
Yes' characters too often feel like personifications of theoretical
positions within Cultural Studies, rather than real living individuals.
Similarly, The Time We Killed doesn't really have great deal to say
about the killing we are doing.
Toby Marshall
Consequences
of Love Paolo Sorrentino
Lest
you be misled, Consequences of Love has little to do with love, and
certainly nothing to do with romance or sentiment.
Alan Docherty
Garden
State Zach Braff
Just
as the film seems to be bustling along into an acutely observed comedy
about human fulfilment, the hero bumps into Natalie Portman and it promptly
becomes a love story. Yuk.
Alan Docherty
The
Woodsman Nicole Kassell
The
film features an outstanding performance from Kevin Bacon in a role
that, if not handled properly, could have killed his career. Instead
it is arguably the finest performances of his life.
Alan Docherty
Tropical
malady Apichatpong Weerasethakul
This
is an intriguing, if wilfully obscure, depiction of gay love in Thailand.
Toby Marshall
Look
At Me (Comme Une Image) Agnes
Jaoui
It's
a comedy without any real jokes, a drama that's only intermittently
involving, and a film that feels more like theatre. Nonetheless this
is an unusually well-written drama.
David Haviland
The
Manchurian Candidate Jonathan
Demme
After
Iraq, the dodgy dossier, and all the rest, many feel that hidden forces
shape politics. It is this popular sentiment that The Manchurian Candidate
effectively plays upon and represents.
Toby Marshall
Napoleon
Dynamite Jared Hess
The
situation of a muppet who’s ‘out to prove he's got nothing
to prove’, as the tagline puts it, is ultimately not that engaging.
Graham Barnfield
Vera
Drake Mike Leigh
Characters
rarely speak directly of the thing that's on their minds, so the scenes
are charged with subtext, and this gives the actors freedom to reveal
character in more subtle and expressive ways.
David Haviland
Vital
Shinya Tsukamoto
The
film finds itself at a crossroads in attitudes to the human body. Sure
enough there’s enough flensing and scratching away with scalpels
to satisfy the morbid and have others feeling queasy. Yet we also see
a Japan where relatives understand the need to use dead bodies in medical
training.
Graham Barnfield
Yasmin
Kenny Glenaan
What
is admirable about Yasmin is that it goes beyond blaming September 11
as the cause of alienation but rather exposes it as the catalyst for
reinforcing existing resentments.
Alan Docherty
Palindromes
Todd Solondz
I'm
in favour of perversion and criminality as much as the next person but
what irks about Palindromes is the trail of utter hopelessness it leaves.
Alan Docherty
Saw
James Wan
In
contemporary horror movies, nastiness is the new irony. Forget self-reflexive
teenagers being done in to the tune of whatever 1980s horror video they
were watching: the latest crop of gory pics claims to be the real thing.
Graham Barnfield
Bride
and Prejudice Gurinder Chadha
Despite
the geographical shifts the script stays surprisingly faithful to Austen's
novel, in plot terms at least. Mostly, it's successful, as the melodramatic
story is well suited to this kind of camp treatment.
David Haviland
The
Motorcycle Diaries Walter Salles
The
real Guevara had a romantic faith in the power of the peasantry, and
also seems to have been more motivated by emotion than intellect. This
makes him the perfect matinee idol for these apolitical times.
Steve Bremner
The
Shawshank Redemption (DVD) Frank
Darabont
The
Shawshank Redemption is perhaps the only undisputed classic of the 1990s,
although it's more popular with the public than with critics, who tend
to be slightly sniffy about its feelgood magic.
David Haviland
Collateral
Michael Mann
Michael
Mann captures the sense of the lawless, impersonal city using high definition
digital video, giving the film a stylish palette of blue and neon. At
one point Max and Vincent stop at a red light, as wild coyotes amble
across the road.
David Haviland
The
Brown Bunny Vincent Gallo
Gallo
is not only the star of the movie, but also its writer, producer, director,
editor, director of photography, production designer and camera operator.
Is he extremely talented or mainly a project-in-himself?
Nathalie Rothschild
Open
Water Chris Kentis
This
is a thrilling example of the power of digital video. The graininess
of the format, combined with the wealth of natural lighting, give the
film a stylish realism that makes the characters' plight terrifyingly
plausible.
David Haviland
Code
46 Michael Winterbottom
Like
other sci-fi films, this is a story with many layers of meaning, whose
basic plot provides a base from which to interweave various dilemmas
of our time, including cloning and its potential social and emotional
consequences.
Nathalie Rothschild
The
Terminal Steven Spielberg
This
is a sweet comedy which aims for Capra-esque humanism, but with a premise
which never gets off the ground.
David Haviland
The
Village M Night Shyamalan
The
problem is that the story only makes sense in hindsight. There are a
number of different plots, which are largely unrelated, and there's
no obvious central character.
David Haviland
Stage
Beauty Richard Eyre
We
see Maria trying to become an actress, but even she admits that she's
dreadful, so it's not clear why we should be rooting for her.
David Haviland
I,
ROBOT Alex Proyas
In
essence, the film is not a tale of man versus machine, but of emotion
versus rationality, impulse and prejudice versus logic and reason.
Kathleen Richardson
Fahrenheit
9/11 Michael Moore
As
you might expect, Fahrenheit 9/11 is strongest when it both escapes
cliché and sheds its pretensions towards argument. Luckily for
Moore, he has a sharp eye for shockingly juxtaposed images.
Michael Caines
Uzak
(Distant) Nuri Bilge Ceylan
The
director’s camera expresses what the characters cannot. By focusing
on single shots and sounds, the film captures the inner state and subjective
experience of the two men.
Josie Appleton
Spider-Man
2 Sam Raimi
It
doesn't even need to be said that there can be a worrying tendency to
take the sub-pub-philosophising that goes on in Hollywood blockbusters
a little too seriously.
Patrick Hayes
Before
Sunset Richard Linklater
Jesse
and Celine still strike me as a pair of self-involved, faux intellectuals
spouting empty platitudes.
David Haviland
Nathalie
Anne Fontaine
The
great dilemma that is placed upon jealous wife Catherine and prostitute
Nathalie is that their very relationship is founded on disloyalty.
Patrick Hayes
In
brief The
Young Black Stallion, by Simon Wincer, Model Behaviour, by
Adam
Elliot and Pjotr Sapegin
David Haviland
The
Miracle Of Bern Sönke Wortmann
At
one point Matthias finds he has just been served his pet rabbit for
dinner. As he runs off in tears the soundtrack soars as if the Berlin
Wall has just come down.
David Haviland
Joy
of Madness Hana Makhmalbaf
This
is a 'making of' documentary, detailing
the casting process for Makhmalbaf's older sister Samira's film, the
equally precocious Afghan drama At Five In The Afternoon.
David Haviland
DVD:
Johnny
Got His Gun (1971) Dalton Trumbo
That
the film is so close to parody is partly a mark of its sincerity. It's
an adaptation of director Dalton Trumbo's own anti-war novel, written
in the 1930s.
David Haviland
DVD:
Léon
Morin, prêtre (1961) Jean-Pierre
Melville
This
is one of those typically continental arthouse films which is ostensibly
a serious metaphysical meditation, but which sweetens the pill with
lashings of sex and melodrama.
David Haviland
Walking
Tall Kevin Bray
Vigilante
movies only work if the audience is convinced that the hero has no other
option, so the film rains blows on The Rock before he finally takes
action.
David Haviland
Highwaymen
Robert Harmon
It's
a strong premise, with striking cinematography, presenting a grimy vision
of the highway as a lawless wilderness.
David Haviland
In
brief Godsend,
by Nick Hamm, A Thousand Months (Mille Mois), by Faouzi Bensaidi,
The Story Of The Weeping Camel, by Byambasuren Davaa and Luigi
Falorni
Perpetual
Terror Syndrome, drought and oppression, and a camel that refuses to
nurse its calf.
David Haviland
The
Return Andrey Zvyagintsev
The
story is simply told, and powerfully evokes that sense of rage and powerlessness
that comes with childhood.
David Haviland
Anything
Else Woody Allen
If
there is something cynical in the escapism of the average romantic comedy,
the cynicism of this film is all the more brutal for its apparent honesty.
Dolan Cummings
Bukowski:
Born Into This John Dullaghan
The
documentary unfolds a chronological narrative, showing us a tortured
child, a troubled teenager, a roaming youth, a struggling worker, an
unrecognised author, a break-through, acquisition of cult status and
the women that come along with it.
Nathalie Rothschild
Eurotrip
Jeff Schaffer
The
film's best joke is actually off-screen, in the production notes, where
Vinnie Jones is described as 'a world-class soccer player.'
David Haviland
Cooler
Wayne Kramer
Macy
is so good at these downtrodden everymen because he plays them completely
straight, allowing the comedy to come naturally from the material.
David Haviland
Shrek
2 Andrew Adamson, Kelly Asbury,
Conrad Vernon
The
sequel shares the first film's delight
in subverting fairytale conventions, with Prince Charming recast as
a weak-willed mummy's boy, the Fairy Godmother a vain tyrant, and the
famous ogre slayer Puss In Boots a cute little kitten. As a result the
plot is consistently surprising, and rattles along at a thrilling pace.
David Haviland
Confidences
trop intimes (Intimate Strangers)
Patrice Leconte
The
film intimately portrays the twists and turns of the unlikely relationship
that develops between these characters, providing an enduring meditation
on the tension between the desire for omnipotence and the seductiveness
of mystery.
Ruth Sheldon
Freeze
Frame John Simpson
Yet
another British feature that somehow managed to raise considerable funding
despite being well below television standard.
David Haviland
The
Whole Ten Yards Howard Deutch
The
cast seem visibly embarrassed, and they have every right to be.
David Haviland
Connie
and Carla Michael Lernbeck
Nia
Vardalos plays Connie, one half of a disastrous musical double act.
She and Carla (Toni Collette) are determined to make it in showbusiness,
despite the assurances of their boyfriends that their talents have no
beginning.
David Haviland
Since
Otar Left (Depuis Qu'Otar Est Parti) Julie Bertuccelli
This
is a family without men, and the film explores the effect of this, as
Marina and Ada pursue half-hearted relationships, and Eka waits for
letters from her son, Otar, who lives in Paris.
David Haviland
Coffee
and Cigarettes Jim Jarmusch
Apart
from the common themes of coffee drinking and cigarette smoking, there
are other red threads that run through the films; they are all shot
in black and white, some references and jokes are repeated, and also
the actors keep their own names and play versions of their own personae.
Nathalie Rothschild
Japanese
Story Sue Brooks
Like
a Shirley Valentine in the outback, this is a story about busy people
finding themselves in the beauty of nature. Perhaps we shouldn't be
surprised that the Australians choose to set this story at home rather
than abroad, but the imbalance between the two characters' journeys
borders on the offensive.
David Haviland
Channels
of Rage (Arotzim Shel Za'am) Anat Halachmi
In
a chilling scene, a pumped-up crowd cheers and hollers as Sub and Shadow
enter the stage and soon impassioned cries are heard: 'Death to the
Arabs'.
Nathalie Rothschild
Emile
Carl Bessai
McKellen
also plays the teenage Emile in flashback, a decision which seems designed
to make the most of the casting, but makes these scenes slightly ludicrous,
as we're expected to pretend that McKellen is a burly, Canadian, teenage
farm-hand.
David Haviland
Bus
174 José Padilha
As
the hijack became a siege, with the hijacker taking the passengers hostage
at gunpoint, it quickly became a television sensation, bringing the
country to a halt, and generating the highest ratings of the year.
David Haviland
Bad
Education (La Mala Educación) Pedro Almodovar
From
the dramatic opening credits to his playful flirtation with cinema itself,
the presence of this director resonates from behind the lens.
Ruth Sheldon
The
Other Side Of The Bed (El Otro Lado de la Cama)
Emilio Martinez-Lazaro
Paula
breaks up with Pedro, explaining that she is in love with someone else.
Pedro is distraught, and tries to get Javier, his best friend, to help
him figure out who the lover is, but Javier is reluctant, as it's him.
Meanwhile, Sonia comforts Pedro…
David Haviland
Kill
Bill Vol. 2 Quentin Tarantino
Perhaps
the charm of this particular outing it that it lets the viewer send
their fictional persona to the pictures. A triumph of surface and style
over anything else, and a scary re-invention of Daryl Hannah, all make
for a great popcorn night out.
Graham Barnfield
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