Reviews & features
Director Neil Jordan and actor Gemma Arterton talk vampire feminism in Byzantium
17 May 2013
The thriller is 'a continuation' of Jordan's earlier Interview with the Vampire
‘There have been too many vampire films lately,’ laughs Neil Jordan, perched on a chair in London’s Soho Hotel. You might say the director of Interview With the Vampire only has himself to blame. Without his 1994 take on Anne Rice’s novel, starring Tom…
Profile: Olivier Assayas, director of Something in the Air
17 May 2013
The writer-director specialises in period pieces that don't slide into nostalgia
Born 1955, Paris Background The son of a screenwriter father and a painter mother, Assayas worked as a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, before making his directorial debut in 1986 with Disorder. A writer-director with an impressive ability to work…
Fast & Furious 6
17 May 2013
If you like your stunts outrageous and your plot soapy and undemanding, this won't disappoint
For a franchise with simple tastes – gleaming cars, well-oiled muscles and bikini babes – the Fast & Furious series has always been ultra-willing to re-tune its engines. This time, we’re in London – a first – and the gang, led by Vin Diesel’s Dom…
The Stoker (Kochegar)
17 May 2013
A stange, dark and clever Russian black comedy with an unexpectedly forceful moral message
Edinburgh’s beloved Filmhouse cinema has chosen an unusual and intriguing curio for its first release as a distributor. Directed by the prolific Alexey Balabanov - known for his unflinching but darkly comic fables of the Russian criminal underworld…
The Iceman
17 May 2013
Impressive mafia-themed dramatic thriller starring Michael Shannon, James Franco and Ray Liotta
Is there no film Michael Shannon doesn’t excel in? Here the star of Take Shelter plays real-life New Jersey hitman Richard Kuklinski, who – upon his arrest in 1986 – is thought to have committed over 100 assassinations. Directed by Israeli-born…
The Stone Roses: Made of Stone
17 May 2013
Shane Meadows' rockumentary fails to satisfy either as a concert film or fly-on-the-wall doc
To borrow from an old Stone Roses B-side, the Mancunian band’s much-hyped reunion may well have been ‘what the world is waiting for’, though it’s hard to claim the same for this accompanying Shane Meadows-directed documentary. The director of Dead Man’s…
Five reasons to head to the Southside Film Festival
17 May 2013
The Glasgow film fest does a great line in Scottish films and site-specific screenings
You can discover forgotten former cinemas Glasgow’s Southside may be lacking in cinemas today but that hasn’t always been the case. Take a meander around the area’s architecturally-diverse former picturehouses on a walking tour with the knowledgeable…
Directors Lee Hardcastle and Jake West on horror anthology The ABCs of Death
16 May 2013
The film also features short, sharp shocks from Ben Wheatley, Xavier Gens and Ti West
‘It’s a horror film anthology made up of 26 chapters, each directed by a separate director. Each segment is represented by a letter of the alphabet; the letter of the alphabet stands for a word which is relevant to that segment and that death.’ Lee…
Disney Pixar’s Monsters University announced for Edinburgh International Film Festival 2013
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16 May 2013
The family film will screen at the festival three weeks before release in the rest of the UK
Edinburgh International Film Festival audiences will be among the first in the UK to see Disney Pixar’s latest offering, Monsters University. The Family Gala 3D screening will take place on Sun 23 Jun in the Festival Theatre, with an exclusive schools…
Neil Young: Journeys
16 May 2013
An intimate homecoming documentary by the country rock legend, shot by Jonathan Demme
‘This is a town in North Ontario,’ are the first interview words uttered by Neil Young in this Jonathan Demme-directed documentary, and it’s probable that he’s consciously referencing the lyric of his own song ‘Helpless’. In the opening few minutes of…
Nothing but the Truth
16 May 2013
Serviceable political thriller starring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, David Schwimmer and Alan Alda
It’s amazing how many films with big name casts slink out direct to DVD. Take Nothing But the Truth, featuring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer and Alan Alda. To be fair, NBT was a victim of circumstance rather than some…
The Great Gatsby
15 May 2013
Baz Luhrmann’s lavish adaptation of Fitzgerald’s novel finally arrives
A far cry from the drab pastel shades and muffled emotion of the 1974 Robert Redford/Mia Farrow film, Baz Luhrmann’s new version of The Great Gatsby aims to put the ‘great’ back into F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel. Many have tried and failed to…
Top 5... time manipulation movies
15 May 2013
Inspired by the trailer for About Time, we recount the 5 best chronologically-challenged movies
The trailer for writer-director Richard Curtis’ new time travel rom-com, About Time, was recently released, giving us first look at the love story between the chronologically gifted Tim (Black Mirror’s Domhnall Gleeson) and the object of his affections…
Something in the Air
10 May 2013
Olivier Assayas returns with bittersweet portrait of countercultural French 70's youth
French writer-director Olivier Assayas follows up his epic chronicle of legendary terrorist Carlos the Jackal with this bittersweet portrait of countercultural youth in early 70s France. ‘Diffusely autobiographical’ is how the filmmaker has described…
The King Of Marvin Gardens
10 May 2013
Reissue of forgotten 70s film starring Jack Nicholson by director of Five Easy Pieces
'In the fun house how do you know who's really crazy?' that's the pertinent question in The King of Marvin Gardens, Bob 'Five Easy Pieces' Rafelson's third film. This reissue is a chance to re-appraise the 1972 financial flop starring Jack Nicholson and…
The Liability
10 May 2013
Tim Roth and Jack O'Connell pair up for a seemingly familiar hitman film
You may get struck by déjà vu watching The Liability, the third feature film by former cinematographer Craig Viveiros. A story of a taciturn hitman and his callow assistant starring Tim Roth, it sounds suspiciously like a remake of Stephen Frears’ 1984…
The Reluctant Fundamentalist
10 May 2013
Adaptation of Mohsen Hamid’s book starring Riz Ahmed and Kate Hudson
A globetrotting adaptation of Mohsen Hamid’s allegorical first-person novella, director Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist is a thriller in which the character names are freighted with symbolic baggage. Britain’s Riz Ahmed is impressive as the…
Deadfall
10 May 2013
Contrived thriller from the director of The Counterfeiters
Stefan Ruzowitzky’s concentration camp drama The Counterfeiters won him an Oscar and promised to spring the Austrian director through the ranks of directorial talent. Strangely, it’s taken him five years to make his English language debut, and despite a…
The Village at the End of the World
10 May 2013
Sensitively-made documentary about remote village life in Greenland
Niaqornat is a tiny settlement in north west Greenland. Accessible only by helicopter or boat, home to just over 50 people and surrounded by ice and snow for much of the year, it’s truly deserving of the title of ‘the village at the end of the world’.
UK Green Film Festival 2013 - Glasgow screenings
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10 May 2013
Programme highlights include More than Honey, Promised Land and Trashed
Feed your conscience.So you’ve spent the whole winter with the central heating on full, the TV showing back-to-back Game of Thrones and the fridge stuffed with fruit flown in from Kenya. Necessary for survival, right? Perhaps not. Undo your ungreen…
Vehicle 19
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10 May 2013
Car-based thriller starring Paul Walker neither fast nor furious enough
Having made his name with souped-up vehicular antics in the Fast and Furious franchise, there’s a small smirk to be had when Paul Walker’s Michael Woods lands in Johannesburg and finds himself mistakenly saddled with a sedentary rental minivan. Fans of…
Star Trek Into Darkness
9 May 2013
Solid sci-fi story in the vein of JJ Abrams' first Star Trek film
With his brilliant restart to the Star Trek series in 2009, director JJ Abrams delivered an origin story that was both respectful to the series’ history while unafraid to take its well-known characters in new and surprising directions. Added to this…
Chimpanzee
30 Apr 2013
Disney's latest nature documentary will keep young animal enthusiasts happy
This kid-friendly documentary has all the elements you would expect given its Disneynature origins: excellent production values (many of the crew are veterans of the BBC’s natural history documentaries), slick filmmaking and a generally wholesome…
The Eye of the Storm
30 Apr 2013
Adaptation of Patrick White's 'unfilmable' novel starring Charlotte Rampling and Geoffrey Rush
He may have won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1973, but Australian novelist Patrick White has not has much impact cinematically beyond his screenplay for 1978’s The Night, the Prowler. His novel The Eye of The Storm has often been described as…
Dragon
30 Apr 2013
Fast-moving martial arts flick with dazzling action scenes
A welcome entry to the martial arts genre, Peter Chan's Dragon is a fast-moving action thriller that has the brains to match its brawn. Set in the Yunnan province in China in 1917, the film picks up as peaceful handyman Liu Jinxi (Donnie Yen) is forced…
