Reviews & features
To the Wonder
18 Feb 2013
Terence Malick's impressionistic hymn to falling in and out of love
You wait six years for a new Terence Malick film -- that was the gap between The New World and The Tree of Life -- and then another one materialises barely a year later. Advance reports indicated that this was the enigmatic director’s most…
Lore
18 Feb 2013
Beautifully-shot, World War II-set drama explores character raised within Nazi ideology
Nine years after her sensitive debut Somersault, about a teenage runaway in Australia, director Cate Shortland brings us her second feature Lore, adapted from a short story by Rachel Seiffert. Newcomer Saskia Rosendhal plays the titular character in…
Side by Side
18 Feb 2013
A-list directors on film vs digital debate in doc produced and presented by Keanu Reeves
The title of this reasonably interesting and fairly comprehensive documentary about traditional photochemical film and pioneering digital technology is slightly misleading. Although filmmakers have been using both forms for roughly the last decade and a…
Shell
18 Feb 2013
Impressive feature debut set in Highlands by Scottish writer-director Scott Graham
Shot with a raw eloquence that displays a deep understanding of its Highland setting, and performed with sensitivity and directness, Shell is an impressive debut by Scottish writer-director Scott Graham. Chloe Pirrie quietly but confidently holds the…
Safe Haven
18 Feb 2013
A bland, 'vanilla' film about true love conquering all, starring Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel
The Nicholas Sparks novel-to-screen hit-machine shows no sign of slowing down; A Walk To Remember, The Notebook, The Lucky One, and The Last Song have all delighted teenage girls worldwide. Director Lasse Hallström previously paired Amanda Seyfried and…
Raime (live), part of Sonic Cineplex - The Arches, Glasgow, Sat 16 Feb
18 Feb 2013
A solid and engaging sound from the London duo, with disappointing visuals
Armed with one of 2012’s starkest releases, Quarter Turns Over a Living Line released on the uber-slick record label Blackest Ever Black and performances at last year's Unsound festival and London's South Bank, this London duo's post-industrial…
Mama
18 Feb 2013
Feature-length version of short is a supernatural tale of feral children
Picked up under Guillermo del Toro’s production wing following an utterly terrifying short film, the feature length version of Mama comes to the screen under auspicious circumstances. The film initially makes good on these promises, but as is often the…
Interview: Steven Soderbergh on retiring and Hitchcock-inspired thriller Side Effects
15 Feb 2013
Also working on Liberace TV biopic Behind the Candelabra with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon
Ever since Matt Damon accidentally let slip publicly that Steven Soderbergh was planning to retire, the director has been plagued with questions about it. And today is no different. Hot on the heels of last year’s male stripper surprise hit Magic Mike…
Populaire
15 Feb 2013
Immaculately styled French period romcom starring Déborah Francois and Romain Duris
This immaculately styled French period romantic comedy signals its pedigree with a colourful cartoon credit sequence reminiscent of cute and kookie Hollywood comedies circa the 1950s and 60s. And in fact, co-writer and director Régis Roinsard’s feature…
A Good Day To Die Hard
14 Feb 2013
Disappointing addition to the Die Hard franchise starring Bruce Willis and Jai Courtney
From wretched title to poorly conceived premise, A Good Day To Die Hard is a dispiriting exercise in franchise flogging which should never have seen the light of day. Based on a script by Skip Woods and directed by John Moore (of Max Payne and The Omen…
Cartoon College
14 Feb 2013
Documentary following students at the Center for Cartoon Studies
The Center for Cartoon Studies is a small arts college for aspiring comic artists and writers offering a Master of Fine Art degree to those who pass with their final thesis (which takes the form of a completed comic book). And while there are interviews…
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope
13 Feb 2013
Documentary on the world’s biggest comic convention
Comic-Con in San Diego is the world’s biggest sci-fi, comic and cult convention and Morgan Spurlock’s new documentary is the perfect guide to geek heaven. A place where fanboys and fangirls can feel normal and revel in their passions; there’s a…
Arbitrage
13 Feb 2013
Tightly-structured thriller set in finance world starring Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon
Set in the world of high-flying money-makers, mergers and acquisitions, this tightly-structured thriller, whose title refers to a strategic financial process, begins with a series of jargon-filled conversations that will leave all but the most…
Men at Lunch
13 Feb 2013
Lightweight documentary about the iconic New York photograph, Lunch Atop a Skyscraper
The photograph of 11 construction workers grabbing a bite to eat on a girder 800 feet above street level is one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, capturing the spirit of the American Dream and fuelling the mythic ideal of New York as the…
The Thieves
13 Feb 2013
Patchy Korean heist flick with an overly large cast but some impressive action set-pieces
Korean writer/director Choi Dong-Hoon follows up previous efforts The Big Swindle and Tazza: The High Rollers with another crime caper aiming to be the Eastern equivalent of Ocean’s Eleven. Unfortunately, The Thieves comes in rather below those slick…
Beyond the Hills
12 Feb 2013
A drama about female conflict in post-Ceaușescu Romania, from director Cristian Mungiu
‘Nothing signifies anything’, director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days) says in an interview in Cineaste magazine, warding off symbolic interpretation of his new film about two friends brought up in an orphanage. One, Alina (Cristina…
Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God
12 Feb 2013
Damning doc implicating Pope Benedict XVI in the Catholic church's cover-up of child sex abuse
Roland Barthes devised the term 'inoculation theory' to explain how the dominant order in society permits a few ‘bad-apple’ individuals within corrupt organisations to be blamed for wrong-doing, as a way of deflecting attention away from any fundamental…
Indie Game: The Movie
12 Feb 2013
Documentary highlighting the hard work and passion behind games like Braid, Super Meat Boy and FEZ
Indie Game aims to shed light on the often mysterious process of games development by focussing on the small teams behind Braid, Super Meat Boy and FEZ. This is a world away from big blockbusters such as Call of Duty or GTA which have thousands of…
Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines
12 Feb 2013
Thought provoking documentary examining female action heroes in popular culture
This documentary posits the question why are there so few female action heroes? It’s a fair point and one that has been raised before and is told here mainly through the history of the most famous female superhero of all time Wonder Woman. Though…
Run for Your Wife
11 Feb 2013
Hopelessly dated and poorly executed comedy starring Danny Dyer
This comprehensively cack-handed adaptation of the long-running West End stage sex comedy will have all but the most thick of skin and dim of humour running from the cinema as though their very lives depended up on it. Co-director and screenwriter Ray…
Broken City
11 Feb 2013
A flawed but watchable political noir starring Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe
Allen Hughes, who along with his brother Albert, made such bold, flawed, feisty works as Menace II Society, Dead Presidents and From Hell, makes his first solo fiction outing with this over-complicated but sporadically effective contemporary…
Reign of Assassins
11 Feb 2013
Deft martial art flick starring Michelle Yeoh and produced by John Woo
The worldwide sensation of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon seemed to promise that the martial arts styling of the ‘wuxia’ would spawn an internationally popular sub-genre. But after an initial flurry including House of Flying Daggers and Hero…
Sammy’s Great Escape
11 Feb 2013
Limp animation sequel to 2010's A Turtle's Tale
Sammy’s Painfully Long Incarceration would be a better title for this sequel to 2010’s A Turtle’s Tale: Sammy’s Adventures. With a sequel to Pixar’s Finding Nemo still several years away, there’s presumably a wide-open market for aquatic animations, but…
Jean Grémillon retrospective announced for Edinburgh International Film Festival 2013
11 Feb 2013
The strand will explore the work of the French director, who was a contemporary of Jean Renoir
The Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced one of the festival’s retrospective subjects: French director Jean Grémillon. The festival has also announced the return of the popular Audience Award. Known for some of the most highly…
For Ellen
11 Feb 2013
An occasionally moving portrait of a failed musician starring Paul Dano
So Yong Kim's modest, fitfully moving third feature launches us straight into the middle of a divorce. Joby Taylor (Paul Dano) is a struggling musician, the frontman of the appallingly monikered Snake Trouble. As the film begins, he's driving through…
