http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-terminator-salvation-12-1824511.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-terminator-salvation-12-1824511.html ]]> <p> Though it may have no more than a few seconds of Arnie (and a digitally reconstructed version, no less), Salvation proves the Terminator franchise is still alive and just about kicking. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:14:55 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-supernatural-season-4-15-1824510.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-supernatural-season-4-15-1824510.html ]]> <p> The boys from the dark side are not only decking demons but, God forbid, kicking angel ass through season 4 of Supernatural. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:13:49 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-star-trek-12-1824509.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-star-trek-12-1824509.html ]]> <p> James T Kirk hotwires cars and gets into bar brawls; Spock loses his cool and tries to strangle Kirk to death. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:12:13 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-the-sopranos-season-1-18-1824508.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-the-sopranos-season-1-18-1824508.html ]]> <p> HBO's finest achievement – The Wire was excellent, this was better – gets the Blu-ray treatment. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:10:41 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-ice-age-3-1824507.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-ice-age-3-1824507.html ]]> <p> Perhaps not quite as witty as the previous films, Ice Age 3 is great for post Sunday lunch viewing. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:09:00 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-your-life-15-1823713.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-your-life-15-1823713.html <p>Remi Bézançon's intimate drama examines the fractures and foibles of an ordinary bourgeois French family over the last 12 years of the 20th century.</p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/glorious-39-12a-1823715.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/glorious-39-12a-1823715.html <p>How does Stephen Poliakoff get away with this stuff? Glorious 39 begins, in mildly intriguing fashion, in the run-up to the Second World War, positing an appeasement conspiracy cooked up by a bunch of toffs who believe Britain hasn't a chance against Hitler. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-sea-wall-nc-1823724.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-sea-wall-nc-1823724.html <p>Isabelle Huppert's brittle poise dominates this adaptation of Marguerite Duras's novel of colonialism in eclipse. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-informant-15-1823716.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-informant-15-1823716.html <p>Mark Whitacre, protagonist of The Informant!, believes himself to be "a serious man", with disastrous consequences. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/a-serious-man-15-1823725.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/a-serious-man-15-1823725.html ]]> <p> Is it possible to admire a body of work for its smartness, deadpan humour, irreverence, visual bravura, and yet feel thoroughly alienated and even dismayed by it at the same time? </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-twilight-saga-new-moon-12a-1823728.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-twilight-saga-new-moon-12a-1823728.html ]]> <p>Second time out for the star-crossed high-school lovers Bella and Edward: she's human, he's a vampire, it could never work between them. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/southern-softies-u-1823726.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/southern-softies-u-1823726.html <p>Graham Fellows follows up his earlier spoof It's Nice Up North with another investigative outing for his alter ego John Shuttleworth, Sheffield's least fashionable singer-songwriter. </p> Reviews Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-star-trek-xi-paramount-1820778.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-star-trek-xi-paramount-1820778.html ]]> <p> This Star Trek prequel, directed by J J Abrams (Lost, Alias), has a host of young actors filling in for Shatner, Nimoy, et al. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:55 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-white-ribbon-15-1820728.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-white-ribbon-15-1820728.html ]]> <p> When you watch the films of Austrian director Michael Haneke, you're not so much looking at a screen as gazing into a mirror, and a pretty forbidding one. You the viewer, with your cultural assumptions, are always Haneke's real focus, the target of his critique. You're not merely involved in the story but implicated. It's a bit like finding yourself the subject of a police investigation </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:36 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/2012-12a-1820730.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/2012-12a-1820730.html <p> Following on from <i>Harry Brown, 2012 </i>is a similarly balanced and thoughtful piece of work. It's directed by Roland Emmerich, the maker of <i>Independence Day, Godzilla </i>and <i>The Day After Tomorrow</i>, and it must have come about when Emmerich looked back at his oeuvre and decided that it was all a bit too subtle. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:36 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-michael-mcintyre-hello-wembley-universal-1820780.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-michael-mcintyre-hello-wembley-universal-1820780.html ]]> <p> McIntyre has at last found his métier: playing arenas where the audience wants to be entertained and non-believers stay away. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:35 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/harry-brown-18-1820729.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/harry-brown-18-1820729.html <p> There are about five seconds in <i>Harry Brown </i>which sum up the film's political stance. A skin-headed thug is sitting in his car, having a sexual act performed on him by the reluctant young man in the passenger seat, and then – blam – a single bullet shatters the windscreen and the thug's skull. The sharpshooter is none other than a smartly dressed, well-spoken, and rigidly heterosexual retired soldier. You can almost hear the Daily Mail readers cheering. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:07 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/tulpan-12a-1820731.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/tulpan-12a-1820731.html <p> After all <i>2012's </i>digital prestidigitation, it's a breath of fresh air to see Tulpan, a life-affirming film set on the plains of Kazakhstan, where an apprentice shepherd is failing to find a wife. It may be a finely crafted comedy drama, but it's also a window to a real location populated by real people – and, indeed, real camels. All the special effects in 2012 can't compete with a long, unbroken shot of the leading man assisting in the birth of a lamb. </p> Reviews Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-sunshine-cleaning-anchor-bay-1820779.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-sunshine-cleaning-anchor-bay-1820779.html <p> Amy Adams and Emily Blunt are both superb in this bittersweet, soulful comedy drama, playing two sisters whose lives are going nowhere until they stumble upon a lucrative business opportunity: cleaning up gruesome crime scenes after the corpses have been hauled away. </p> Reviews Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:40:38 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-outnumbered-series-2-12-various-directors-210-mins-1819423.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-outnumbered-series-2-12-various-directors-210-mins-1819423.html <p> This sitcom is a surprise gem. The set-up of mildly stressed out middle-class parents and their three exasperating children is well-worn territory and there are few driving dramatic incidents. Yet therein lies <i>Outnumbered's </i>charm – it takes very ordinary slice-of-life situations and renders them believable and very funny. Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin's script is well-observed, but the key to the show's success is the kids. Allowed to improvise, Daniel Roche, as anarchic monkey Ben, and scene-stealing Ramona Marquez, who plays Karen, come out with some brilliant unscripted lines that prompt snorts of laughter. It sometimes gets too realistic, so the children's shouting may have you reaching for the volume control. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:54 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-terminator-sarah-connor-chronicles-season-2-15-various-directors-900-mins-1819421.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-terminator-sarah-connor-chronicles-season-2-15-various-directors-900-mins-1819421.html <p> Since the Terminator first blazed on to cinema screens in 1984, it has fulfilled to be back again and again. As <i>Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles </i>returns for a second series, the format is familiar. The setting is present day Los Angeles and Sarah Connor is trying to protect her son John, a future leader of the human resistance, from the killer robots sent back from the future. Lena Headey is the series' strong focal point as Sarah, while the plot lines and action keep things interesting. Yet the script is often so clunky it might have been written by the robots. It is certainly worth a look for fans but won't win a new audience. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:49 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-moon-15-duncan-jones-97-mins-1819418.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-amp-bluray-moon-15-duncan-jones-97-mins-1819418.html <p> Duncan "David Bowie's son" Jones's low-fi sci-fi, which features no sex, very little violence or budget and ostensibly one actor (Sam Rockwell), is a cerebral delight. Sam Bell (Rockwell), like ET, just wants to go home; three years working on the dark side of the Moon with only Kevin Spacey's creepy voice, as spaceship computer, Gerty, will do that. Sam's suffering hallucinations and headaches and a near-fatal accident lands him in the infirmary. He awakes to find a younger version of himself stalking his bed. Jones's intelligently constructed, distinctly retro film borrows from the best – <i>Silent Running, Alien, Blade Runner, Solaris, Dark Star </i>and <i>Outland </i>– and is the best kind of paranoia movie, with unfussy dialogue, a heightened sense of isolation and corporate wickedness to the fore. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:16 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-pg-various-directors-dvd-83-mins-1819424.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs-pg-various-directors-dvd-83-mins-1819424.html <p> You can see the wicked queen's point. Her chubby-cheeked step-daughter, Snow White, is quite annoying, constantly chuntering away to any small animal within listening distance and obsessively, compulsively cleaning everything. Kevin Lima's <i>Enchanted</i> (2007) did an exquisite job of mocking this classic fairy tale and we're now used to a more sophisticated and arch type of animation. But Walt Disney's 1937 film, which took three years to make, is still sensational to look at and packs a sinister bite – you never forget the queen's wild-eyed old hag offering the gormless White a poisoned apple or White fleeing into the snarling forest – while "Heigh-Ho" is still the best marching to work song there is. </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:01:02 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-white-ribbon-15-1819430.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-white-ribbon-15-1819430.html ]]> <p> When a story is set in the years just prior to the First World War, one can usually expect its keynote to be one of lament and loss. In his poem "MCMXIV", Philip Larkin defined the mood in one line – "Never such innocence again". </p> Reviews Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:35 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/love-the-beast-15-1819440.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/love-the-beast-15-1819440.html <p> In which Eric Bana dusts down his beloved old Falcon Coupe – The Beast – and gears up for a long, dull, "dangerous" motor race in Tasmania. </p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:15:04 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/tulpan-12a-1819438.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/tulpan-12a-1819438.html <p> A desert romance, of sorts. </p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:13:59 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/amelia-pg-1819437.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/amelia-pg-1819437.html <p> Hilary Swank, sporting gamine haircut and mannish clothes, looks great as fearless aviatrix Amelia Earheart, but she fights a losing battle trying to get this lumpen biopic off the ground. </p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:13:10 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/taking-woodstock-15-1819436.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/taking-woodstock-15-1819436.html <p> After the Sturm und Drang of Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution, Ang Lee takes a relaxed stroll through the summer of 1969 and the counter-cultural jamboree of Woodstock. </p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:12:15 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/cold-souls-12a-1819434.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/cold-souls-12a-1819434.html <p> Sophie Barthes's metaphysical comedy is also a lesson in straight-faced perversity. </p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:11:35 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/harry-brown-18-1819433.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/harry-brown-18-1819433.html <p> Michael Caine plays ex-marine and widower Harry, who's had it up to here with the hoodies terrorising the dismal London estate where he lives. </p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:09:29 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/2012-12a-1819432.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/2012-12a-1819432.html <p> Roland Emmerich is the Cassandra of disaster movies. You want to see doom-mongering predictions of how the Earth might end – Independence Day, Godzilla, The Day After Tomorrow? Emmerich is your man. </p> Reviews Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:08:57 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bright-star-pg-1816827.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bright-star-pg-1816827.html ]]> <p> Costume drama has an image problem. For many viewers, the very genre is inherently trivial, fixated on surface beauty and reassuring nostalgia. I admit I often incline to this prejudice, suspicious at the faintest whiff of Quality Street. But if any film vindicates this strain of cinema, Jane Campion's Bright Star is it. Portraying the romance between a man of words and a woman of fashion, Bright Star is itself a musing on the costume drama, on the question of style and substance, on the respective powers of language and image to evoke bygone mores and present emotions. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:01:32 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-brno-1816815.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-brno-1816815.html <p> Watching Sacha Baron Cohen disguised as a camp Austrian fashion guru, the viewer can snort with laughter, gawp in disbelief at the rudeness,marvel at the star's physicalcomedy and death defying bravery ... and still end up being disappointed that it wasn'tdone better. The reasonis, simply, that it was donebetter, three years ago,when it was called Borat.Brüno copies Boratalmost scene for scene,repeating a once-winningformula without thefreshness or inspiration. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-the-informers-1816816.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-the-informers-1816816.html <p> Adapted from an early Bret Easton Ellis novel –essentially an anthology of overlapping short stories – The Informers is a failed attempt ata Robert Altman-style web of vignettes set in Los Angeles in 1984. All of its characters (played by Billy Bob Thornton,Kim Basinger, Mickey Rourke and others) arehateful, and the shockingmessage seems to bethat endless, callous selfindulgencedoesn't makefor a very wholesomeand fulfilling lifestyle,after all. Who'd havethought it? </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/a-christmas-carol-pg-1816818.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/a-christmas-carol-pg-1816818.html ]]> <p>Robert Zemeckis's first motion-capture cartoon, Polar Express, was meant to be a cockle-warming children's panto, but instead it was just creepy. The characters were almost photo-realistic, but still not quite human, so they looked like a cross between Tom Hanks and the sentient mannequins from Dr Who. Zemeckis's follow-up, Beowulf, got around that problem by being intentionally blood-curdling, and his third film using the technology is even more ghoulish. In the director's eyes, A Christmas Carol is a gothic horror extrava-ganza to compare with Sam Raimi's Drag Me to Hell.</p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-russell-brand-scandalous-1816817.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-russell-brand-scandalous-1816817.html <p> Ooh, you are naughty. At times during this 80-minute set, it all gets a bit Carry On. But such is Brand's appeal (ahem) based on his sexual antics that the audiencedoesn't seem to care.And nor will you if you normally find Brand funny – it's more of thesame, as he bangs on about reactions to his part in Sachsgate ("Sendhim to Afghanistan!")and hosting the MTVVideo Music Awards(various death threats).But if he's not your bag,baby, this won't changeyour mind. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/jennifers-body-15-1816821.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/jennifers-body-15-1816821.html <p>When Diablo Cody won an Oscar for her Juno screenplay, she was suddenly the coolest woman in Hollywood: a lavishly tattooed ex-stripper, discovered via her blog, who could turn an indie comedy into a blockbuster by packing the dialogue with new-minted teen slang. That's why Cody's complacent follow-up, Jennifer's Body, is such a let-down. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-men-who-stare-at-goats-15-1816820.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-men-who-stare-at-goats-15-1816820.html <p> The Men Who Stare at Goats, Jon Ronson's book about the Pentagon's secret experiments in psychic combat, has been adapted into a film in the least satisfying way possible. It stars Ewan McGregor, as a small-town reporter who hears about the experiments from George Clooney's retired sergeant, far right, while the pair of them are driving through Iraq. Shown in flashback, these goofball anecdotes are all very watchable, but the film is ultimately neither one thing nor the other. </p> Reviews Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/1-day-15-1815507.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/1-day-15-1815507.html <p>Penny Woolcock's Birmingham-set drama seeks to meld the black gangsta flick with a hip-hop musical, which some will find a challenge. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/a-christmas-carol-pg-1815511.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/a-christmas-carol-pg-1815511.html ]]> <p>Robert Zemeckis extends the performance-capture 3D technology he deployed on Beowulf to this version of the Dickens story, and if there's nothing here quite as eye-catching as Grendel's mum (Angelina Jolie in heels), it scores high on swooping visuals and meticulous draughtsmanship.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/henrigeorges-clouzots-inferno-15-1815523.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/henrigeorges-clouzots-inferno-15-1815523.html <p>Henri-Georges Clouzot's reputation is founded on The Wages of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955), and it might have been enhanced if he had completed his 1964 project, Inferno, about a jealous husband driven towards insanity. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bright-star-pg-1815516.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/bright-star-pg-1815516.html ]]> <p>Jane Campion's film Bright Star is a wistful and melancholic account of the unconsummated romance between the poet John Keats and his neighbour Fanny Brawne. It's poetic, too, though not in any precious, Fotherington-Tomas sort of way.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/paper-heart-pg-1815529.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/paper-heart-pg-1815529.html <p>This indie squib wobbles briefly on a tightrope between sincerity and cuteness before plunging headlong to a death-by-whimsy.</p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-men-who-stare-at-goats-15-1815533.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-men-who-stare-at-goats-15-1815533.html <p>Interesting title, promisingly quirky subject, top-drawer cast – such a duff movie. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/jennifers-body-15-1815524.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/jennifers-body-15-1815524.html ]]> <p>Diablo Cody sounds like someone with a devilish tongue – she wrote the super-sassy hit Juno – and it's at full stretch in this high-school horror. </p> Reviews Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/9-shane-acker-79-mins-12abrtales-from-the-golden-age-cristian-mungiu-ioana-uricaru-hanno-hofer-constantin-popescu-131-mins-12a-1812607.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/9-shane-acker-79-mins-12abrtales-from-the-golden-age-cristian-mungiu-ioana-uricaru-hanno-hofer-constantin-popescu-131-mins-12a-1812607.html <p> Considering the limitless visual splendours that digital animation can put on the big screen, it's about time there were some more cartoons that weren't intended to sell tie-in plastic toys to young children. That's why the bleak and eerie opening scenes of 9 are so refreshing. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/an-education-lone-scherfig-100-mins-12a-1812609.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/an-education-lone-scherfig-100-mins-12a-1812609.html ]]> <p> Based on a memoir by Lynn Barber, An Education is about a 16-year-old girl in 1961 falling for a suave man in his thirties. Nick Hornby, who wrote the screenplay, has invoked Philip Larkin's pinpointing of the discovery of sex in 1963, "Between the end of the Chatterley ban/And The Beatles' first LP". </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-public-enemies-for-retail--rental-universal-1813039.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-public-enemies-for-retail--rental-universal-1813039.html ]]> <p>Johnny Depp and Christian Bale star in Michael Mann's gangster biopic as John Dillinger, the infamous bank-robber, and Melvin Purvis, the FBI agent assigned to bring him to justice.</p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-orphan-for-retail--rental-optimum-1813040.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-orphan-for-retail--rental-optimum-1813040.html ]]> <p> Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard adopt a nine-year-old girl from an orphanage, forgetting that it's always a mistake to choose a creepy, Russian-accented prodigy who insists on wearing Victorian dresses, and whose previous adoptive family was frazzled in a house fire. </p> Reviews Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/9-12a-1811462.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/9-12a-1811462.html <p>After an apocalyptic war with the robots all that remains of humanity is a tiny band of sentient dolls stitched from hessian sacking, struggling to survive in civilisation's ruins. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/an-american-werewolf-in-london-15-1811463.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/an-american-werewolf-in-london-15-1811463.html <p>An American Werewolf in London also does milieu well. When you think of the hamfisted way most American directors handle Englishness (anyone for Match Point?), Landis's sure sense of the social strata, from creepy Yorkshire pub to yuppie London mansion-flat, is remarkable.</p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/citizen-kane-u-1811466.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/citizen-kane-u-1811466.html <p>It would be nice to be able to buck the critical orthodoxy and say how tired and overrated Citizen Kane is; but the dulll truth is, it's still, indisputably, one of the great masterpieces of cinema – looking even better in this cleaned-up digital print, which shows off the wonderful clarity and detail of Gregg Toland's "deep focus" camerawork, bolstering the complexities of the story with new layers of feeling. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/starsuckers-12a-1811470.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/starsuckers-12a-1811470.html <p>For the first hour or so, this documentary about the damaging power of celebrity culture is a shambling mix of strained metaphor and truism in the service of a silly conspiracy theory: that somehow celebrity culture helps the media achieve their aim of "control". </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/animal-house-15-1811464.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/animal-house-15-1811464.html <p>John Landis's directing career tailed off in ignominy in the late Nineties, with flops such as The Stupids and Blues Brothers 2000; so it's nice to be reminded just how jauntily inventive he was to begin with.</p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/an-education-12a-1811472.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/an-education-12a-1811472.html <p>Of all literary genres, memoir is surely the most resistant to cinematic treatment: the point of view of a memoir is, however hard the memoirist struggles for objectivity, on the inside looking out. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-horseman-18-1811477.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/the-horseman-18-1811477.html <p>A grieving father discovers that the drugs that killed his daughter were given to her during the shooting of a low-budget porn video, and sets out to wreak vengeance on the men involved, befriending a pregnant teenager along the way.</p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/first-night-nowhere-boy-london-film-festival-1811705.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/first-night-nowhere-boy-london-film-festival-1811705.html ]]> <p>You wouldn't expect a film about the young John Lennon to be a full-blown, Douglas Sirk-style weepie but that is what Sam Taylor-Wood delivers in her remarkably assured debut feature, Nowhere Boy – the closing film at the London Film Festival. Her achievement is to have made an emotionally charged family melodrama without blunting the edge and sarcasm that inevitably come when Lennon is your subject.</p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/tales-from-the-golden-age-12a-1811484.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/tales-from-the-golden-age-12a-1811484.html <p>Given what we know of Ceausescu's Romania, the Orwellian penetration of the state into every corner of daily life, the mildly comic, wistful tone of this portmanteau of short dramas seems puzzling. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dead-man-walking-15-1811476.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dead-man-walking-15-1811476.html <p>Is there any way of stemming the flow of post-Guy Ritchie cockney crime comedies? Would, say, sticking Danny Dyer's head on a pike somewhere in Bethnal Green be enough of a deterrent? Because I for one would be willing to pay that price. </p> Reviews Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/this-is-it-odeon-leicester-square-london-1811070.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/this-is-it-odeon-leicester-square-london-1811070.html <p>The unprecedented 1am start to this London premiere was timed to ensure Michael Jackson's This is It could land in 20 countries simultaneously. It was rather fitting that when the cameras broadcasting footage to the hordes of fans in Leicester Square broke down, shots from the red carpet in Los Angeles were shown instead, connecting the place that Michael Jackson died with the British capital where the This Is It concerts were due to take place from July of this year.</p> Reviews Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/glorious-39-london-film-festival-1809851.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/glorious-39-london-film-festival-1809851.html ]]> <p>Stephen Poliakoff's Glorious 39 (a British premiere at the London Film Festival) is a far more subversive film than its Brideshead Revisited-style patina of nostalgia first suggests. In spite of all the lovingly filmed footage of aristocratic types enjoying country house living in late 30s England, the mood here is closer to that of The Aerodrome, Rex Warner's allegorical novel about fascism in England, than it is to Evelyn Waugh.</p> Reviews Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/johnny-mad-dog-jeanstphane-sauvaire-97-mins-15-1808813.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/johnny-mad-dog-jeanstphane-sauvaire-97-mins-15-1808813.html ]]> <p> Many films can justifiably claim to have captured the horror of war, but few have done so as mesmerisingly as Johnny Mad Dog. </p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/fantastic-mr-fox-wes-anderson-87-mins-pgbrcirque-du-freak-the-vampires-assistant-paul-weitz-103-mins-12a-1808814.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/fantastic-mr-fox-wes-anderson-87-mins-pgbrcirque-du-freak-the-vampires-assistant-paul-weitz-103-mins-12a-1808814.html ]]> <p> A word of caution if you're planning to take your young to see Fantastic Mr Fox over the half-term holiday. </p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-drag-me-to-hell-for-retail--rental-lions-gate-1809314.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-drag-me-to-hell-for-retail--rental-lions-gate-1809314.html ]]> <p> Sam Raimi returns to his Evil Dead roots with Alison Lohman as a loans officer who's harassed by a demon. </p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-under-the-mud-for-retail-hurricane-films-1809316.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-under-the-mud-for-retail-hurricane-films-1809316.html ]]> <p> A non-genre film without any big names – it's understandable why distributors might have been scared off by Under the Mud. </p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-monsters-vs-aliens-for-retail-amp-rental-paramount-1809315.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-monsters-vs-aliens-for-retail-amp-rental-paramount-1809315.html ]]> <p> Barnstorming title, shame about the slick but empty cartoon that goes with it. Its heroine is a 50ft woman (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) who is recruited by the US government to repel an alien invasion, alongside a few other classic movie monsters. </p> Reviews Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-crooked-house-15-1807204.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-crooked-house-15-1807204.html ]]> <p>Written by and starring Mark Gatiss (of The League of Gentlemen fame), Crooked House is infused with such enthusiasm for the good old-fashioned ghost story that its charm is hard to resist.</p> Reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-drag-me-to-hell-15-1807205.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-drag-me-to-hell-15-1807205.html ]]> <p>Sam Raimi returns to shock (and schlock) tactics with Drag Me to Hell – a jumpy journey so saturated in sputum and gore that it's fitting the film's antagonist should have the ability to transmutate into a grubby handkerchief. </p> Reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-trick-rsquor-treat-15-1807207.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-trick-rsquor-treat-15-1807207.html ]]> <p>As Hallowe'en approaches, Warner Home Video has released the seasonal tie-in in the hope a few unsuspecting souls may be tricked into buying it.</p> Reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-lost-ndash-season-five-15-1807214.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-lost-ndash-season-five-15-1807214.html ]]> <p>It may be indecipherable to newcomers, but those that have managed to stick with Lost will know that it continues to be the most addictive programme currently on television. </p> Reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-true-blood-season-one-18-1807224.html http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd-true-blood-season-one-18-1807224.html ]]> <p>Alan Ball's gleefully mischievous vampire/murder-mystery saga, set in Louisiana, gets off to a perky start with a giant dollop of slayings, sex and saucy dialogue. </p> Reviews Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100