Film
sheila.johnston
When the director Jim Jarmusch speaks of his new film, the discourse is jam-packed with cultural namechecks. One minute it's Rimbaud's Le Bateau Ivre, the next we're on to William S Burroughs, or Antonioni, or John Boorman's Point Blank. Joe Strummer is in the mix there too, and Jacques Rivette, and Boris, Sunn O))) and petenera flamenco and... well, you get the drift. Yet, freighted as it is with subtext, the story, such as it is, is the ne plus ultra of minimalist cool. And it is a fine line indeed that separates cool from boring.The main character, known only as Lone Man, is on a mission Read more ...
ryan.gilbey
Of all the film genres to flourish in recent times, mumblecore is both the most ethereal and, to date, the least profitable. But unlike, say, torture-porn or mockumentary, it has some distance to go before it outstays its welcome. For the uninitiated, mumblecore is essentially an offshoot of the rom-com, but instead of Kate Hudson, Sandra Bullock and/or Matthew McConaughey, you get an infinitely preferable gathering of aimless twentysomethings gently groping their way through matters of the heart, usually while wearing cardigans. (If the NME "C86" class of bed-wetting, thrift-shop-attired Read more ...
sheila.johnston
It begins with a touch of brio: a sinuous, swirling tracking shot plunges deep into the daily chaos of a market place in a remote Algerian desert village. Signs are hoisted aloft and askew, mobile phones noisily bickered over, clapped-out bangers pushed out of the way. Eventually, the camera pauses on three old men as they, as one, clasp their handkerchiefs to their noses: a honking wedding cortege is about to roar past in a miniature dust-storm to set the seal on the mayhem.A battle of the sexes, a comedy of errors and a cutting satire, Mascarades has won plaudits on the international Read more ...
sheila.johnston
Sir Michael Caine and Daniel Day Lewis were the headline honorees at the 12th British Independent Film Awards in London last night, while Moon, an ultra low-budget sci-fi movie directed by Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son, was named Best Film. The full list of nominees and winners follows below. The winning candidates are in bold typeface.An Education (read the review on theartsdesk)Fish Tank (read the review on theartsdesk)In The LoopMoon (read the review on theartsdesk)Nowhere Boy (read the review on theartsdesk) Best Director of a British Independent FilmLone Scherfig for An EducationJane Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Beware the ids of kids: Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze's film of Maurice Sendak's seminal children's picture book, centres on a hyperactive nine-year-old boy, Max (Max Records), who’s so angered and frustrated by the reverses of a winter's day that he destroys a keepsake he gave his adolescent sister and ends up biting his single mother (Catherine Keener) while she’s entertaining her boyfriend at home.This first and best section of the movie sets up Max’s voyage that night to a faraway land occupied by a handful of huge two-footed beasts who speak in urban Americanese, are Read more ...
Graham Fuller
Though he has yet to make a perfect film, the director Tim Burton’s choice of Gothic and fantasy subjects and his deadpan, post-expressionist approach to them rightfully designate him an auteur of considerable genius. His 14 movies to date have earned him a cohesive retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. But not content with this, the museum has also mounted an exhibition consisting of over 700 items, including scores of paintings and drawings, as well as costumes and figures from the films, Polaroids, videos and student films, and specially created installations; there's also a Read more ...
sheila.johnston
To accompany our review of the spectacular and extensive exhibition dedicated to Tim Burton at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, we present a tiny selection of the 700-plus works on display there until 26 April 2010. Click on any of the images below to open the full view.
The entrance to the MOMA exhibition (photograph: Michael Locasiano)
The Green Man (1996-1998), oil and acrylic on canvas
Creature Series (1992), acrylic on canvas
Picasso Woman (1980-1990), pen and ink and watercolour on paper
The Nightmare Before Christmas: Sally (1993), Polaroid
Ramone (1980-1990), pen and ink, marker Read more ...
sheila.johnston
It has hardly been a vintage year for Christmas movies so far (click here and here to read our respective reviews of Nativity! and A Christmas Carol). But Michael Keaton's absorbing first film as director, in which he also stars, finally nails the true spirit of the festive season: it is about a suicidal hitman.For the benefit of the five people still reading, seasonal goodwill is compounded when the killer encounters a sweet young women fleeing an abusive marriage (she is played by Kelly Macdonald to whom the film properly belongs). It starts when, out on a job, he spots her through the Read more ...
joe.muggs
In a pirate television (pirate television!) broadcast from 1992, a large group of Russian youths in flat top haircuts and leather jackets discuss Depeche Mode's appeal. “It's romantic style,” suggests one with absolute assurance, “it's music for the lonely.” It is just one touching, funny moment in a film packed with them, but it also sums up what The Posters Came From The Walls is about. This “music for the lonely” by a band of awkward blokes from Basildon has brought this group of young people together, as it has all the legions of devoted lovers of the band that we see throughout the 58 Read more ...
sheila.johnston
"I must apologise for talking ten to the dozen," begins Christian McKay with a confidential air. "I do it when I'm nervous. I'm a rookie - I've never done this before. The stars get media training, but I thought, ‘I'm a naturally gregarious person and I'd rather be an open book'." It can't last, one thinks ruefully. McKay has been clocking up column inches, airtime miles and acres of critical raves as a result of his turn in Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater's bittersweet romantic comedy set against the backdrop of Welles' revolutionary 1937 Broadway production of Julius Caesar."Me" is Read more ...
anne.billson
Looks can be deceiving. The first thing you should know is that Richard Kelly's third film isn't really about the box at all. It's more about what's inside, which is a big red button. The place is suburban Virginia and the time is 1976, for no reason I can fathom other than this was the heyday of the paranoid conspiracy thriller and Kelly fancied giving us the heebie-jeebies with some truly terrifying 1970s wallpaper.Cameron Diaz and James Marsden play a married couple with a pubescent son called Walter and what sounded to me like iffy Virginian accents, though I'm no expert. Diaz has a club Read more ...
sheila.johnston
The porn star Sasha Grey - turned mainstream actress in Steven Soderbergh's new film - is a bit better looking than the schlubby, chubby hero of The Informant!, also directed by Soderbergh and released just two weeks ago (click here for our review). More attractive also than the unkempt and ultra-hirsute Che Guevara in SS's epic diptych about the Cuban revolutionary. Astonishingly, The Girlfriend Experience is the fourth work by this prolific and versatile film-maker to open in Britain since the beginning of the year and, whatever their differences, it has something curious in common with its Read more ...