'Go Where he Will, the wise man is at home' Frederick Wiseman documentaries at the Ultimate Picture Palace
10:06am Thursday 13th November 2008
Comments (0)Zack and Miri Make a Porno
10:09am Thursday 13th November 2008
Almost 20 years ago, Rob Reiner's seminal romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally posed the age-old question: can men and women truly be friends without sex getting in the way? For Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, carnal desires wrecked their characters' friendship, reducing a previously rock solid relationship to a morass of anger, regret and razor-sharp one-liners.
Oliver Stone's W
10:51am Thursday 6th November 2008
Oliver Stone has cultivated a reputation as the bruiser of modern cinema. He highlighted the moralcomplexities of Vietnam (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Heaven & Earth), savaged his fellow Americans's relentless pursuit of wealth (Wall Street), satirised the glamorisation of violence (Natural Born Killers) and remembered one of the US’s darkest days (World Trade Center).
Of Time and the City, OSS 17 Cairo, Nest of Spies. L:et's Talk About the Rain and IN Prison My Whole Life
10:50am Thursday 6th November 2008
Occasionally, a film makes such an impression that it's impossible to view it objectively. For a Liverpudlian who will have been in Oxford for 30 years next October, Terence Davies's Of Time and the City is such a film. Having looked forward to this hometown essay-cum-elegy seemingly as long as for Liverpool's next championship win, it was difficult to contain the disappointment on watching what felt like a betrayal of the city and its people. Only on the fourth viewing was it possible to concede that Davies was entitled to say what he likes about Merseyside – after all, that's what auteur visions are for – and to accept with envy the detachment of a London critical corps who could only see a masterwork of audiovisual acuity and integrity.
Sorry Bond: Bourne does it better
2:26pm Thursday 30th October 2008
Agent 007 returns, all guns blazing, in Quantum of Solace, action-packed follow-up to Casino Royale, set in the immediate aftermath of the blockbusting 2006 film. The film opens with a spectacular car chase through the historic streets of Siena, in Tuscany, culminating in a pursuit over the rooftops which recalls the breathtaking Morocco sequence from The Bourne Ultimatum.
The Times BFI London Film Festival;
2:23pm Thursday 30th October 2008
The Times BFI London Film Festival always excels itself where foreign-language cinema is concerned and the French Revolutions strand at the 52nd edition is particularly strong. Agnes Jaoui's impeccable comedy of political, domestic and cinematic manners, Let's Talk About the Rain, is the standout. But Laurent Cantet's Palme d'or winner, The Class, and Arnaud Desplechin's sophisticated family soap, A Christmas Tale, are also exceptional, and while there's much to enjoy in Marc Fitoussi's backstage romp, La Vie d'artiste, it's impossible not to be moved by the plight of the farmers going to the wall in Raymond Depardon's Modern Life.
Burn After Reading and The Rocker
10:30am Wednesday 15th October 2008
After the agonising tension and brutality of their Oscar-winning opus No Country For Old Men, writer-directors Joel and Ethan Coen return to comedic territory with Burn After Reading, a pithy tale of espionage and infidelity. The film is not classic Coen brothers fare, but there are enough flashes of brilliance to keep us smirking for almost the entire 95 minutes.
Young@Heart, Afro Saxons, Tue£day and Sisterhood
10:28am Wednesday 15th October 2008
There are so many reality talent shows that it's not always easy to get enthusiastic about documentaries about singing. Stephen Walker's Young@Heart starts off pretty predictably, as it focuses on maverick conductor Bob Cilman trying to teach a senior citizen choir in Northampton, Massachusetts, such quirky numbers as Sonic Youth's Schizophrenia, The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go and James Brown's I Feel Good. Even though the ensemble has toured the world, Walker derives some gentle amusement from watching the geriatric amateurs struggling to stay in tune or stumbling over complicated lines. But he then decides to concentrate on a handful of compelling characters and the fondly deristory tone gives way to a deeply moving analysis of coping with age and loss.
City of Ember
3:18pm Wednesday 8th October 2008
During the 1950s and ’60s, the spectre of nuclear war loomed large. Nations were crippled with fear and paranoia, constructing nuclear fallout shelters to sustain the population for months, if not years after an attack. Jeanne DuPrau expanded the idea of subterranean refuges in her first novel, The City of Ember, which was eventually published in 2003. In this first book of an ongoing series, she imagined an entire underground community powered by a massive generator, cocooned from the apocalyptic horrors which befall mankind on the surface. The human race endures while the planet heals, and in time, survivors hopefully find their way back to the surface.
Gomorrah, Bigga Than Ben: The Russians' Guide to Ripping Off London, Good Dick, Gunnin' For That #1 Spot and Heavy Load
3:16pm Wednesday 8th October 2008
Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah is a messy, sprawling and often devastating insight into the operation of the underworld organisation Camorra in the rundown tenements of Naples. The speed and complexity of this adaptation of Roberto Saviano's bestseller is mesmerising. But the film's power and compulsion comes from the deft way in which Garrone gets into the corrupted souls of the principal characters — young Salvatore Abruzzese who sells out the woman whose shopping he used to collect after becoming a bag handler for a drugs baron; reckless teenagers Marco Macor and Ciro Petrone, who steal guns belonging to complacent hood Carlo del Sorbo and try to move on to his patch; ageing tailor Salvatore Cantalupo, whose desire to make it in haute couture lures him into a dangerous deal with a Chinese sweatshop; shady businessman Toni Servillo who tutors novice Carmine Paternoster in the sinister art of dumping toxic waste; and 'submarine' Gianfelice Imparato, who tries to help debtor families manage their pay.
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