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Australia and Bedtime Stories
2:17pm Tuesday 23rd December 2008
Since his eye-catching 1992 debut, the ugly duckling fairy-tale Strictly Ballroom, Australian writer/director Baz Luhrmann has left us in a swoon with beautifully crafted stories of romance across the social and cultural divide. His daring reinterpretation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes married dazzling spectacle with devastating emotion, qualities echoed in the Oscar nominated musical Moulin Rouge!.
Comments (0)Bicycle Thieves
2:19pm Tuesday 23rd December 2008
Among a film critic’s duties, as another year draws to a close, is to assess the trends that have shaped our viewing habits over the past 12 months. Among the notable aspects of 2008 has been the number of classic pictures that have been revived for theatrical release.
Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr Hunter S. Thompson
3:00pm Wednesday 17th December 2008
aving explored the corrupt nature of US corporatism in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and exposed abuses at Guantanamo Bay in the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), Alex Gibney has scaled down with his latest outing, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. That’s not to say that his documentary lacks ambition, however, as this is a warts ‘n’ all insight into the thoughts and deeds of the maverick who revolutionised journalism in the 1960s.
White Christmas, la Boheme and Mum & Dad
2:58pm Wednesday 17th December 2008
ith the exception of It’s a Wonderful Life, there probably isn’t a firmer festive favourite than Michael Curtiz’s White Christmas (1954). It’s essentially a sentimental rehash of Holiday Inn (1942), in which Bing Crosby first introduced Irving Berlin’s hokey yuletide anthem, which remains the best-selling song of all time. How you view it very much depends on your tolerance threshold for Danny Kaye, as his shameless mugging overbalances a slight conceit that was largely contrived to exploit the patriotic nostalgia attending the passage of the first decade after the Second World War.
The Man from London and Lemon Tree
3:52pm Wednesday 10th December 2008
Henri Decoin filmed Georges Simenon's novella The Man from London in 1943. Had anyone but Béla Tarr produced the latest adaptation, it would probably have been hailed as an intriguing mystery and a sumptuous exercise in cinematic artistry. But we’ve come to expect more of the Hungarian auteur and there’s a vacuum at the heart of this slow-burning, existentialist noir.
Dean Spanley, North Face and Love and Honour
3:50pm Wednesday 10th December 2008
On first reading the blurb for Dean Spanley in the London Film Festival programme, it seemed as though Toa Fraser’s adaptation of Lord Dunsany’s obscure 1936 novella, My Talks With Dean Spanley, was destined for a mixed reception. But such is the quiet charm of this rarified period piece that it looks set to become a firm Christmas favourite and one of the sleeper hits of 2008.
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
3:37pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008
Animal magic is in short supply in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, a colourful computer-animated sequel for the entire family which cheekily recycles the plot of The Lion King. Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath's film strands its menagerie of misfits in the wild, where they discover the courage to follow their hearts and to reclaim a birthright as king of the jungle.
Flawless, Rivalsand Julia
3:35pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008
The older he gets, the more Michael Caine seems to be happier with nostalgia than novelty. He featured in Sylvester Stallone’s dismal remake of Get Carter, assumed the Laurence Olivier role in Kenneth Branagh's wholly unnecessary reworking of Sleuth and spoofed his Harry Palmer spy persona in Austin Powers in Goldmember. He’s even butled for Batman. But nowhere has Caine seemed more comfortable of late than as the janitor planning a diamond heist in Michael Radford’s period romp, Flawless.
Four Christmases and Changeling
3:01pm Wednesday 26th November 2008
Rumours of an on-set feud between lead stars Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn hardly echo the tidings of comfort and joy espoused by Seth Gordon’s romantic comedy Four Christmases. "We've just got to get through these four Christmases as quickly and painlessly as possible,” grimaces Witherspoon's plucky heroine as she stares down the barrel of back-to-back celebrations with her divorced parents and the in-laws. By the end of the first act, we realise with mounting horror that director Gordon and his four screenwriters have no intention of granting her (and therefore us) that wish.
Before the Rains, Año uña and The Silence of Lorna
3:00pm Wednesday 26th November 2008
Having impressed with The Terrorist (1999) and Asoka the Great (2001), cinematographer-turned-director Santosh Sivan makes his English-language debut with Before the Rains. Set in Kerala in southern India in 1937, the action centres on spice baron Linus Roache, as he tries to secure from banker John Standing the funding for a road that will enable him to expand his business. A committed colonialist, Roache plans to share his wealth with factotum Rahul Bose. But the project is endangered when Roache is spotted with his housemaid mistress Nandita Das and Bose has to devise an elaborate cover-up to maintain appearances with the locals and prevent memsahib Jennifer Ehle from learning the truth.
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