Gus Van Sant
I’m sitting in the basement of the Soho Hotel, having chosen to sit in a huge red leather chair, opposed to the huge cow hide one I could have sat…
Seven Pounds
Review: Seven Pounds, 12a, 123 mins. Director: Gabriele Muccino Starring: Will Smith,Woody Harrelson, Rosario Dawson Seven Pounds is a thought provoking film, though it may not capture you entirely whilst…
Slumdog hits the jackpot
Review: Slumdog Millionaire, 15, 120 mins. Director: Danny Boyle Starring: Dev Patel, Anil Kapoo, Irfan Khan, Madur Mittal Looking at his CV, Danny Boyle hasn’t been the most typical of…
Film (Brighton arts this year…)
There seems to be a bit of a remake mania in 2009. Not only is Hitchcock’s The Birds being redone, but Ridley Scott is revisiting the Robin Hood classic, this…
The Reader
With “that speech” by Kate Winslet recently becoming the stuff of national debate, The Reader has certainly had its fair share of publicity this new year. Adapted from the novel…
Success No Secret
Secret Cinema’s latest project, the seductively named Secret Cinema, premiered in Brighton last month with a fantastic night of entertainment and immersion in the form of the 44th best comedy…
Changeling
Based on a true and definitely incredible story, Clint Eastwood’s new motion picture Changeling is set in an apparently immaculate and flourishing Los Angeles of the late 1920s, with a…
Of Time And The City
From Terence Davies comes his long-awaited fifth feature, and, at the age of sixty-five, it is not a moment too soon for the British auteur. Of Time And The City,…
Scott on secrets and lies
Nearly every crime thriller centres its moral high-ground on the issues of trust and deception. It is one of those given clichés that a traitor will be uncovered as the…
Lake Tahoe freeze frames over
Fernando Eimbcke’s new film focuses on the suburbs of an unnamed Mexican town. The minimalist cinematography progresses by eerily still shots of the deserted landscape, through which the young hero,…
To have or not to have a convincing accent – that is the question
How are you supposed to feel about British comedians in Hollywood? Are they traitors? Ambassadors? Too often it has been a bit embarrassing as the lure of money and fame…
Lotz to be said about Lodz
I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about this screening. The little experience I have of Polish cinema paint it in my mind as a rather gruelling affair.…
Foreign film favourites
Foreign-language films seem to come with an expectation to be arty and abstract, but in fact they’re found in all styles and subjects, much like the American and British films…
Not Brother’s Quay selection
The first four films of the screening, Stille Nacht I – IV, are music videos, commissioned either by MTV or by rock band His Name Is Alive. While some of…
Waltzing across the screen
When trying to find someone to go to Waltz with Bashir with, I described it as it is, an animated Israeli documentary about soldiers’ recollections of the first Lebanon war…
Baad story
The film begins with the story of Ulrike Meinhof, a middle class journalist who through the responsibility felt by many descendants of the Nazi generation becomes involved in the Baader…