The Kids Aren’t Alright (Confessions, Tetsuya Nakashima, Japan, 2010, 106 minutes) Confessions is the tale of a teacher’s revenge on the schoolchildren who killed her daughter and the spirals of violence that generate. When the man next to me walked out after a mere fifteen minutes before the spirals were even spiralling, muttering something like [...]
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Battle for the limelight (The Fighter, David O Russell, USA, 2011, 115 mins) Mark Wahlberg has been overshadowed not only within this true story based on the boxer who had his claim to fame in the eighties, but also by Christian Bale, who has been nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the [...]
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After Happily Ever After (Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance, US, 2010, 112 minutes) The director of Blue Valentine, Derek Cianfrance has forged his career, heretofore, in the documentary business. This timesliced narrative of the bloom and wilt of a relationship between Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy (Michelle Williams) is only Cianfrance’s second full feature film in twelve-years [...]
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Talking a Good Game (The King’s Speech, Tom Hooper, UK, 2010, 118 mins) Awards season is well and truly upon us. It’s that time of the year when the big hitters roll out the usual selection of historical epics, weighty emotional dramas and hard hitting political thrillers in an effort to grab the much sought [...]
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Testing my palate (Io Sono l’amore, “I Am Love”, Luca Guadagnino, Italy, 2009, 120 mins) Guadagnino’s beautiful I Am Love, which could be described as an Italian melodrama, tenderly and patiently depicts the passion of cookery and escaping routine in a home of withering family fortunes. Tilda Swinton’s Emma Recchi is a devoted mother and [...]
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‘Counter-Insurgency on the Cheap’ It takes a brave man to enter a warzone; it takes a braver man to enter a warzone clutching a camera instead of a gun. For most of his long career, photographer Tim Hetherington has been documenting life in some of the world’s most destructive and bloody conflicts. Spending eight years [...]
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Perfection has a price (Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, US, 2010, 108mins) Darren Aronofsky has said that he intended Black Swan, his fifth film as director, to be a companion piece to its predeccessor The Wrestler, but in many ways the two pictures could not be more different. However, their similarities are also numerous. Both films [...]
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The Middle Age of Middle England (Another Year, Mike Leigh, UK, 2010, 133mins) [Warning: This review discusses the film's final scene] Another Year opens with a stand alone prologue in which Imelda Staunton plays an agitated insomniac receiving counselling for her sleepless nights, root cause unknown. The scene, involving two peripheral characters, only seen again [...]
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Lonely Planet (The Social Network, David Fincher, US, 2010, 121 mins) [Warning: This review discusses the film's final scene] Facebook is an extraordinary invention and one that has changed the lives of its users. In a scene that explains the film’s ontology, Justin Timberlake’s Sean Parker – founder of Napster and late gatecrasher to the [...]
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