Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a documentary or a mock-umentary? I still have no idea how to describe Banksy’s first film, but it was certainly entertaining. The film is also typical of Banksy’s art, witty, subversive and intentionally ambiguous. Read more
Film Preview: ¡Viva! Festival
¡Viva!, the only festival of Spanish and Latin American cinema in the UK, begins its three week residency at Cornerhouse this Saturday. In a departure from previous years’ programming, thematic strands have been abandoned, after parties jettisoned in favour of Spanish-language cafe discussions and emphasis firmly placed on the new. The results look promising.
Film Review: Diary of a Disgraced Soldier
Four years ago, a video of British soldiers beating Iraqi youths was released to The News of the World. The footage, filmed by Corporal Martin Webster, sparked international outrage. Webster, his voice clearly heard mocking the victims, became an instant media hate figure. In 2007 he left the army in disgrace and set about trying [...]
Film Preview: Diary of a Disgraced Soldier
In a taster event for the upcoming KINOFILM festival (28 April- 2 May), the controversial Diary of a Disgraced Soldier is screening at greenroom arts centre on Wednesday 10 February, along with a programme of short films. This is only the second screening for a documentary that is relevant and hard-hitting, raising questions over military behaviour [...]
Preview: Salford Film Festival
In six short years, the Salford Film Festival has lodged itself firmly in Greater Manchester’s cultural calendar. The festival premiered in 2003 at the Red Cinema on Salford Quays. It celebrated the city’s celluloid tradition with screenings of 1960s kitchen-sink drama A Taste of Honey right up to 1999’s East is East, while laying [...]
Ongoing: “Work” Season at the Manchester Film Co-Operative
Manchester’s drizzling winter evenings are quickly closing in and luring people towards the sofa for lazy hours of low budget television. While adverts blare out beaming Coca-Cola logos on to the pallid complexions of blank faces, the good people down at Manchester Film Co-operative are offering up an alternative, non-commercial viewing schedule: more conscientious [...]
Exposing Young Talent in Film
exposures, the UK’s leading student film and moving image festival, will be spicing up Manchester’s autumn cultural calendar from 17-19 November. Over fifteen years, exposures has become the only regular UK-wide competitive festival of its kind, showcasing budding talent.
Film Preview: Sheffield International Documentary Festival
Wed 4 – Sun 8 November: The largest and most imaginative documentary festival in the UK returns to the Steel City this Wednesday. Organisers have been building on the successes of previous years with one eye on social interest and the other on participation and education.
Free Festivals are Finally Here!
Siobhan McGuirk takes a look at October’s ‘cultural calendar’ and finds more than ever to hail at the grassroots.
Review: Broken Embraces ***
Dir: Pedro Almodóvar Starring: Penélope Cruz; Lluís Homar; Blanca Portillo; José Luis Gómez Almodóvar’s latest drama reunites the director with his Oscar winning muse and, after the success of Volver (2006), has been eagerly anticipated. Cruz once again takes centre stage, playing a secretary-turned-actress struggling in the grips of two obsessive men, Mateo (Homar) and Ernesto (Gómez).
Review – Mesrine: Killer Instinct ****
Dir: Jean-Francoise Richet Starring: Vincent Cassel, Gerard Depardieu, Cecile de France If Jacques Mesrine was the French John Dillinger, then Killer Instinct is the French Scarface. The first in a two-part biopic based on the title character’s memoir L’Instinct de Mort, Killer Instinct is an aggressive, intelligent and gripping crime thriller that refuses to moralise. The action [...]
Film review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The average filmgoer could be forgiven for expecting thrills, chills, suspense, action, conflicts and resolutions packed into every second of the two and a half hours that make up The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, nominated for no less than thirteen Oscars. But unfortunately, while Brad Pitt’s face ages like vintage French wine, opinions on [...]
Film review: Revolutionary Road
Sam Mendes Revolutionary Road is the story of what would have happened if Jack and Rose both survived the Titanic and managed to put their class differences aside long enough to get married and settle down in the suburbs. In this instance, however, Leo and Kate play Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple in [...]
FILM REVIEW: Milk
Depending on your politics, Gus Van Sants Milk, a biopic of the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States, is either the documentation of a man slowly becoming more and more boring, or an inspirational account of a man whose message is only accentuated by his brutal assassination. The Academy Award [...]
Film Review: The Argentine (Che: Part One)
The Argentine is the first half of Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling biopic of Che Guevara. It is a flawed film, evidently a labour of love that on paper couldn’t be taken seriously yet in practice somehow keeps the audiences attention. Extensively researched and shown at Cannes in its full 268 minutes, it is a biopic that [...]