Saving Mr Banks tells ‘the untold true story’ of the making of the Disney classic Mary Poppins via the stand-offs between Walt and the book’s author, P.L. Travers, and it is not a taxing film. You always know where it’s going and, with its rather melodramatic flashbacks, there is no ambiguity as to where it
In the future, everyone will have silly names. Some people will be called Haymitch Abernathy. Others will be Effie Trinket or Finnick Odair. And they’ll all live in various districts, numbered from one to 12. And because those districts rebelled against the ruling regime that one time, their children might be selected for an annual
The Butler tells the story of an African–American butler at the White House who served eight American presidents over three decades and it plays as a ‘greatest hits’ of the civil rights movement, along with whatever else they decided to throw in, like Vietnam, apartheid, and Lyndon B. Johnson on the can. (Actually, Lyndon B.
Seduced and Abandoned is both a satire on film-making and a love letter to film-making and a joy. A documentary made by the director and writer James Toback, in cahoots with his friend the actor Alec Baldwin, it follows the two as they work their way round the Cannes Film Festival, trying to raise financial
Philomena is based on the true story of an Irish woman searching for the son stolen from her by the Catholic Church 50 years earlier, and although, as a cinematic experience, it could so easily have felt as if you were being repeatedly slapped round the head by a copy of Woman’s Own, it is,
The Selfish Giant is a British social-realism film in the tradition of all such films from Kes onwards, so it never feels particularly fresh, but it does feel real and true, is superbly performed, and it does pack quite an emotional punch. I had to gather myself afterwards, and I’m still gathering myself, and may
The main thing you should know about Captain Phillips is that it really puts you through the wringer. It’s based on the true 2009 story of the hijacking of a US container ship by Somali pirates, and the Navy Seal rescue mission that ensued — pirates, a word of advice: if you are going to
Just how interesting you find The Fifth Estate may entirely depend on how interested you are in the whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, in the first instance. This does not do what Senna did, for example, or what The Social Network did, and grip you in the places you didn’t know you
People are generally saying Filth fully fulfils the promise of its title and is not for the faint of heart or queasy of stomach or lily of liver and, alas, I am all three, in spades. (My liver is, in fact, so lily-ish it may be a wonder of medical science.) Rape. Anal Sex. Violence.
Blue Jasmine is the latest film from Woody Allen who, at various stages of his career, has been declared on-form, off-form, sliding-from-form, returning-to-form and, for all I know, as I don’t follow these matters closely, wearing form like a carnival hat with tinkling bells, but there is no need to bother with any of that.
Someone who knows their Dianaology will have to fill me in – did this actually happen? The late Princess Di is walking through central Portofino in Italy. She’s being jostled on all sides by an insistent public and an even more insistent swarm of photographers, when, suddenly, the crowds part. There, huddled by his family,
Just do it, quoth the Nike advert — and these men just did it. Grass, asphalt, fear, pain, doubt and limitation; all surpassed in the pursuit of human excellence. The racing driver James Hunt and the baseball player Jackie Robinson may have practised different sports, but they were both champions. And, with Rush and 42,
The easiest thing would be to sneer at Richard Curtis’s new film About Time, and so I will a little, or maybe significantly. It’s hard to know at this point, as I’m up here, at the beginning, and the end is down there, at the bottom, and who knows what will happen in between. It’s
Berberian Sound Studio is a film about a man who can’t get his expenses repaid and hurts a lot of vegetables — don’t worry, the RSPCV is on to it — although I suspect there may be rather more to it than this. I suspect there are hidden meanings. I suspect there are references to
What Maisie Knew is an adaptation of the Henry James 1897 novel, updated to Manhattan in the now, and is described in the bumf I received as ‘heart-warming’, which is utterly strange, as it’s a child-caught-in-the-middle drama, and just so painful. It’s compelling. It’s exquisitely done. It’s brilliantly acted. (According to the most recent figures,
Mid-August is a hopeless time for films; so hopeless, useless and bleak, if I don’t use three words when one would have done, I am just never going to fill up this space. The assumption is people don’t wish to visit the cinema on summer evenings, or they are on holiday (I wish!), so the
The thing is, I love the character of Alan Partridge so much it may well be that, when it came to this film, I left my critical faculties outside the screening room, possibly somewhere along Wardour Street. If you see them, might you return them? I would hate them to fall into the wrong hands,
Sandra Bullock is a highly watchable actress and she seems like she’d be fun to hang out with — I have no idea why I think that; I just do — but, Jesus, how does she choose her movies? With a blindfold and pin? Sure, she won an Oscar for The Blind Side, during which
Frances Ha will make many spit ‘Frances…Bah!’ but I won’t be among them. Yes, it is rather kooky, and highly self-conscious, with its New Wave references and its Woody Allen influences (it’s a serious, black-and-white, Manhattan comedy), but it’s also sweet, endearing, touching, and features proper women you can actually believe in, and who aren’t
Wadjda is the first feature-length film to come out of Saudi Arabia, and was shot by the country’s first female director, and although people will talk about how it breaks boundaries and how pioneering it is, that’s not what you most need to know. What you most need to know is that it’s fascinating, involving,
