Review: A Single Man

Did everyone in the 1960s walk around with perfectly bouffanted hair, expertly lined eyes, a martini glass poised in one hand and a cigarette hanging artfully from the other, chattering about the Cuban missile crisis? We, the modern audience, would like to think so and Tom Ford is only too happy to indulge us. Consequently, A Single Man has an unreal, dreamlike quality to it – this is life through a Vaseline smeared lens, the 1960s as seen in a vintage Vogue magazine.

Review: Precious: Based On The Novel Push, By Sapphire

This year's Oscar race will be in an interesting one. It basically poses the following question to the Academy – what do you place most value on, breathtaking seamless effects and cinematic wow-factor, or films that are propelled by characters and great performances? In other words, it's Avatar versus the little guys. And ironically, given Gabourey Sidibe's size, the littlest of them all is Precious.

Review: A Serious Man

According to the Shrödinger's Cat paradox, if you put a cat in a sealed box with a vial of poison that has a 50-50 chance of being released and killing the cat (sorry cat lovers), then until the box is unsealed, the cat is neither alive or dead. It exists in both states until the box is unsealed and the cat is observed to be one thing or the other.

Review: An Education

When we meet Jenny (Carey Mulligan), she lives a regimented existence of Latin homework and lectures from her father (Alfred Molina) about the importance of getting the grades to make it to Oxford University. This is 1960s Britain and the education Jenny and her peers receive shows them how to bake cakes and walk in a straight line with a book balanced on their heads.

Review: Fantastic Mr. Fox

Wes Anderson has always combined the neuroticism of Woody Allen with the visual flair of Michel Gondry to examine an assortment of fucked up families. Not exactly a winning formula for a kid's film, so it was a surprising move for Anderson to turn his attention to Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox. It shouldn't, but the melding of the over-active imaginations of Dahl and Anderson just about works.

Review: Away We Go

For a British director, Sam Mendes sure is hung up on the American dream. American Beauty and Revolutionary Road both exposed the façade of American domestic bliss, leaving behind a pretty bitter aftertaste. Mendes carries the technique of examining American life at close proximity by zooming in on one couple, from Revolutionary Road to Away We Go.

Review: Broken Embraces

Penelope Cruz isn't a human being, she's a work of art. Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar certainly recognises this and Broken Embraces is a love letter to Ms Cruz's exquisite face. It radiates from the screen, sorrowful and fragile at times, occasionally gleeful or mischievous, but always enchanting.

Review: Looking For Eric

You wouldn't usually associate Ken Loach with the word 'heart-warming'. Heart-wrenching is more his thing. Along with Mike Leigh, Loach leads the way in gritty, depressing British cinema, but then Leigh went and surprised us all with the release of last year’s Happy-Go-Lucky, an endearing film about an unflappable optimist. Now ...

Review: Synecdoche, New York

The mind of Charlie Kaufman is a baffling place, as anyone who has seen Being John Malkovich, Adaptation or Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind will know. This is Kaufman’s first time in the director’s chair; he also wrote and produced the film. Much like the scene in Being John Malkovich with dozens of Malkovichs about the pl...

Review: Two Lovers

Please please let the dark glasses Joaquin Phoenix has been wearing lately conceal a playful glint in his eye as he takes the world for a merry ride. The announcement that he intends to quit acting, followed by his bizarre appearance on Letterman and his disastrous “hip-hop” gigs, are either the result of a spectacular topple of...