Niels Arestrup

Review: War Horse

At the screening of War Horse I attended, there were people in floods of tears. Floods. Not just quiet, reflective sobbing, but that godless, wretched honking that's usually accompanied by snot and friends who wish they were somewhere else. Me? I didn't shed a single tear – I walked out of there like Moses parting a salty sea. Bear in mind I once got a bit teary because I thought one of my cats was upset with me, and that should tell you a little about me, but everything about War Horse. It's about as manipulative a film has Steven Spielberg has ever made – a movie that's been custom-designed from the ground up to play a sad harp solo on the heartstrings; a story cynically told to invoke as many tears as possible. You'd swear it was bankrolled by Kleenex.

Review: A Prophet

There are lots of things you can do with a long-term prison sentence: you can tie a knot in your shirt and reassess your sexuality, you can use a rock hammer to tunnel behind a poster of Raquel Welch, or, if you are anything like A Prophet's Malik, you can slowly build contacts to become a badass gang boss.