The sensitive, charming but still gritty Irish film, The Quiet Girl (which is spoken almost entirely in Irish Gaelic) will no doubt prove to be a favourite for some filmgoers this year. It shows that a tearjerker can still be a credible and genuinely affecting drama. In her first film role, 12- year-old Catherine Clinch stars as Cait, the neglected
Read moreThere have been numerous film adaptations of Italian author Carlo Collodi’s 1883 Pinocchio story but the most famous is the 1940 Disney animated film. That movie is apparently a favourite of a number of renowned directors including Steven Spielberg who used its ‘wish upon a star’ theme over the closing credits of Close Encounters and essentially remade it as AI:
Read moreDespite being directed by the revered George Miller, containing some inspired and quite startling moments and starring two of Hollywood’s most respected actors, Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, the oddball romantic fantasy and storytelling tribute, 3,000 Years Of Longing doesn’t entirely work. The title sounds like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel but George Miller and Augusta Gore wrote the film’s
Read moreThe charmingly named Orphan: First Kill is the prequel to the reasonably tense and creepy 2009 psycho-child slasher flick, Orphan. Like that film, this one effectively plays on the unnerving juxtaposition of the central fiend’s sweet-looking, child-like appearance and brutal, murderous tendencies. The film reacquaints us with the diabolical orphan Esther (Isabelle Fuhrmann) who, as the first film revealed and
Read moreThe ‘man versus nature’ horror/action film is one of the dodgier movie sub-genres. Casting an animal as a villain simply because it doesn’t welcome, or sees as food, a human who has intruded on its habitat is a little too human centric. Still, some films of this type have worked, the best example being Jaws because it reached beyond the
Read moreIranian comedy/ drama Hit the Road is a wonderfully poignant, funny, at times melancholic and unsettling film that at first seems like a familiar road trip film with echoes of Little Miss Sunshine but proves to be something more profound. The film introduces us to a distinct and very welcome new voice in writer/ director Panah Panahi, the son of
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