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The Artist
Michel Hazanavicius
2012
A love-letter to the bygone silent era, The Artist is a charming film that reflects on cinema’s formative years while also relighting the fires of interest in a style of filmmaking that was once considered consigned to the history books forever. To see it back on the big screen at a time when two of the longest-running Hollywood studios, Universal and Paramount, are celebrating 100 years in business, is almost poetic. It’s already picked up numerous awards and looks set for Oscar glory to add to the romanticism, but the gushing praise for The Artist is well-deserved.
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Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Brad Bird
2011
All four Mission: Impossible movies have carried their director’s distinct style to varying degrees of success. De Palma kicked off the movie franchise effectively then John Woo went so OTT on action that the brooding intelligence of the first was lost. JJ Abrams offered a solid reboot of sorts which played up teamwork rather than one-man-army Cruise. Abrams drew on his experience working on television series, but it looked like the A-list actor would struggle to find a mass audience again when the box office take of his recent films went downhill. For this fourth edition Pixar director Brad Bird has made his first foray into live action cinema following hits with The Incredibles, The Iron Giant and Ratatouille. To make a success of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Bird would have to strike a balance of the insatiable Cruise star power and giving screen time to more than just his elaborate stunts. That might be considered an impossible mission itself, but he’s performed admirably to ensure all of Ethan’s team get a chance to shine.
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The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn
Steven Spielberg
2011
Journalist and adventurer Tintin arrives on the big screen with a CGI-makeover that goes three dimensional. Sewing together three 1940s stories The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure, this big budget re-imaging of Herve’s classic is a thrill ride of set pieces, yet lacking the classic Spielberg story weaving of his live action equivalent Indiana Jones.
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Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Rupert Wyatt
2011
Tim Burton’s update of The Planet of the Apes 10 years ago, dressing up A-list actors in hairy costumes and a preposterous ending put paid to a reboot to the much-loved franchise. Burton’s movie lacked the dark overtones the director was renowned for and had none of the camp charm of the original, leaving a soulless Hollywood blockbuster. But nothing is normally more soulless than a Hollywood prequel, usually full of by-the-numbers plotting and characterisation as it plods towards a pre-determined end with a few winks along the way. Incredibly, Rise of the Planet of the Apes isn’t one of them: helmer Rupert Wyatt brings us a well-acted, engaging origins story with genuine emotion behind all the CGI apes and creative action scenes.
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Sucker Punch
Zack Snyder
2011
Hollywood has often granted hotshot directors creative freedom after they’ve proved themselves a top talent. Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate in the 1980s almost brought down a studio under the weight of the director’s ambition and, more recently, Kurt Wimmer and Kerry Conran showed that putting too much faith in the hands of the director can result in poor returns. Zack Snyder’s efforts remaking Dawn of the Dead and then bringing graphic novels 300 and Watchmen to the big screen earned him free reign for his live action follow up Sucker Punch. An action/drama spectacular drenched in fantasy, Snyder’s computer game-esque sequences see a group of girls battling all manner of enemies to escape a brothel that is used as symbolism for a girl’s entrapment in a mental asylum. This premise gives Snyder plenty of opportunity to flex his creative muscle, but this original effort exposes his shortcomings as a writer.
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Senna
Asif Kapadia
2011
“The late, great Ayton Senna” is how possibly the finest Formula One commentator Murray Walker used to describe the legendary driver on air before he retired, and possibly still does. This documentary follows Senna from his karting days through his conflicts with F1 rival Alain Prost to his untimely death at Italy’s Imola circuit in 1994. It’s an emotional journey that puts the hero of the piece on a pedestal as a Brazilian and sporting icon, but paints a one-dimensional view of the legend.
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Greatest US sitcoms ever
Iconic comedy Two and a Half Men returns with season eight released on DVD on Monday (August 8th). The defining season of the American comedy sees Charlie Sheen back in his role as Charlie Harper for the last time – soon to be replaced by Ashton Kutcher. Time will tell if his partnership with Jon Cryer will be as winning but while we await the new takes on themes of women, sex, dating, divorce, mothers, single parenthood, sibling relations, surrogate families, money and love, you can pick up the new series here.
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Rutger Hauer talks Hobo with a Shotgun
2011-07-14
Hobo With a Shotgun sees Rutger Hauer dish out vigilante justice in a movie that started out as a fake Grindhouse trailer but became an Internet sensation and now a fully-fledged movie. Harking back to the exploitation cinema of the 1970s, Hauer is the Hobo of the title – a man who takes on the evils of the world in a tour-de-force of gratuitous violence, gore and bloody mayhem. In cinemas tomorrow, Hauer talks how he came to star in a film that has already built up a cult following.
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Must-see movies inspired by Philip K. Dick
Oscar winner Matt Damon and Emily Blunt star in The Adjustment Bureau, the latest adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story. David Norris is an ambitious, well respected politician, on the verge of a landmark change in his life and a seat into the U.S Senate. But after Norris crosses paths with Elise Sellas, an aspiring contemporary ballet dancer, his fate changes dramatically – but he has no control over what that fate is as The Adjustment Bureau step in.
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Scream 4
Wes Craven
2011
The Scream series was once the talk of horror fans. Writer Kevin Williamson and veteran slasher director Wes Craven teamed up to create the first real tongue-in-cheek dressing down of the genre with the original, yet also managed to craft their own inventive classic at the same time – a feat that would propel the series on for a better-than-expected sequel which continued the tradition of high school kids geeking out over horror film cliches while being involved in the same scenarios.
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