Rashomon (1950)

Essential Viewing

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 羅生門

Director: Kurosawa Akira

Writers: Hashimoto Shinobu, Kurosawa Akira, Akutagawa Ryunosuke

Cinematographer: Miyagawa Kazuo

Composer: Hayasaka Fumio

Cast: Mifune Toshirō, Kyō Machiko, Mori Masayuki, Shimura Takashi, Chiaki Minoru, Ueda Kichijirō, Honma Fumiko, Katō Daisuke

Adapted from a pair of Akutagawa short stories, Kurosawa’s magisterial film (his first masterpiece) explores a 12th century murder from four different points-of-view – those of the accused, the victim’s wife, the victim (via a medium), and an innocent bystander – each painting a markedly different and decidedly self-serving portrait of the nefarious act. Iain.Stott

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Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Director: Sacha Gervasi

Cinematographer: Christopher Soos

Composer: David Norland

Featuring: Steve 'Lips' Kudlow, Robb Reiner

Gervasi’s entertaining and affecting Spinal Tap like documentary paints a portrait of the Canadian rockers Anvil – a heavy metal band started by its singer and drummer as 14-year-olds, some 30 plus years earlier – as they embark on a laughably shambolic European tour and attempt to record their thirteenth album, This Is Thirteen, which they hope will belatedly deliver them fame and fortune, and allow them to finally give-up their day jobs. Iain.Stott

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Ivan the Terrible, Part Two (1946)

Recommended

Soviet Union

Feature Film

Original Title: Иван Грозный II

Writer/Director: Sergei Eisenstein

Cinematographers: Andrei Moskvin, Eduard Tisse

Composer: Nikolai Cherkasov, Serafima Birman, Pavel Kadochnikov, Mikhail Zharov, Amvrosi Buchma, Vsevolod Pudovkin, Mikhail Kuznetsov

Following on from (and greatly improving upon) Part One (1944), Eisenstein’s detailing of the boyars’ plot to replace the titular monarch as tsar of Russia with his rather simple cousin, is – despite acting that wouldn’t look out of place in a Carry On film – a visually arresting, alluringly camp, and thoroughly entertaining if decidedly slight film. Iain.Stott

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Miss Marie Lloyd: Queen of the Music Hall (2007)

Best Avoided

UK

Television Film

Director: James Hawes

Writer: Martyn Hesford

Cinematographer: David Katznelson

Composer: Rob Lane

Cast: Jessie Wallace, Richard Armitage, Shaun Parkes, Lee Williams, Amanda Root, Matthew Marsh, Angus Barnett, Tom Payne

This typically handsome BBC production, painting a portrait of cockney music hall star Marie Lloyd, inelegantly whizzes from one barely sketched scene to the next, scarcely introducing one husband before replacing him with another, as it feverishly ticks off the historical facts without ever getting close capturing the humanity of its attractively brash heroine. Iain.Stott

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Ivan the Terrible, Part One (1944)

Cautiously Recommended

Soviet Union

Feature Film

Original Title: Иван Грозный I

Writer/Director: Sergei Eisenstein

Cinematographers: Andrei Moskvin, Eduard Tisse

Composer: Sergei Prokofiev

Cast: Nikolai Cherkasov, Lyudmila Tselikovskaya, Serafima Birman, Mikhail Nazvanov, Mikhail Zharov, Amvrosi Buchma, Mikhail Kuznetsov, Pavel Kadochnikov, Andrei Abrikosov

Whilst the newly crowned Tsar Ivan IV strives to spread the Russian empire through a series of wars, the boyars, who are opposed to his rule, contrive to undermine his every move, in Eisenstein’s slightly staid biopic, which – despite intermittent moments of brilliance, typified by the incredible image above – lacks any of the prolonged scenes of action by which he made his name. Iain.Stott

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Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story (2008)

Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: Andy DeEmmony

Writers: Amanda Coe, Patrick Reams

Cinematographer: David Odd

Composers: Nick Green, Tristin Norwell

Cast: Julie Walters, Alun Armstrong, Hugh Bonneville, Georgie Glen, Timothy Davies

Though this BBC portrait of Mary Whitehouse, the suburban art teacher turned moral crusader, who was intent upon forcing her own peculiar brand of unnatural, puritanical protestant morality onto the rest of the nation through her Clean Up TV campaign, is played mostly for laughs (which it provides plentifully), it also manages, against all the odds, to capture affectingly the humanity its oft fun-poked heroine. Iain.Stott

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My Neighbour Totoro (1988)

Cautiously Recommended

Japan

Animated Feature Film

Original Title: となりのトトロ

Writer/Director: Miyazaki Hayao

Composer: Hisaishi Jō

Cast: Hidaka Noriko, Sakamoto Chika, Itoi Shigesato, Shimamoto Sumi, Kitabayashi Tanie, Takagi Hitoshi, Maruyama Yūko

Setsuki and Mei, two young sisters who have recently moved with their father to the country to be nearer to their hospitalised mother, discover and make friends with magical, fairy creatures, who live in the neighbouring forest, in Miyazaki’s warm and vaguely charming if decidedly slight animated fantasy. Iain.Stott

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Freaks (1932)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Tod Browning

Writer: Tod Robbins

Cinematographer: Merritt B. Gerstad

Cast: Wallace Ford, Leila Hyams, Olga Baclanova, Roscoe Ates, Henry Victor, Harry Earles, Daisy Earles, Rose Dione, Daisy Hilton, Violet Hilton

A circus dwarf falls for a hideously manipulative trapeze artist, who toys with him mercilessly until she finds out about his recent inheritance, at which point she contrives to marry and subsequently poison him; but she doesn’t take into account his fellow freaks, who’ll surely not take it lying down, in Browning’s generally poorly acted and fairly predictable if occasionally, scarily brilliant sort-of horror film, which is perhaps most notable for its use of actual freakshow performers. Iain.Stott

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Shanghai, 2010

Golden Goblet

Kiss Me Again (2010)

Jury Grand Prize

Deep in the Clouds (2010)

Best Director

Liu Jie, Deep in the Clouds (2010)

Best Screenplay

Gabriele Muccino, Kiss Me Again (2010)

Best Actress

Vittoria Puccini, Kiss Me Again (2010)

Best Actor

Christian Ulmen, Wedding Fever in Campobello (2010)

Best Cinematography

Christopher Doyle, Ondine (2010)

Best Music

Giong LIM, Deep In The Clouds (2010)

In Competition

• Circuit (2010)
• Czukor Show (2010)
• Deep in the Clouds (2010)
• Detour (2010)
• The First Beautiful Thing (2010)
• Kiss Me Again (2010)
• The Last Escape (2010)
• Ocean Heaven (2010)
• Ondine (2010)
• Partners (2010)
• Pay Back (2010)
• The Rowan Waltz (2010)
• Time of Fear (2010)
• Unauthorised (2010)
• Wedding Fever in Campobello (2010)
• Zonad (2010)

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What the Butler Saw (1987)

Highly Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: Theatre Night (1985-1990)

Director: Barry Davis

Writer: Joe Orton

Cinematographer: Derek Slee

Composer: Jim Parker

Cast: Dinsdale Landen, Prunella Scales, Tessa Peake-Jones, Timothy West, Tyler Butterworth, Bryan Pringle

White golliwogs, cross-dressing coppers, bellboy rapists, insanity, incest, and Winston Churchill’s giant member all play their part in this trouser-soilingly funny BBC production of Joe Orton’s farcical, bitingly satirical 1969 play, in which the head psychiatrist of a lunatic asylum, when trying to conceal the attempted molestation of his new secretary from his wife, only succeeds in making himself (and everyone else) look completely round the bend. Iain.Stott

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Hallelujah! (1929)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: King Vidor

Writers: King Vidor, Wanda Tuchock, Ransom Rideout, Richard Schayer

Cinematographer: Gordon Avil

Cast: Daniel L. Haynes, Nina Mae McKinney, William Fountaine, Harry Gray, Fanny Belle DeKnight, Everett McGarrity, Victoria Spivey

Vidor’s arrestingly photographed and oft brilliant if occasionally vaguely camp though never less than thoroughly entertaining film follows the ups and downs of Zeke, a cotton farmer in the deep south with an eye for the ladies who, after accidentally killing his brother when cheated out of a year’s income by a pair of confidence tricksters, becomes a preacher, and takes to the rails to spread the word of god; but, unfortunately for all concerned, the devil is not yet done with him. Iain.Stott

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Lennon Naked (2010)

Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: Edmund Coulthard

Writer: Robert Jones

Cinematographer: Matt Gray

Composer: Dickon Hinchcliffe

Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Christopher Fairbank, Allan Corduner, Andrew Scott, Naoko Mori, Michael Colgan, Craig Cheetham, Jack Morgan, Claudie Blakely, Roroy Kinnear, Adrian Bower

This excellent BBC production – with a painfully authentic feeling and very affecting central performance from Eccleston – paints a portrait of John Lennon at three points through his life as a Beatle (beginning, middle, and end), filtered through his tortuous relationship with his estranged father, convincingly capturing the essence of a perennially angry young man. Iain.Stott

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Heartbeat Detector (2007)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: La question humaine

Director: Nicolas Klotz

Writers: François Emmanuel, Elisabeth Perceval

Cinematographer: Josée Deshaies

Composer: Syd Matters

Cast: Mathieu Amalric, Michael Lonsdale, Edith Scob, Lou Castel, Jean-Pierre Kalfon, Valérie Dréville, Laetitia Spigarelli, Delphine Chuillot, Nicolas Maury, Rémy Carpentier

Klotz’s remarkable film – a sensual, disquieting, and haunting meditation on the dehumanising effects of modern, corporate language, and its Nazi party echoes – follows a human resources corporate psychologist as he investigates, at the behest of a board member, the mental health of his company’s chief director, who has been acting decidedly erratically of late. Iain.Stott

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The Girl Cut in Two (2007)

Not Recommended

France/Germany

Feature Film

Original Title: La fille coupée en deux

Director: Claude Chabrol

Writers: Claude Chabrol, Cécile Maistre

Cinematographer: Eduardo Serra

Composer: Matthieu Chabrol

Cast: Ludivine Sagnier, Benoît Magimel, François Berléand, Mathilda May, Caroline Silhol, Marie Bunel

Chabrol’s well-made but risibly and fatally unconvincing film – based on the infamous 1906 White-Nesbit-Thaw crime passionnel – sees an attractive and increasingly successful young television personality, when dumped by her middle-aged, married author lover, marry an obnoxious and decidedly unstable upper-class gent, who struggles to come to terms with her past sexual encounters. Iain.Stott

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Away We Go (2009)

Recommended

USA/UK

Feature Film

Director: Sam Mendes

Writers: Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida

Cinematographer: Ellen Kuras

Composer: Alexi Murdoch

Cast: John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Carmen Ejogo, Catherine O'Hara, Jeff Daniels, Allison Janney, Jim Gaffigan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Josh Hamilton, Chris Messina, Melanie Lynskey, Paul Schneider

With the birth of their first child just three months away, a young couple, with little in the way of local family or friends and even less parental self-confidence, set off on an epic road, rail, and air trip around America, in search of somewhere to set-up home, meeting with old acquaintances and relatives along the way, in Mendes’s beautifully warm, gently moving, and frequently hilarious comedy-drama. Iain.Stott

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She's Been Away (1989)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: Screen One (1989-1994)

Director: Peter Hall

Writer: Stephen Poliakoff

Cinematographer: Philip Bonham-Carter

Composers: Stephen Edwards, Richard Hartley

Cast: Peggy Ashcroft, Geraldine James, James Fox, Jackson Kyle, Rebecca Pidgeon, Rosalie Crutchley, Rachel Kempson, Hugh Lloyd, Donald Douglas, Brid Brennan

Poliakoff’s uncomfortably funny and occasionally brilliant if often merely silly television play paints a portrait of Lillian, a woman in her late seventies, who has been in a mental institution for 60 years, as she is returned – when her ward is closed permanently – to society and her family home, much to the chagrin of her pregnant niece-in-law, who herself is in the midst of some sort of breakdown. Iain.Stott

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They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?

The 1,000 Greatest Films

January, 2011

January, 2010

December, 2008

December, 2007

December, 2006

The 250 Most Acclaimed Films of the 21st Century

January, 2011

January, 2010

January, 2009

January, 2008

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The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister (2010)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: James Kent

Writer: Jane English

Cinematographer: Lukas Strebel

Composer: Avshalom Caspi

Cast: Maxine Peake, Anna Madeley, Susan Lynch, Christine Bottomley, Gemma Jones, Alan David, Richenda Carey, Michael Culkin, Dean Lennox Kelly, Tina O'Brien

Maxine Peake is excellent in the eponymous role of the early 19th century wealthy Yorkshire land owner, industrialist, and diarist in this handsome BBC production, which spends – slightly detrimentally – most of its time detailing a doomed affair with the married Mariana Lawton, whilst giving scant attention to her happy long-term relationship with Miss Ann Walker or her other varied personal and professional achievements. Iain.Stott

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CFB's Top 30 Obscure Films of 1942 (2010)

1. Les Visiteurs du Soir (1942)
2. Mountain People (1942)
3. Tales of Manhattan (1942)
4. Son of Furry (1942)
5. My Sister Eileen (1942)
6. You Were Never Lovelier (1942)
7. Aniki-Bobo (1942)
8. Moontide (1942)
9. Listen to Britain (1942)
10. There Was a Father (1942)
11. A Pilot Returns (1942)
12. Tulips Shall Grow (1942)
13. Eyes in the Night (1942)
14. Horton Hatches the Egg (1942)
15. Blitz Wolf (1942)
16. The Fleet's In (1942)
17. Pittsburgh (1942)
18. Larceny, Inc. (1942)
19. The Male Animal (1942)
20. Castle in the Desert (1942)
21. The Great Man's Lady (1942)
22. Night Monster (1942)
23. The First of the Few (1942)
24. Fantastic Night (1942)
25. The Murderer Lives at Number 21 (1942)
26. Mashenka (1942)
27. Who Done It? (1942)
28. A Night to Remember (1942)
29. Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)
30. The Goose Steps Out (1942)
    Orchestra Wives (1942)
    Go to Blazes (1942)

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CFB's Top 30 Films of 1942 (2010)

1. Casablanca (1942)
2. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
3. Cat People (1942)
4. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
5. Bambi (1942)
6. Now, Voyager (1942)
7. To Be or Not to Be (1942)
8. Saboteur (1942)
9. Mrs. Miniver (1942)
10. Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942)
11. Kings Row (1942)
12. Random Harvest (1942)
13. The Major and the Minor (1942)
14. This Gun for Hire (1942)
15. In Which We Serve (1942)
16. The Talk of the Town (1942)
17. Went the Day Well? (1942)
18. The Man Who Came To Dinner (1942)
19. The Pride of the Yankees (1942)
20. I Married a Witch (1942)
21. Woman of the Year (1942)
22. The Glass Key (1942)
23. Holiday Inn (1942)
24. Roxie Hart (1942)
25. Reap the Wild Wind (1942)
26. Der Fuehrer's Face (1942)
27. Road to Morocco (1942)
28. The Black Swan (1942)
29. In This Our Life (1942)
30. Gentleman Jim (1942)
31. ......One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942)

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Standard Operating Procedure (2008)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Director: Errol Morris

Cinematographers: Robert Chappell, Robert Richardson

Composer: Danny Elfman

Morris’s commendably even-handed and painfully fascinating if incongruously and uncomfortably decorative and stylised documentary explores, mostly in the violators own words, the stories behind the actions captured in the infamous, sickening Abu Ghraib abuse photographs, which came to light in 2004. Iain.Stott

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Changeling (2008)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director/Composer: Clint Eastwood

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski

Cinematographer: Tom Stern

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Jeffrey Donovan, John Malkovich, Jason Butler Harner, Colm Feore, Amy Ryan, Geoff Pierson

In Eastwood’s strikingly photographed, beautifully crafted, and affectingly acted true life mystery-cum-police corruption exposé, a single mother, whose 9-year-old son went missing several months earlier, raises the ire of a horribly unscrupulous Los Angeles police force – who proceed to persecute her mercilessly – when she claims that the boy returned to her as her missing son is in fact no such person. Iain.Stott

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CFB's Greatest Movies by Country, Chapter 24: Belgium

1. Ma Vie en Rose (1997)
2. Jeanne Dielman (1975)
3. The Son (2002)
4. The Child (2005)
5. Daens (1993)
6. Innocence (2004)
7. La Promesse (1996)
8. Toto the Hero (1991)
9. Rosetta (1999)
10. Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1976)
11. Dust (1985)
12. Crazy Love (1987)
    Man Bites Dog (1992)
13. One Night. . . a Train (1968)
    Une Liaison Pornographique (1999)
14. Malpertuis (1971)
15. Daughters of Darkness (1971)
16. Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (1978)
    The Music Teacher (1988)
    The Eighth Day (1996)
    The Alzheimer Case (2003)

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Southland Tales (2006)

Not Recommended

USA/France/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Richard Kelly

Cinematographer: Steven Poster

Composer: Moby

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Nora Dunn, John Larroquette, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Bai Ling

Whilst the third world war rages on in the Middle East, and neo-cons and neo-Marxists do battle for what remains of post-nuke California, an amnesiac film star, a porn actress turned talk show host, and a shell-shocked police officer play their parts in the imminent apocalypse, in Kelly’s occasionally exhilarating though generally uninvolving and often merely self-indulgent and messy film. Iain.Stott

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Duplicity (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

USA/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Tony Gilroy

Cinematographer: Robert Elswit

Composer: James Newton Howard

Cast: Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Giamatti, Dan Daily, Lisa Roberts Gillan, David Shumbris, Rick Worthy, Oleg Stefan

In Gilroy’s fun but slight caper movie, a pair of duplicitous former CIA and MI6 agents, despite not trusting each other, form a sexual, romantic, and financial partnership, putting their combined talents and efforts towards gaining the trust of two warring CEOs, who they hope to play off each other in order to steel the patent for a potentially very profitable new product. Iain.Stott

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Accident (2009)

Recommended

Hong Kong

Feature Film

Original Title: 意外

Director: Cheang Pou-Soi

Writers: Szeto Kam-Yuen, Tang Lik-Kei

Cinematographer: Fung Yuen Man

Composer: Xavier Jamaux

Cast: Louis Koo, Richie Ren, Fung Shui-Fan, Michelle Ye, Lam Suet

The Brain, the head of a band of hitmen who stage their hits to look like accidents, becomes convinced that someone is out to get him when an “accident” almost befalls him, leading him to methodically examine and re-examine the actions of all those around him, in Cheang’s intricate yet spare, strikingly photographed, and strangely haunting thriller. Iain.Stott

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Cannes, 2010

Palme d'Or
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

Grand Prix
Of Gods and Men (2010)

Best Director
Mathieu Amalric, On Tour (2010)

Best Screenplay
Lee Chang-dong, Poetry (2010)

Best Actress
Juliette Binoche, Certified Copy (2010)

Best Actor
Javier Bardem, Biutiful (2010)
Elio Germano, Our Life (2010)

Jury Prize
A Screaming Man (2010)

Un Certain Regard Prize
Hahaha (2010)

Jury Prize - Un Certain Regard
October (2010)

Un Certain Regard Award for Best Actress
Victoria Raposo, Eva Bianco, & Adela Sanchez, The Lips (2010)

Caméra d'or
Leap Year (2010)

In competition

• Another Year (2010)
• Biutiful (2010)
• Burnt by the Sun 2 (2010)
• Certified Copy (2010)
• Chongqing Blues (2010)
• Fair Game (2010)
• The Housemaid (2010)
• My Joy (2010)
• Of Gods and Men (2010)
• Our Life (2010)
• Outrage (2010)
• Outside of the Law (2010)
• Poetry (2010)
• The Princess of Montpensier (2010)
• Route Irish (2010)
• A Screaming Man (2010)
• Tender Son: The Frankenstein Project (2010)
• On Tour (2010)
• Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)

Un Certain Regard

• Adrienn Pál (2010)
• Aurora (2010)
• Blue Valentine (2010)
• Carancho (2010)
• Chatroom (2010)
• The City Below (2010)
• Film Socialisme (2010)
• Hahaha (2010)
• Heartbeats (2010)
• I Wish I Knew (2010)
• Life, Above All (2010)
• Lights Out (2010)
• The Lips (2010)
• October (2010)
• Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs) (2010)
• R U There (2010)
• The Strange Case of Angelica (2010)
• Tuesday, After Christmas (2010)
• Udaan (2010)

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Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)

Recommended

USA

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director/Narrator: Alex Gibney

Cinematographers: Maryse Alberti, Greg Andracke

Composer: Ivor Guest

Taking the imprisonment and subsequent torture-induced death of an innocent Afghani taxi driver as its starting point, Gibney’s measured documentary paints a damning portrait of post-9/11 US POW policy, detailing stomach-turning examples of human rights violations and the rhetoric and word games that helped make them palatable to the general public. Iain.Stott

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Frost/Nixon (2008)

Recommended

USA/UK/France

Feature Film

Director: Ron Howard

Writers Peter Morgan

Cinematographer: Salvatore Totino

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Cast: Frank Langella, Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, Kevin Bacon, Matthew Macfadyen, Oliver Platt, Rebecca Hall, Toby Jones

Langella’s excellent, pathos-laden performance forms the heart of Howard’s otherwise solidly constructed if mildly (relatively, considering the subject matter) disappointing surface deep adaptation of Peter Morgan’s play, which details the build-up to the celebrated series of interviews between British talk show host turned journalist David Frost and the disgraced former US president Richard Nixon – gripping stuff, never the less. Iain.Stott

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Thumbsucker (2005)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Mike Mills

Writers: Mike Mills, Walter Kirn

Cinematographer: Joaquín Baca-Asay

Composer: Tim DeLaughter

Cast: Lou Taylor Pucci, Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio, Kelli Garner, Keanu Reeves, Vince Vaughn

A directionless, oft confused 17-year-old, who still sucks his thumb in stressful situations, experiments with legal and illegal drugs, discovers sex, dabbles with success, and eventually finds himself, in Mills’s well made and consummately acted if slightly predictable and vaguely familiar adaptation of Walter Kirn’s novel. Iain.Stott

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Glue (2006)

Recommended

Argentina/UK

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Alexis Dos Santos

Cinematographer: Natasha Braier

Cast: Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Nahuel Viale, Inés Efron, Verónica Llinás, Héctor Díaz, Florencia Braier

As rough & ready and alluringly dishevelled and awkward as its teenaged protagonists, and featuring a cracking Violent Femmes-centric soundtrack, Dos Santos’s debut feature paints an oft beautiful and occasionally ugly but never inauthentic-feeling portrait of a Patagonian adolescent, as he discovers sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll during the long, hot summer holidays. Iain.Stott

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Air Doll (2009)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 空気人形

Director: Koreeda Hirokazu

Writers: Koreeda Hirokazu, Goda Yoshiie

Cinematographer: Lee Pin Bing

Composers: World's End Girlfriend

Cast: Bae Doona, Arata, Itao Itsuji, Odagiri Jō, Fuji Sumiko, Takahashi Masaya, Terajima Susumu, Yo Kimiko

A life-sized inflatable sex doll develops a soul, acquires a job at a video rental store, and begins to interact with a number of lonely Tokyoans, all the while remaining subservient to her middle-aged owner, in Koreeda’s for-the-most-part beautiful and moving existential exploration of urban alienation, which is let down somewhat (though far from irredeemably) by its vaguely sentimental and trite last few moments. Iain.Stott

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The Simpsons Movie (2007)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Animated Feature Film

Director: David Silverman

Writers: James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Al Jean, Ian Maxtone-Graham, George Meyer, David Mirkin, Mike Reiss, Mike Scully, Matt Selman, John Swartzwelder, Jon Vitti, Joel Cohen, John Frink, Tim Long, Michael Price

Composer: Hans Zimmer

Cast: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Harry Shearer, Hank Azaria

Though the Simpsons’ first big screen outing is generally entertaining enough (if one doesn‘t demand too much of it), much of it feels quite pedestrian and familiar, and its action movie plot feels more like a rather tired example of rather than a parody of those Hollywood films which it lampoons; that said – as we see Homer save Springfield from the nefarious EPA – it is still sporadically hilarious. Iain.Stott

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Signs (2002)

Not Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Cinematographer: Tak Fujimoto

Composer: James Newton Howard

Cast: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones

A former preacher, who renounced his faith following the gruesome, accidental death of his wife, prepares for the imminent alien invasion with his two young children and screw-up younger brother at their remote rural home, in Shyamalan’s intriguingly written if ineffectively shot sci-fi thriller-cum-family drama, which never really captures the sense of fear that it needs to succeed. Iain.Stott

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A Single Man (2009)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Tom Ford

Writers: Tom Ford, David Scearce, Christopher Isherwood

Cinematographer: Eduard Grau

Composer: Abel Korzeniowski

Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, Matthew Goode, Jon Kortajarena

Fashion designer turned film-maker Ford’s affecting adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s groundbreaking 1964 novel – featuring a wonderful performance from Firth – beautifully follows a recently bereaved homosexual English professor as he methodically makes his way through what he intends to be the final day of his life, getting his affairs into order, whilst memories of happier times flood into any moments that he leaves spare. Iain.Stott

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VOTE, VOTE, VOTE for Nigel Barton (1965)

Highly Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: The Wednesday Play (1964-1970)

Director: Gareth Davies

Writer: Dennis Potter

Cinematographer: James Balfour

Composer: Ronnie Hazlehurst

Cast: Keith Barron, Valerie Gearon, John Bailey, Cyril Luckham

When the MP for a safe conservative seat dies in a fox hunting accident, his defeated labour opponent, Nigel Barton, previously seen in Stand Up, Nigel Barton (1965), begins to campaign for the bi-election; but, as his eyes are gradually opened to the process’s inherent cynicism, dishonesty, and compromise, he becomes well and truly disillusioned with it all, in Dennis Potter’s scintillating, oft hilarious, and sadly still relevant Wednesday Play. Iain.Stott

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Stand Up, Nigel Barton (1965)

Highly Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: The Wednesday Play (1964-1970)

Director: Gareth Davies

Writer: Dennis Potter

Cast: Keith Barron, Jack Woolgar, Katherine Parr, Vickery Turner, Robert Mill, Janet Henfrey, P.J. Kavanagh, Johnnie Wade, Godfrey James

Nigel Barton, an Oxford undergraduate son of a coalminer, as he divides his time between his provincial, working-class home village and his toff filled academic term time address, comes to realise that he no longer belongs in either world, in Potter’s adventurous and generally quite wonderful autobiographical contribution to the BBC’s The Wednesday Play series. Iain.Stott

Followed by VOTE, VOTE, VOTE for Nigel Barton (1965)

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Haze (2005)

Cautiously Recommended

Japan

Short Feature Film

Writer/Director/Cinematographer: Tsukamoto Shinya

Composer: Ishikawa Chu

Cast: Tsukamoto Shinya, Fujii Kaori

In Tsukamoto’s intriguing and vaguely unpleasant if never entirely effective short, a man awakens in a dark and dirty cramped space with a significant stomach wound and no memory of how he came to be there; as he explores his inhospitable environment, he becomes ever more convinced of his own demise, until he meets a similarly afflicted woman, who gives him the strength to carry on. Iain.Stott

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Father & Son (2009)

Recommended

Ireland/UK

Television Mini-Series

Director: Brian Kirk

Writer: Frank Deasy

Cinematographer: Ruairi O'Brien

Composers: Harry Escott, Molly Nyman

Cast: Dougray Scott, Reece Noi, Sophie Okonedo, Ian Hart, Terence Maynard, Stephen Rea, Wunmi Mosaku, John Kavanagh

In Frank Deasy’s unpredictable and generally excellent final piece of writing – a family drama of regret, redemption, and sacrifice, first shown just a few months before he succumbed to cancer – follows a reformed gunrunner from his idyllic Irish country home to the urban hell of his native Manchester, as he attempts to come to the aid of his estranged teenaged son, who is accused of a gang revenge killing. Iain.Stott

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Silver City (2004)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: John Sayles

Cinematographer: Haskell Wexler

Composer: Mason Daring

Cast: Danny Huston, Chris Cooper, Richard Dreyfuss, Kris Kristofferson, Maria Bello, Mary Kay Place, David Clennon, Tim Roth, Michael Murphy, Daryl Hannah, Sal Lopez

A world weary journalist-turned-private-investigator (Huston, excellent), hired by a candidate for state governor’s election staff to find the identity of a Juan Doe, which popped-up during the filming of a campaign video, gradually uncovers a web of lies, conspiracies, and corrupt officials, but finds himself powerless to do anything about them, in Sayles’s sprawling, biting, Chinatown-like detective movie cum political thriller. Iain.Stott

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Bad Education (2004)

Highly Recommended

Spain

Feature Film

Original Title: La mala education

Writer/Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Cinematographer: José Luis Alcaine

Composer: Alberto Iglesias

Cast: Gael García Bernal, Fele Martínez, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Lluís Homar, Francisco Maestre, Francisco Boira, Juan Fernández, Nacho Pérez, Raúl García Forneiro

A promising young film-maker, adapting a semi-autobiographical story written by his first love, who was sexually abused by a priest whilst at boarding school, begins to question the identity and motives of his collaborator, as secrets and lies gradually come to light, in Almodóvar’s labyrinthinely plotted, strikingly shot, and beautifully acted Hitchcockian noir. Iain.Stott

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Mary and Max (2009)

Highly Recommended

Australia

Animated Feature Film

Writer/Director: Adam Elliot

Cinematographer: Gerald Thompson

Composer: Dale Cornelius

Narrator: Barry Humphries

Cast: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Bethany Whitmore, Renée Geyer, Ian Meldrum

Max, a lonely, anxious middle-aged New Yorker with Asperger's Syndrome, begins a generally sweet and decidedly honest epistolary relationship with Mary, an equally lonely Australian child, which lasts – through deaths, divorces, suicide attempts, committings, and lottery wins – for twenty thoroughly eventful years, in claymator Elliot’s tremendously moving and beautifully nuanced bitter-sweet gem. Iain.Stott

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The House of Mirth (2000)

Highly Recommended

UK/France/Germany/USA

Feature Film

Director: Terence Davies

Writers: Terence Davies, Edith Wharton

Cinematographer: Remi Adefarasin

Cast: Gillian Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Anthony LaPaglia, Laura Linney, Eric Stoltz, Terry Kinney, Eleanor Bron, Jodhi May, Elizabeth McGovern

With an affectingly nuanced performance from Anderson and a beautifully refined aesthetic, Davies’s elegant adaptation of Wharton’s bitingly satirical tragedy follows the fall from grace of a New York society lady at the beginning of the twentieth century – a fall brought about as much by her virtues as her vices, as her friends’ hypocrisies gradually and decidedly take their toll. Iain.Stott

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Masculine, Feminine (1966)

Recommended

France/Sweden

Feature Film

Original Title: Masculin féminin: 15 faits précis

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Writers: Jean-Luc Godard, Guy de Maupassant

Cinematographer: Willy Kurant

Composer: Jean-Jacques Debout

Cast: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Chantal Goya, Marlène Jobert, Michel Debord, Catherine-Isabelle Duport, Eva-Britt Strandberg, Birger Malmsten

In Godard’s relatively reverent and accessible examination of the political views of The Children of Marx and Coca-Cola, loosely based on a pair of Guy de Maupassant short stories, a recently demobbed would-be revolutionary, when not toying with militancy, courts the affections of a pretty, young would-be singer. Iain.Stott

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The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Essential Viewing

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Preston Sturges

Cinematographer: Victor Milner

Composer: Victor Young

Cast: Claudette Colbert, Joel McCrea, Mary Astor, Rudy Vallee, Sig Arno, Robert Dudley

After five years of marriage, a young woman travels to Palm Beach in order to get a divorce, find a rich husband, and perhaps acquire the funding for her soon to be ex hubby’s harebrained suspended airport scheme; he, on the other hand, has different ideas, in Sturges’s exquisitely written and beautifully played farce, which, like its protagonists, manages to have its cake and eat it too. Iain.Stott

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