Film
Dumb and dumber
Christopher Nolan’s futuristic epic Interstellar isn’t a clever film, or even a dumb film with a clever film trying to…
Art of grunting
Mr Turner may be the gruntiest film of the year, possibly the gruntiest film ever. ‘Grunt, grunt, grunt,’ goes Mr…
Signifying nothing
Fury is a second world war drama that plays with us viscerally and unsparingly — I think I saw a…
Leigh’s late flowering
Hermione Eyre talks to filmmaker Mike Leigh about Mr Turner, Hollywood, and making films his own way
See it and sleep
Take tissues to The Best of Me, I’d read, as it’s such a weepie, so I took tissues, being a…
Live long and prosper
Without sci-fi, there would be no cinema, writes Peter Hoskin
Effie off
Effie Gray, which has been written by Emma Thompson and recounts the doomed marriage of Victorian art critic John Ruskin…
Playing it for laughs
Gone Girl is David Fincher’s adaptation of the bestselling thriller by Gillian Flynn, a relentless page-turner which I’ve heard people…
Disaster movie
What We Did On Our Holiday is written and directed by Guy Jenkin and Andy Hamilton, the pair who created…
Watch that man
Inspired by Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never (2011), Katy Perry’s Part of Me (2012) and One Direction’s This Is Us…
Pride and prejudice
1984 and all that. Which side were you on? The side of Margaret Thatcher, her hairdo and person standing rigid…
Brain drain
Before I Go To Sleep is Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of S.J. Watson’s bestselling thriller of 2011, but whereas the book…
The enigma of Werner Herzog
William Cook watches a new box set from the BFI that reveals the full extent of the German director’s genius – and insanity
Dambusters
Night Moves is a film by Kelly Reichardt, who also made the heart-wrenching Wendy and Lucy (2008), which may be…
Superhuman Scarlett
Here’s an idea for an article: The Tree of Life (2011) is the most influential film of the past decade.…
Barometer
The not-so-great charter David Cameron wants every child to be taught about Magna Carta. Some bits he might want to…
The forgotten liberator
Slavery was ended in England not through blood and glory, but by the common law
Ken Loach is a bore
He hasn’t made anything worth watching since Kes
Shock and gore
Blue Ruin is a low-budget yet highly accomplished revenge thriller although whether you have the stomach for it is another…
An actor’s notebook
It was one of those weeks. On Monday, I was in four countries: I woke up at crack of dawn…
Getting Nixon taped
Simpsons star Harry Shearer on what it takes to play the president
Poor service
The Butler tells the story of an African–American butler at the White House who served eight American presidents over three…
Law in action
As a new production of Twelve Angry Men opens in the West End, Robert Gore-Langton names his favourite courtroom dramas
Money and movies
Seduced and Abandoned is both a satire on film-making and a love letter to film-making and a joy. A documentary…
Darkness visible
Peter Hoskin looks forward to being scared witless courtesy of the BFI’s feast of Gothic cinema
