I was lucky enough to attend the première of Avatar, the latest and undoubtedly biggest film from James Cameron, starring the huge cast list of Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Michelle Rodriguez, Stephen Lang, Giovanni Ribisi, Joel Moore, CCH Pounder, Wes Studi, Laz Alonso, and so on. Not only...
I really enjoyed Moon (Filmstalker review) when I saw it, Duncan Jones crafted an excellent film that could have gone disastrously wrong, after all it concentrates on just one main character, and when a film does that for it's entire length, it has to be good and that character rich...
Vincent Cassel is a stunning actor, of that there is little doubt, he's hugely charismatic and can easily command the screen as well as pulling you right into his performance. If you haven't watched any of his films as yet then I suggest you start now with Death Instinct. This...
Kirby Dick has delivered two of the best documentaries that I've seen, Twist of Faith (Filmstalker review) and This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Filmstalker review), and so there was absolutely no question of not seeing his latest documentary Outrage, especially with the material it's covering. Twist of Faith was...
I have to admit why I first wanted to see Surrogate, because people told me I couldn't. Not because the film was bad, or it was an obscene or disgusting story, not because the cinema was closed, but because money had come from official sources in Israel to pay expenses...
Moon is a film from Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie, and has been getting a lot of positive press since it was first seen. Starring Sam Rockwell as the sole occupant of an almost completely automated mining station working out his three year stint there. It almost sounds like...
Reading about The Hurt Locker it has the potential to fall into a number of categories of similar themed films, a film about the gung-ho over the top soldiers in Iraq, a "war is tough and terrible" film preaching to the audience, and so on. However The Hurt Locker is...
I must admit to being a little biased towards this film when I first heard about it, after all it leads with the gorgeous Robin Wright Penn backed by Maria Bello, Monica Bellucci and another surprising return for Wynona Ryder, and while watching it I have to admit to being...
I've missed this film at two festivals now over the space of a year, and frankly I thought I was going to have to wait until release time to see what all the fuss has been about, because there has been a lot of fuss, and extremely positive fuss at...
I was attracted to Bill Maher's Religulous the same way that any straight forward, intelligent person would be. However let it be said that if you have an ounce of faith in you, a faith for something you can't substantiate with proof, then you may want to turn away from...
Who wouldn't be excited by the prospect of what could possibility be the last performance of Clint Eastwood on screen, a performance that people are claiming harks back to his Dirty Harry days and, from many reports, is one of the best of his career. I certainly was. Yet the...
What I do like about cinema is the power it can have not only to entertain but also to educate and empower, and that is just what Milk achieved. When I read the blurb for the film when it was first announced it didn't connect with any memory of actual...
Frost/Nixon has a lot to build it up, not only is it a huge moment in American political history, but the film carries with it great responsibility. It has to live up to the huge success of the play which featured Frank Langella and the British Michael Sheen playing the...
Danny Boyle made a huge leap with this film Slumdog Millionaire, heading to India and Bollywood and leaving behind Hollywood and whatever you could possibly think to call the British film industry. However it's already clear that his Slumdog Millionaire film is becoming a bit of a hit with the...
The King of Kong sounds like a film that someone who isn't a videogames enthusiast wouldn't be interested in, however you would be very wrong and in serious danger of missing a superb documentary that has been fantastically edited. The film does manages to take this geeky idea and make...
I had seen The Visitor playing at the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year but I just couldn’t make it to the screening, and to be honest it didn’t sound the strongest of films. However it turned out to be one of those films that proves you shouldn’t judge a...
Taxi to the Darkside is a film which does what I thought Standard Operating Procedure (Filmstalker review) would do. It looks at some of the individual events of torture and abuse in Abu Ghraib and not only goes wider into the allegation of abuse, but also deeper than Standard Operating...
This is a short film which had me excited as soon as I saw the trailer which looked gorgeous. Now You See Me, Now You Don’t, or Most látszom, most nem látszom, comes from writer/director Attila Szász and tells a very simple story using some incredible visuals. This is one...
Everyone is talking about The Dark Knight, it's being touted as the best Batman film ever, it's breaking Box Office records and unbelievably is hitting the number one spot on IMDB, and Heath Ledger is being touted as being up for an Oscar, even before the public had seen the...
The Wave, or Die Welle, is a film that is based on the novel The Wave by Morton Rhue, aka Todd Strasser, which itself is a fictionalised account of the events that took place in a Californian high school in April 1967. A teacher there, Ron Jones, conducted an experiment...
Brian Cox drew me to this film and the fact that the write up by the EIFF sounded interesting, interesting but not exciting. Well how undersold that was, and what a great surprise I was to get. The first was that Stephen Susco wrote and produced the film, and for...
You know I wasn't going to go and see this film because I'd been put off by the trailer and pre-release marketing that was all making a big play of the fact that Penélope Cruz was going to be naked in it, and I was thinking so what? Is that...
Donkey Punch is British backed film that showcases some younger talent with a Hollywood beating style that is visible through the writing and the filming. A few flaws later on in the film do cause it to falter, but a strong script, good performances, and some reality and style see...
The blurb for Timecrimes had me interested from the beginning, I mean what film that mentions time travel wouldn't? The fact that it was a non-hollywood film as well was stacked in its favour. The film turned out to be more than I had hoped and had me thinking about...
Having read the Scott B. Smith novel (Filmstalker review) I was wondering how a Hollywood film could be made that conveyed the same suspense, terror and same pace, and yet still keep such a restricted view limiting itself to a few characters in one location. However my anticipation was high...
I'd already seen In the Shadow of the Moon on the big screen and absolutely adored it. A documentary that is filled with passion and great emotion as well as some stunning original photography which makes you think that they had high definition back then. The documentary interviews almost all...
I Am Legend surprised a lot of people when it came to the cinema, and on Blu-ray it surprises even more, not only does it look spectacular but there's also a feeling that there's more time to take in the film and the more subtle nuance's of the story. Having...
The short film Butcher's Hill was showing at Dead by Dawn 2008 and the Director was there to see our reaction, not just that but he revealed that it has already been picked up for a feature, something that filled the audience with hope for the film. We weren't disappointed...
I haven't seen the original Funny Games as yet, but this will make an interesting comparison for film aficionados around the world, much like the idea of seeing both Exorcist prequels. You see Michael Haneke is the director of both films, one made in Austria in 1997, and the other...
When I first saw the cover for Living in Oblivion I have to admit I was thinking that this wasn't going to be a pretty average film that happened to star some big names at the beginning of their careers. What struck me within minutes was how cleverly written and...
You know I wasn't going to see this film with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as from the outside it looked so sickly sweet. The advertising and marketing hadn't really appealed to me and the trailer made it seem more comedy and upbeat quirky modern life humour. However I...
I Am Legend has been out for a little while now and one of our regular readers, spidey1703, has already reviewed the IMAX version of the film for us all. Still, I was keen to see it myself, and when I did see it I was surprised that I liked...
I was expecting big things from Rendition and I wasn't that disappointed. After all it stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon and Alan Arkin, and is directed by Gavin Hood who brought us Totsi (Filmstalker review). How could that not work? To top it all, the story...
The Kingdom is a film that could be a political hot potato as it looks at a very real terrorist incident on Saudi Arabian soil against U.S. personnel and their families and the FBI pushing the Saudi officials to allow them into their country to investigate the attack and hunt...
Okay, how do I begin to describe this film? I had no idea what to expect from Chan-wook Park's latest film was a bit of a mystery to me, despite having seen the trailer and read about the film early on in it's development. Let me see if I can...
I was expecting the press screening for Stardust to be rather busy but then again it was first thing on a sunday morning and you can expect there to be small audiences in the morning, with those being there sporting hangovers and tales of a few hours sleep. However this...
This film was a bit of a surprise for me. I had thought it wouldn't be as good as it turned out, wouldn't pack the punch that it did both in story and performances, but it did. The film delivered a lot in its small locations and stands up as...
I was just about to start writing this review from my notes and I thought “when did I see xXx in the festival?” then I realised, this film is about a fifteen year old girl and her relationship with her parents, her friends, and her would-be lovers. Yet it's so...
When I was a boy I loved planes and the idea of flying fighters, I was also hugely entranced by space, and I'm sure that at one point I would have wanted to be an astronaut. However I was born forty years too late and born without the ingredient that...
Paris Je T'aime sounded a fascinating film, twenty one highly talented directors producing eighteen short films about love, relationships and of course Paris. To add to that there was a host of top rated acting talent lined up for the film. I was mistakenly under the impression that each short...
Ne le dis à personne (Tell No One) is a French film directed by Guillaume Canet who, together with Philippe Lefebvre, adapted the story from the novel by Harlan Coben. The story opens eight years previously, where a group of friends are enjoying a weekend in the country. Margot and...
This was a fascinating film made by an incredibly engaging and funny man, Álex de la Iglesia. He gave the audience a superb stand-up routine before and after the film as he talked about himself and the movie. The film borders on some ideas that would be more suited in...
Tales of exorcism are perhaps one of my favourite forms of horror because they carry that terrifying thought that they might just be real. No matter what you believe, when you watch scenes of an allegedly possessed person and hear what they are capable of it's terrifying, whether you believe...
There had indeed been much hype about the film beforehand. The trailers were looking stunning and the stills amazing. Style was at the fore of the posters and pictures and the trailers and clips we'd seen were suggesting much passion and posturing. It looked epic. Then came the news of...
You cannot fail to have noticed the press for The Last King of Scotland and the amount of nominations the film is picking up this year. I do think that Forest Whitaker is a clear leader for the Oscar for Best Actor. So I had to see this as soon...
There was a lot of hype about this film, not just from the numerous posters that Joe Carnahan has been leaking us from his site, but from the different trailers that we've seen. Those trailers were filled with action, stars, great lines, fast paced editing, and bags of style. The...
I think it's fair to say that most film lovers are sick fed up of remakes, revisualisations, sequels and prequels, and why? Well it's because they are poorly done, they're seen as a way to make quick money off of another successful film. When the projects are started they are...
This was, by far, the best documentary of the EIFF. Not only that but I believe it should have been a contender for best film of the festival. The film shows Al Gore as you've probably never heard or seen him before, certainly for non-US residents anyway. It films him...
Oh lord, I've just seen the future and the future is Air. This documentary is the best film of the Edinburgh International Film Festival so far and a clear contender to win the Filmstalker EIFF Hotdog award. Air Guitar Nation is exceptionally funny. It's very self depreciating but it's also...
I'd previously seen Kirby Dick's documentary Twist of Faith (review), and that had moved me more than just about any other film had. It is an excellent documentary, and a highly emotive one. So I was incredibly keen to see this film which had moved target onto a current hot...
This was really a preview for me of how the remake of The Eye originally by the Pang Brothers would look and feel, and if Them, or Ils if you prefer, is anything to go by then the remake is going to utterly bury the original. Ils is a lesson...
The Host is a film that had been talked about a lot during its production and the teasers and posters I'd seen to date had gotten me pretty interested. So when it was announced for the Edinburgh International Film Festival this year I had to go and see it. I...
I didn't actually want to see this film as it didn't catch my interest at all when I first went through the blurb from IMDB: The true story of Graeme Obree, the Champion cyclist who built his bicycle from old bits of washing machines who won his championship only to...
This is probably one of the hardest documentaries I've ever watched, it really does hit you like a punch in the face and almost from the outset. I can honestly say this film had me deep in thought, uneasy, laughing and crying, and that's what a movie should do. Unfortunately...
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