The Limits of Control
Jim Jarmusch | USA | 2009
116 min

Jim Jarmusch is an original. As critics and audiences celebrate Inglourious Basterds, Limits of Control is the year 2009’s genuine swansong to film culture; most subversively, it is a fuck-you to blockbuster cinema and quirky American indies from a maverick independent filmmaker in complete command of his craft and technique. Limits of Control seeks to study the nature of existence through the eyes of a hero (that rarely speaks), but the film is not taxed with ponderous philosophizing. Although Jarmusch has always been interested in big ideas — ideas about love, sex, death, reality; it is his idiosyncratic approach to these themes that protects and improves him as a innovator of cool and the new in cinema. continue reading »»

Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino | USA | 2009
153 min

This film should not be taken seriously. How could it be taken seriously when its director is Quentin Tarantino whose reputation as a post-modern filmmaker or ‘film DJ’ is now fully entrenched in the public consciousness? Inglourious Basterds is the sixth film from this American auteur and it is polarizing: some think it is his best film after Pulp Fiction, while others declare it to be his worst — the bestowing of such labels is normal routine when discussing Tarantino who, undoubtedly, relishes fervent debate in his name. And to define this filmmaker’s movies as self-reflexive and indulgent would also be missing the point because it is Tarantino’s intention to be self-reflexive and indulgent. He loves cinema but clearly loves the attention he gets even more. (See? After six sentences we have yet to talk about the movie itself — QT, you’re a fox, yo!) continue reading »»

Drag Me to Hell
Sam Raimi | USA | 2009
99 min

Drag Me to Hell, the latest Sam Raimi offering, is a victorious return to form for a director who has been scaring cinemagoers for nearly three decades. The film opens with an intense prologue, set in the 60’s, then quickly jumps into the present where our protagonist, Christine Brown, (played to perfection by Alison Lohman), drives her car to work while listening to a dialect training tape. Those poor farm girls, the lengths to which they go to break free of their roots. It didn’t start with Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs and it sure won’t end with Christine. No matter how good they are at what they do or how hard working they might be, there will always be someone to pick on their accents or make them feel inferior, whether it’s Hannibal Lecter, or their boyfriend’s snobby mother. continue reading »»

This is England
Shane Meadows | UK | 2007
101 min

Yet another British movie dealing with young, British people, and making English people seem like the sort of people whom I don’t want to have any contacts with. I had this same feeling with two movies about English football hooligans and no amount of male bonding and close friendships portrayed in their groups will change that. continue reading »»

The Mutant Chronicles
Simon Hunter | USA | 2008
111 min

War and sci-fi movies are generally studio products while independent movies tend to be smaller personal dramas. So when you have an independent movie that deals with a global war, alien invasion and retro science-fiction, it can be an oddity — but also one that stands to be examined. The Mutant Chronicles is such an oddity: it  takes a bleak past and throws it into a grim dystopian future. It’s part orthodox, part crazy and part artsy; but most importantly, very independent. continue reading »»

Timecrimes (Los Cronocrímenes)
Nacho Vigalondo | Spain | 2008
88 min

The dangers, paradoxes and complication of time travel are deftly explored in this numbing, engaging, thrilling and occasionally creepy low-budget film from Spain. Timecrimes is an elaboration of the themes first made apparent in the independent film Primer, but both films have different aims. Primer was generally and genuinely confounding, telling a more intimate story blending the thrill of a discovery with the confusion of the effects of that discovery. Timecrimes has a more conventional purpose — to provide heart-pounding suspense and entertainment, and it does both with great aplomb. continue reading »»

Who Can Kill a Child? (Quién Puede Matar A Un Niño?)
Narciso Ibáñez Serrador | Spain | 1976
107 min

A couple goes to a small island in Spain for vacation. They don’t want to go to a location full of tourists, so they choose a small island with only one hotel and barely any foreigners. The woman is pregnant and the man has an ugly 70s mustache. Once they get there, the island seems eerily quiet — the restaurant is empty, the supermarket is empty, and the hotel reception is empty too. They do see few children playing about but no adults. Hmm.  The first real shock comes when they finally see an old man except being beaten to death with a cane by a small child. Hmm. Something is wrong here. continue reading »»