Picturenose

That’ll learn ‘em…

It would be a mistake to attempt to categorize Ole Bornedal’s Vikaren as ‘horror’. It’s certainly a fantasy film, and a very good one at that. I would venture that it is probably the first real family horror film. The kids have a handle on what’s going down from very early on, and the adults – none-too surprisingly - don’t believe them…

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Time, the old enemy…

‘All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper…Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel. Sapphire and Steel, have been assigned.’

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A remake to go ape over
Some films should be left alone. Cinematic history is littered with masterpieces whose reputations are unfairly tarnished by the clunkers repackaged for a later generation, remade with little or no regard for the original’s integrity, vision and soul.

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Magic circle

Don’t you just love movies that play games? Joseph L Mankiewicz’s Sleuth (1972) obviously springs to mind, as does the more recent Memento (2002), directed by the same wunderkind, Christopher Nolan, who here takes us on a playful but dark journey into the disappearances and deception of turn-of-the-20th century magicians.

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Still on the Rock…

Paul Stump returns with a trenchant analysis of Peter Weir’s elegaic, haunting classic.

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The chances are that if you’re reading this you (a) have a computer with an internet connection or (b) know someone who has. This is a good thing for me, or I’d be writing things to myself, which wouldn’t be as much fun. My rambling point is that this Internet thingy has become the way to promote new movies. I know, you’re thinking “Jesus - when did he wake up?” But I’m talking about the more subtle and more complex issue of viral marketing. This is the method of promotion being used to promote the new movie Cloverfield - the latest work by the producer of the hit television series Lost.

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Scary vampires, back from the dead

Marlow: “It’s taken us centuries to convince them that we don’t exist.”

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Golden shower

In keeping with this reviewer’s general apathy towards the zeitgeist (I haven’t read a single Harry Potter tome, either), I must confess to allowing the Philip Pullman/Golden Compass craze to have completely passed me by.

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Staying power

Marc Forster’s Vanilla Sky-esque vision of what dreams may come, Stay, is worth coming back to.

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