Couples Retreat (2009)

Not Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Peter Billingsley

Writers: Jon Favreau, Dana Fox, Vince Vaughn

Cinematographer: Eric Edwards

Composer: A.R. Rahman

Cast: Vince Vaughn, Malin Akerman, Jason Bateman, Kristen Bell, Jon Favreau, Kristin Davis, Faizon Love, Kali Hawk, Jean Reno, Peter Serafinowicz

An intense, uptight married couple, considering divorce, convinces three other couples to accompany them on a retreat to an idyllic island, promising sun, sea, sand, and relaxation, where instead they are confronted with intense couples counselling and oppressive rules and regulations, forcing them to reluctantly examine their own relationships, in this well enough acted though seldom funny and hopelessly predictable comedy. Iain.Stott

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Grown Ups (2010)

Not Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Dennis Dugan

Writers: Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf

Cinematographer: Theo van de Sande

Composer: Rupert Gregson-Williams

Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Salma Hayek, Maria Bello, Maya Rudolph, Joyce Van Patten, Ebony Jo-Ann

When their championship winning junior high school basketball coach dies, five old friends and their families decide – as well as attending his funeral – to share a lake house in their old home town for the 4th of July weekend, reconnecting, bonding, confessing, regretting, and recapturing as they do so, in this occasionally mildly diverting though generally tiresome and decidedly undercooked comedy. Iain.Stott

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Blow Out (1981)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Brian De Palma

Cinematographer: Vilmos Zsigmond

Composer: Pino Donaggio

Cast: John Travolta, Nancy Allen, John Lithgow, Dennis Franz

A film soundman for trashy exploitation flicks, out in a remote spot one night recording new sounds for his latest project, manages to capture the fatal car crash of a presidential candidate on tape, as well as rescuing his comely young companion, and becomes convinced, as film footage also comes to light, that it was an assassination, not the tragic accident peddled by the official line, in De Palma’s stylish and greatly entertaining if occasionally rather silly (though often pleasingly so) thriller, which is also somewhat clumsily written in spots. Iain.Stott

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The Trip (2010)

Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Director: Michael Winterbottom

Writers: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon

Cinematographer: Ben Smithard

Cast: Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Claire Keelan, Marta Barrio, Margo Stilley, Rebecca Johnson

Edited down from the excellent mini-series of the same title for an international release, Winterbottom, Coogan, and Brydon’s warm, witty, and affecting concoction – a tale of friendship, one-upmanship, middle-age regrets, and fragile entertainers’ egos – loses a little in the process, shedding some of its laughs and a degree of its emotional power, bit it remains, never the less, hugely entertaining. Iain.Stott

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Our Relations (1936)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Harry Lachman

Writers: Jack Jevne, Charles Rogers, Felix Adler, Richard Connell, W.W. Jacobs

Cinematographer: Rudolph Maté

Composer: Leroy Shield

Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Alan Hale, Sidney Toler, Daphne Pollard, Betty Healy, James Finlayson, Iris Adrian, Lona Andre, Ralf Harolde, Noel Madison, Arthur Housman

Stan and Ollie, happily married pillars of the local community, find their reputations plummeting for no apparent reason, when, unbeknownst to them, their long-lost, no-good twin brothers, Alf and Bert, sail into town looking for a good time – albeit on a budget, in this atypical, intricately and tightly plotted Laurel and Hardy feature, a well crafted and consistently entertaining film. Iain.Stott

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Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010)

Cautiously Recommended

Finland/France/Norway/Sweden

Feature Film

Original Title: Rare Exports

Director: Jalmari Helander

Writers: Jalmari Helander, Petri Jokiranta, Sami Parkkinen, Juuso Helander

Cinematographer: Mika Orasmaa

Composers: Juri Seppä, Miska Seppä

Cast: Onni Tommila, Jorma Tommila, Tommi Korpela, Rauno Juvonen, Per Christian Ellefsen, Ilmari Järvenpää, Peeter Jakobi

When an American funded dig on the Russian side of the Korvatunturi Mountains unleashes an army of Santa’s elves onto the surrounding populace, kidnapping all the local children and stealing their hairdryers and other heat-producing electrical appliances, a small band of Finnish men find that they must stop them or else risk their nefarious leader – Mr. Claus – being thawed out and let loose on the world, in this mildly diverting but decidedly undercooked fantasy, which never quite delivers on the promise of its intriguing premise. Iain.Stott

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The Turning Gate (2002)

Essential Viewing

South Korea

Feature Film

Original Title: 생활의 발견

Writer/Director: Hong Sang-soo

Cinematographer: Choi Yeong-taek

Composer: Il Won

Cast: Kim Sang-kyung, Kim Hak-sun, Ye Ji-won, Chu Sang-mi

Featuring some exquisitely composed images and a number of affecting performances, Hong’s restrained and deliberate yet gently funny and hugely moving film depicts the misadventures of a struggling actor, following him as he takes a trip to see an old friend to help forget his woes – a trip which leads to the consumption of much alcohol, to much discussion and argument, and to a number of ill-advised, heart-breaking sexual encounters. Iain.Stott

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In the Cut (2003)

Recommended

USA/UK

Feature Film

Director: Jane Campion

Writers: Jane Campion, Susanna Moore, Stavros Kazantzidis

Cinematographer: Dion Beebe

Composer: Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson

Cast: Meg Ryan, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nick Damici, Kevin Bacon, Sharrieff Pugh

A writer, who splits her time between researching for her new book and teaching English, begins a sexual relationship with a homicide detective, who is investigating a murder in her neighbourhood, and continues to do so even when she begins to suspect that he might actually be the killer himself, in Campion’s much maligned but consummately crafted and decidedly well acted erotic thriller, which proves to be an atypical one by being both erotic and thrilling. Iain.Stott

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I Killed My Mother (2009)

Recommended

Canada

Feature Film

Original Title: J'ai tué ma mere

Writer/Director: Xavier Dolan

Cinematographer: Stéphanie Weber-Biron

Composer: Nicholas Savard-L'Herbier

Cast: Xavier Dolan, Anne Dorval, François Arnaud, Suzanne Clément, Patricia Tulasne, Niels Schneider

With its striking photography and unusual mise en scène, 19-year-old Dolan’s consummately crafted semi-autobiographical directorial debut proves itself to be an assured and stylish work of numerous delights, as it relates to us the story of a tumultuous (and very shouty) love/hate relationship that builds up between a hard working but short-tempered single mother and her even shorter-tempered, hormones-racing 16-year-old son. Iain.Stott

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Perrier's Bounty (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

Ireland/UK

Feature Film

Director: Ian Fitzgibbon

Writer: Mark O'Rowe

Cinematographer: Seamus Deasy

Composer: David Holmes

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Jodie Whittaker, Jim Broadbent, Brendan Gleeson, Michael McElhatton, Don Wycherley, Liam Cunningham, Brendan Coyle, Padraic Delaney, Conleth Hill, Gabriel Byrne

Having missed the deadline to repay the €1,000 that he owes to a vicious local gangster, Michael, chased down by two of his thugs, prepares to say goodbye to his legs, but his suicidal neighbour, about to shoot herself, instead comes to his rescue by turning the gun onto them – cue the eponymous reward for their capture – and so they set out on the run, accompanied by Michael’s sleep-deprived father (who may or may not be about to die), in Fitzgibbon’s well crafted and acted though rather familiar black comedy. Iain.Stott

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The Invisible Woman (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

Brazil

Feature Film

Original title: A Mulher Invisível

Director: Cláudio Torres

Writers: Cláudio Torres, Adriana Falcão, Maria Luísa Mendonça, Cláudio Paiva

Cinematographer: Ralph Strelow

Composers: Luca Raele, Maurício Tagliari

Cast: Selton Mello, Maria Manoella, Vladimir Brichta, Luana Piovani, Fernanda Torres

When his wife leaves him for a German millionaire, Pedro, a thirty-something Rio traffic operator, re-enters the dating pool, but after just a few weeks is ready to give up, until he meets the perfect woman, who (unfortunately for him) turns out to be a figment of his imagination – cue a great deal of air-snogging in the cinema, on the dance floor, and elsewhere – whilst his next door neighbour, who actually does exist and really likes him, may as well be invisible as, in the six years that she has lived next door to him, has never managed to turn his head, in Torres’s mildly entertaining but decidedly fluffy and perhaps a tad overlong romantic comedy. Iain.Stott

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Phenomena (1985)

Not Recommended

Italy

Feature Film

aka Creepers

Director: Dario Argento

Writers: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini

Cinematographer: Romano Albani

Composers: Goblin

Cast: Jennifer Connelly, Daria Nicolodi, Dalila Di Lazzaro, Patrick Bauchau, Donald Pleasence, Fiore Argento, Federica Mastroianni

The teenaged daughter of a famous American actor struggles to fit in at an elite Swiss boarding school, when it becomes known that she has a strange fondness for (and an even stranger kinship with) the local insect population; and, near enough friendless (barring her roommate who has mysteriously disappeared), she makes friends with a paralysed Scots etymologist, who – bafflingly – encourages her to track down a local serial killer, who has been killing teenaged girls, in Argento’s woodenly acted and ridiculously plotted if often quite stylish horror film, which has a deliriously silly yet ridiculously entertaining ending that can’t quite make up for the dross that precedes it. Iain.Stott

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Accidental Hero (1992)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Original Title: Hero

Director: Stephen Frears

Writers: David Webb Peoples, Alvin Sargent, Laura Ziskin

Cinematographer: Oliver Stapleton

Composer: George Fenton

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Geena Davis, Andy Garcia, Joan Cusack, James Madio, Chevy Chase, Kevin J. O'Connor

A cynical small-time crook, about to be sentenced for the receiving of stolen goods, reluctantly saves the lives of 54 people from an aeroplane that crashes right before his eyes, but – not wanting any attention (and having stolen the handbag of one of those that he saved) – he avoids taking the credit… that is until a one million dollar reward is offered by a television company for his bravery (and taken by someone else), in Frears’s well paced, amiably acted, and generally entertaining film, which is let down by a somewhat overblown score and a few misjudged Capraesque touches. Iain.Stott

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12:08 East of Bucharest (2006)

Recommended

Romania

Feature Film

Original Title: A fost sau n-a fost?

Writer/Director: Corneliu Porumboiu

Cinematographer: Marius Panduru

Composers: Rotaria

Cast: Mircea Andreescu, Teodor Corban, Ion Săpdaru

On the 16th anniversary of The Romanian Revolution of 1989, a small town television presenter (accompanied by two self-professed revolutionaries) asks the question, “did the revolution happen in our town, or did its residents only take to the streets after Ceaușescu’s titularly-timed abdication?” in Porumboiu’s unhurriedly paced, gently funny, and strangely affecting feature debut. Iain.Stott

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Win Win (2011)

Cautiously Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Tom McCarthy

Writers: Tom McCarthy, Joe Tiboni

Cinematographer: Oliver Bokelberg

Composer: Lyle Workman

Cast: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Alex Shaffer, Bobby Cannavale, Jeffrey Tambor, Burt Young, Melanie Lynskey, Margo Martindale, David Thompson

A financially struggling lawyer (and part-time high school wrestling coach) dishonestly takes on the guardianship of a client in the early stages of dementia in order to pocket the $1,500 that comes with the accompanying (largely shirked) responsibility, but it’s a plan that becomes complicated somewhat by the arrival of the elderly man’s teenaged runaway grandson, who happens to be a very talented wrestler, in McCarthy’s amiable and generally entertaining if rather predictable and somewhat undercooked film, which feels more like the pilot for a promising television series than a fully realised feature. Iain.Stott

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Last Night (1998)

Recommended

Canada/France

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Don McKellar

Cinematographer: Douglas Koch

Composers: Alexina Louie, Alex Pauk

Cast: Don McKellar, Sandra Oh, Callum Keith Rennie, Geneviève Bujold, David Cronenberg, Roberta Maxwell, Robin Gammell, Sarah Polley, Trent McMullen, Michael McMurtry

With his world already feeling like it had ended a few months earlier with the death of his wife, Patrick Wheeler wants nothing more than to sit alone and honour her memory as the actual end of the world approaches, but a stranded stranger (who, herself, wants nothing more than to get home to her husband) soon has him reluctantly changing his plans, whilst his family and friends take their own personal journeys towards oblivion, in McKellar’s affecting, nuanced, metaphor-laden feature directorial debut. Iain.Stott

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Adieu Philippine (1962)

Recommended

France/Italy

Feature Film

Director: Jacques Rozier

Writers: Michèle O'Glor, Jacques Rozier

Cinematographer: René Mathelin

Composers: Jacques Denjean, Paul Mattei, Maxime Saury

Cast: Jean-Claude Aimini, Stefania Sabatini, Yveline Céry, Daniel Descamps, Vittorio Caprioli, David Tonelli

About to be shipped off to fight in the Algerian War, Michel, a young television camera technician, meets two attractive young girls, whom he begins to pal around with, a friendship/flirtation that soon sees the three of them (though they're occasionally joined by a fourth) heading off to a sun-drenched Corsica, as they await the inevitable adieu, in Rozier’s ramblingly entertaining picaresque tale, which makes up with charm and verve what it lacks in polish and refinement. Iain.Stott

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The Martins (2001)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/USA

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Tony Grounds

Cinematographer: David Johnson

Composer: Richard Hartley

Cast: Lee Evans, Kathy Burke, Linda Bassett, Eric Byrne, Terri Dumont, Lennie James, Paddy Considine

When he fails to win the holiday of his dreams in a competition run by the local newspaper – the latest in a series of life’s disappointments – long-term unemployed Hatfield resident Robert, married with two children, snaps, imprisons the prize’s rightful(ish) recipients, and takes his family on the holiday anyway (a trip to the Isle of Man), all the while waving an unloaded pistol at anyone who annoys him or gets in his way, in Grounds’s sporadically entertaining if ultimately rather sentimental comedy-drama. Iain.Stott

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This Filthy Earth (2001)

Essential Viewing

UK

Feature Film

Director: Andrew Kötting

Writers: Andrew Kötting, Sean Lock, Émile Zola

Cinematographer: Nick Gordon Smith

Composer: David Burnand

Cast: Rebecca R. Palmer, Shane Attwooll, Demelza Randall, Xavier Tchili, Dudley Sutton, Ina Clough, Peter-Hugo Daly

Adapted (with the aid of comedian Sean Lock) from Émile Zola’s 1887 novel La Terre, Kötting’s formally audacious, intensely visceral, and blackly humorous misanthropic masterpiece brilliantly regales us with rural tales of sex, violence, superstition, and ignorance, filled with bodily fluids, guttural Yorkshire explosions, and a great deal of filthy earth. Iain.Stott

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Troll Hunter (2010)

Recommended

Norway

Feature Film

Original Title: Trolljegeren

Writer/Director: André Øvredal

Cinematographer: Hallvard Bræin

Cast: Otto Jespersen, Glenn Erland Tosterud, Johanna Mørck, Tomas Alf Larsen, Hans Morten Hansen

Three student film-makers, out in the Norwegian countryside investigating bear poaching, happen upon a world-weary hunter, the titular character, who (fed-up with his unglamorous [secret] lifestyle) introduces them to a world of trolls, government cover-ups, and grimy caravan parks, in Øvredal’s very well crafted if slightly undernourished (character-wise) and vaguely hackneyed (form-wise) though never less than thoroughly entertaining monster movie, which makes good use of the its locale's oft spectacular scenery. Iain.Stott

For a slightly longer piece, see 1000 Nights in the Dark.

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