The Kids Are All Right (2010)

Recommended

USA/France

Feature Film

Director: Lisa Cholodenko

Writers: Stuart Blumberg, Lisa Cholodenko

Cinematographer: Igor Jadue-Lillo

Composers: Carter Burwell, Nathan Larson, Craig Wedren

Cast: Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson, Yaya DaCosta, Kunal Sharma, Eddie Hassell, Zosia Mamet

In the summer before she is due to start at university, Joni, along with her 15-year-old brother, Laser, the children of a pair of bourgeois lesbians, seek out their sperm donor father, Paul, an earthy restaurateur, forming a relationship that will lead to numerous ups and downs, in Cholodenko’s warm, witty, and thoroughly compelling family drama. Iain.Stott

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Eloge de l'Amour (2001)

Recommended

France/Germany/Switzerland

Feature Film

Original Title: Éloge de l'amour

Writer/Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Cinematographers: Julien Hirsch, Christophe Pollock

Cast: Bruno Putzulu, Cecile Camp, Jean Davy, Françoise Verny, Audrey Klebaner, Jérémie Lippmann, Claude Baignières, Rémo Forlani, Mark Hunter

Perhaps his most affecting film, Godard’s Eloge de l'Amour, a vaguely esoteric and contentious exploration of love, history, and globalisation, is presented in two parts: the first, sumptuously shot in black and white, concerns a young Parisian’s attempts to understand what it means to be an adult through a project he is preparing; the second, set two years earlier and filmed with strikingly unconventional colour photography, details a Hollywood company’s purchasing of an elderly couple’s wartime resistance memories. Iain.Stott

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Pat and Margaret (1994)

Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: Screen One (1989-1994)

Director: Gavin Millar

Writer: Victoria Wood

Cinematographer: John Daly

Composer: Colin Towns

Cast: Victoria Wood, Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, Thora Hird, Don Henderson, Deborah Grant, Shirley Stelfox

Two sisters – one the biggest soap star on American television, and the other a motorway services restaurant worker – are reunited (thanks to a live television programme) after 27 years apart, a turn of events more welcomed by the latter than the former, who is not so keen on the idea of having her closets searched for skeletons, in Victoria Wood’s laugh-out-loud funny culture clash comedy, which features a number of excellent comic performances, though its various plot strands are, perhaps, resolved a little too tidily. Iain.Stott

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Ponyo (2008)

Cautiously Recommended

Japan

Animated Feature Film

Original Title: 崖の上のポニョ

Writer/Director: Miyazaki Hayao

Cinematographer: Okui Atsushi

Composer: Hisaishi Jō

Cast: Noah Cyrus, Frankie Jonas, Tina Fey, Liam Neeson, Cate Blanchett, Matt Damon, Cloris Leachman, Lily Tomlin, Betty White

In Miyazaki’s imaginative, good natured animated film, a five-year-old boy, whose father is always away at sea and whose mother is more than a tad batty, falls in love with a fish-girl hybrid who longs to be human; but when she gets her wish, the natural order is pushed out of balance, and the world’s oceans begin to rise, threatening to engulf humanity. Iain.Stott

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Three Times (2005)

Recommended

Taiwan/France

Feature Film

Original Title: 最好的時光

Director: Hou Hsiao-hsien

Writers: Chu T'ien-wen, Hou Hsiao-hsien

Cinematographer: Mark Lee Ping Bin

Cast: Shu Qi, Chang Chen, Lee Pei-Hsuan

Hou’s ravishingly photographed and strongly acted film relates three love stories featuring the same protagonists from three different years: the first, set in 1966 against a backdrop of smoky snooker halls, is a delightfully gentle and romantic boy-meets-girl tale; the second, set against the Wuchang Uprising of 1911, depicts a sort-of-romance between a courtesan and a philanthropic client; and the final part, set in present day Taipei, portrays a torrid affair between a photographer and a singer. Iain.Stott

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The Circle (2000)

Highly Recommended

Iran/Italy/Switzerland

Feature Film

Original Title: دایره

Director: Jafar Panahi

Writers: Kambuzia Partovi, Jafar Panahi

Cinematographer: Bahram Badakshani

Cast: Nargess Mamizadeh, Maryam Parvin Almani, Mojgan Faramarzi, Elham Saboktakin, Monir Arab, Maedeh Tahmasebi, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy

Informative and anger-inducing without ever feeling didactic or polemical, Panahi’s heart-breaking film explores the plight of a number of repressed young women in Tehran, following a series of recently released ex-cons – abandoned by their families, and having no real legal rights – as they desperately and vainly attempt to find a place in the world. Iain.Stott

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Corpse Bride (2005)

Recommended

USA

Animated Feature Film

Directors: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson

Writers: John August, Pamela Pettler, Caroline Thompson, Tim Burton, Carlos Grangel

Cinematographer: Pete Kozachik

Composer: Danny Elfman

Cast: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant

Whilst rehearsing his marriage vows in an overgrown cemetery, Victor, the son of a nouveau riche couple who is to be married to the daughter of a nearly bankrupt upper class family, finds himself inadvertently wedded to a corpse, putting the future happiness of just about everyone in doubt, in this charming, gently funny stop motion musical. Iain.Stott

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