Latest releases

Charlie Wilson's War

Charlie Wilson is clearly a remarkable man. Long time Democrat Congressman for Texas and known as the "liberal from Lufkin" because of his support for the underdog, he was the man who instigated the US covert support for the Afghan freedom fighters in the eighties after the Russian invasion.  Played in Nichols' film by Tom Hanks, he emerges as a colourful and charismatic character.  A hedonist womaniser with a liking for Scotch and allegedly the odd spot of cocaine, his office is staffed entirely by beautiful girls, known predictably as the Angels.



Cloverfield

LOST genius J.J. Abrams is a master of the “tease”, as viewers of that show will testify, so for every glimpse of the film that was to become Cloverfield was released online, the anticipation grew greater. The fact that they retained the title is something of a testament to what they believed they were doing because it wouldn’t matter what it was called, the final product would be so mind-blowing that the desire to see it would negate any need to say what it was.

Eagle Vs Shark (DVD)

Eagle Vs Shark is very much in the vein of Napoleon Dynamite, with two social misfits – Lily (Horsley), the guitar-playing, hoola-hoop swinging, ‘Meaty Boy' burger bar waitress, and Jarrod, the bespectacled, video-game playing self-confessed nerd – getting it together after she gatecrashes his ‘come as your favourite animal' party. She is the shark of the title – he the eagle. Though 'it could have been a cobra' too.


Eastern Promises (Coming Soon to DVD)

Steven Knight, who wrote the screenplay for this, was also the writer of Dirty Pretty Things .   Like that earlier film, this gives us a window onto a largely unknown world right here in London.  In this case it's the world of the East European Mafia.  London 's new immigrant communities obviously hold a fascination for Knight, who appears to have done his research thoroughly, putting in fascinating details like the meaning of the tattoos that cover Nikolai's (Mortensen) body, all of which make for a very convincing picture of this London within London .


In the Valley of Elah

This is ostensibly a murder mystery, which at the same time is attempting to say something of substance about what war does to young men.  Hank (Jones) is a retired military veteran, who has imposed his sense of duty to his country onto his son Mike (Jonathan Tucker).  When Mike disappears from military camp on his first weekend back after serving in Iraq, Hank goes in search of him. 


Lust, Caution

Following hot on the high heels of Paul Verhoeven's Black Book – whose plot is so similar, it's hard not to compare the two – comes Ang Lee's tale of a young student forced into seducing a collaborationist during the Japanese occupation of China in the 1940s. Her job is to gather vital information for the rather naïve and clumsily managed resistance movement and eventually lead her prey into an ambush. But the course of true seduction does not always run true…

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

As the audience has come to expect from Tim Burton, this is a sumptuous feast of gothic melodrama, tinged with the director's trademark dark humour. The art design is breath-taking, giving us a London that is the nasty side of Dickensian, all dark colours that create an almost black-and-white look to the movie, nicely accentuated with red detail – usually of the viscous variety and lots of it. As for Sweeney Todd's shop, it is a small shadowy room which, devoid of all but the most sinister chair this side of ‘Mastermind', seems cavernous, with the mad barber a crazed animal waiting in his lair. Mrs Lovett's ovens, meanwhile, seem like hell itself.