Film Reviews by Steve

All horror films ask you the same question. Is it right that I should be watching people reenact suffering and fear for my own entertainment? Good horror films leaven this guilt with intelligence, imagination and sensitivity. This piece of trash just offered torture for it's own sake, just to push the experience of screen brutality that little bit further. With no reward. Just the sensation of humanity bumping along the bottom of the extremes of possible depravity.

Time travel film for computer engineers, surely proves that not everything that notionally make sense in a flow diagram is a suitable subject for a cinema release, and really, a multiverse what-if film too far. The talented Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Bruce Willis, chase versions of themselves through the future. There was a memorable scene in a field of corn that made me wish I was watching North by Northwest.

Bleeding obvious culture shock comedy in which Simon Pegg plays a tough city cop (see, it's already not working) sent to a rural village in order to stop annoying everyone, and to be teamed up with slowpoke yokel Nick Frost. What follows is at the level of obviousness suggestive of late period French and Saunders, with a slow motion gunfight a key nadir. Two bloody hours long!

Or the death of feminism. Playmate gets kicked out of Hefner's mansion for being too old. She moves into a University sorority house occupied only by plain looking girls and teaches them how to be babes. A Pygmalion for the end of civilisation. It seems a little harsh to be cruel to a film that Anna Faris dieted so hard for, but really, her fab waistline is this film's only saving grace.

In 1889, Freidrich Nietzsche witnessed (and protested against) a man flogging his horse, and then went mad... This film supposes what happened to the horse. The man continues to abuse him, but we grow to see that the whole life of this poor rural farmer is a kind of abuse. This film is the final distillation of Tarr's unique vision. It is made of thirty, slow, b&w tracking shots, often of banal incidents. There is little dialogue. The audio is filled with repetitive sounds (and no music). It is meticulously crafted (Tarr interviewed hundreds of horses from all over Europe to find his star) and weirdly beautiful.

It's difficult to say what all this means... Tarr seems to be finding and describing the unexpected weight of life. It is an extreme experience. On completing this film, Tarr retired, believing he had nothing left for us.

An extremely potent, emotional musical about the relationship between an Irish busker and a Czech immigrant (real life musicians, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), set in Dublin. It's a love story; but they are in love with other people in other countries. The film details their loneliness, and the solace their brief encounter might bring. The two stars truly create a chemistry often talked about but rarely seen. It helps to like the music: if so, the scene when Marketa sings If You Want Me to her absent husband, walking back from the shops is heart-rending.

There is a wonderful simplicity about this film, which works because the director has a lovely eye for detail, creating an intimacy with his digital camera. Once evokes that special relationship that exists between musicians, and the different language they share, and it allows us to eavesdrop on the magic that they may find together in the studio. It's a film that couples the enchantment often found in musicals, with a realistic recognition of familiar sorrow.

The middle part of the director's excellent trilogy about the adjustments that take place in the key stages of life. This one catches Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, both treasurable) ten years after Before Sunrise. The film captures elegantly and wisely the thirtysomething condition: when enough experience has accrued to feel meaningful regret; of having to make definitive decisions, coupled with a last chance to review the decisions already made; but time enough to change. Still young, but when time first comes to check your pulse and take your temperature.

Linklater sets their conversation against the beauty of Celine's home city of Paris (reminiscent of Jacques Rivette's Paris Nous Appartient). The film is eighty minutes of dialogue, but there are no lulls. Just a developing euphoria with the joy that love and providence can bring. A conversation that leads us to a conclusion of overwhelming intent... and a tantalising cliffhanger.

Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung play Brief Encouner in this heartbreaking film of a thwarted love affair in 1962 Hong Kong, from which they never recover. Chris Doyle's photography of the city by night; the beautiful music; and the stars, the Bogart and Bergman of our time; and the ending, which is making me sob right now, are overwhelming.

A classic that changed the way films look. A hyper-kinetic, friction free ride through three decades of gang conflict in a Rio slum. If only those who it influenced could make a film half as authentic, creative and intelligent as this. Its plot actually evokes Manhattan Melodrama (1934) which feels right; this is a classic crime film, for the ages.

This has the look of millennial Asian horror (from the director of Ring), but it also offers a huge emotional impact. It is a clever visual allegory of a dead child's supernatural plea for her grave to be found. A brilliant, unsettling ghost story which mirrors back our own existential fears; which is what great horror always does.

True story following the desperate measures taken to survive by a climber, trapped under a rock in a crevice for five days. Flashback, hallucination and visceral recreation of his ordeal takes us through the 127 hours; his release is a vicarious spiritual exultation (partly thanks to Sigur Ros). James Franco's solo rendition is superb.

Long, leisurely, bucolic tale from a Lawrence short story (not the novel), with a standout performance by Marina Hinds. The photography is a joy, but this is not mere heritage cinema. The film is heavy with brilliantly evoked detail of the environment, the human heart, and the emancipation of the Edwardian lady.

High Plains Drifter set in the Peak District, with Paddy Considine (who co wrote with Meadows) seeking those responsible for the death of his brother. Not just a suspenseful revenge drama, but Meadows again creates a real environment, whether the enervating poverty of his small town, or the feeble lives of his criminal gang.

Brain exhausting fantasy featuring the thoughts of a man dying in a road accident, representing his last eight minutes of brain activity after the body dies. In this rotoscoped world, he dreams of, or recalls, visits to his friends to discuss philosophy, conspiracy and the universe. A hundred minutes of dense, difficult dialogue; but fascinating.

An ambitious film made over twelve years, featuring Ellar Coltrane, who grows up before our eyes from infant school to university. The cast (featuring Linklater regular Ethan Hawke, who is excellent) is on hand for the whole journey. No gimmick this, but a unique, detailed and poignant portrayal of childhood, its joys and its threats.