Film Reviews by Steve

Bleak, desperate and bizarre tale of the events surrounding the visit to a remote town of a rather dismal circus whose main attraction is a dead whale. Sort of a very black comedy; possibly an allegory on human misery. It's hard to say. But this beautiful looking film takes us to places only Bella Tarr knows.

Documentary (with extensive reenactments) about the extraordinary experiences of two mountaineers. At first I I was alienated by the prospect of watching two rather smug Brits talk about extreme leisure activities. Then I was transfixed by a journey into the heart of an amazing fight to survive.

Loach's first film with an American theme typically finds him engaged in social politics on the side of the oppressed: an illegal Mexican immigrant working as a cleaner in an LA office block fights for the right to unionise. Typical Ken: a funny, moving and righteous film about labour relations!

While a million people are slaughtered during the tribal wars of 1994, one man keeps Tutsis alive by offering shelter within the grounds of his luxury tourist hotel. Humbling and convincing depiction of an encroaching horror indicts us all for our indifference. Wonderful performance by Don Cheadle as this extraordinary man.

Deeply felt story about a boy entering his teens who finds a family among the skinheads of the No Future generation of the Thatcher era, offering him the identity he can't find at home from his single mother. An extremely authentic view of a time and a place which manages what only great films can do; it feels utterly real. A very British experience: quite bleak, but with a sense of humour all the same.

Philip K. Dick is rotoscoped (the film is digitally processed to give the effect of animation) in a paranoid, dystopian conspiracy thriller featuring Woody Harrelson, Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey as drug damaged drop outs! Only, Reeves is a cop, and every day he puts on a scramble suit to go to work! Can be watched sober.

Typically schematic (for Bier), forensic dissection of a couple who become bizarrely disengaged following the serious injury of the man in a car accident. Shot in the dogme style on digital cameras, this raw and intense film deservedly broke Bier and her star Mads Mikkelsen, outside their own country.

The best of the director's films with fragmented narratives demonstrating the interdependence of things. A gunshot in the North Africa has repercussions for ordinary people across the world. Inarritu shows us world where everyone tries to communicate, but no one is listening.

Entertaining and likable rerun of that American teen perennial: the freedom of the last summer before going to college and the pursuit of the elusive perfect girl. This one is set in a dilapidated and comically failing amusement park where Jesse Eisenberg wonders what it all means.

Heartbreaking expose of the abuse suffered by Irish girls at the hands of the Catholic church, deemed to have transgressed often in vague, uncertain ways. Geraldine McEwan is horrifying as the head of a convent run workhouse. An angry reminder of the exploitation often visited on the poor and the powerless.

About as mainstream as the great Hungarian director ever got. Tarr's characteristic slow moving camera, the repetitive industrial rattle and clang and absurd characterisations are all intact. But this is a thriller from a Simenon story. Like all Tarr's work, unique, beautiful, and utterly strange.

Moving character piece follows a teenage girl through foster care, and her efforts to understand and escape from her relationship with her imprisoned mother. Initial disquiet at the girl's brattish personality soon falls away under the sincerity and depth of Alison Lohman's wonderful central performance.

Polanski was a survivor of the Polish ghetto so brings personal experience to this true story about a Polish musician's degrading and desperate attempt to survive occupation; a story about how war diminishes the humanity of all. A little polished, but a powerful anti war message.

Explosive, angry expose about very young children taken from care homes in the UK and sent to families or religious orders in Australia. Loach's moral indignation is incredibly powerful and the horror of the cases pretty hard to bear. Emily Watson is extraordinary as the social worker trying to bring peace to the damaged children.

Intense drama of a marriage already falling apart, not coping with the stress of a parent's alzheimers, which is then devastated by the repercussions of an accusation of assault. A fascinating insight into another (Iranian) way of life, and of its women in particular. A film that manages to be sensitive and detailed, but eventually, explosive.