Film

By Anna Power @KitNapz Ida is a profoundly moving, visually mesmerizing coming of age tale, steeped in the shadowy secrecy of post-holocaust, Poland.   At eighteen, Ida, a novitiate, is about to take her vows but before doing so, her mother superior asks her to spend some time with her only relative, long-lost, estranged aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza). Ida dutifully, albeit reluctantly, complies only to discover the truth of her own Jewish identity – her real name is Ida Lebenstein,...

By Anna Power @KitNapz Pride is a funny, heartwarming, celebratory film about the real-life union between gay rights campaigners in London and striking Welsh miners. Set in the 80’s, depicting a time when the harsh policies of Margaret Thatcher’s government made insurgents out of the least likely, crossing societal divisions of class, race, gender and sexual identity, when politically the only side to be on was - any side but Thatcher’s side. Throw into the mix a stonking 80’s soundtrack...

By Anna Power @KitNapz In Two Days, One Night we are taken on a Homeric Odyssey of sorts. The Dardenne Brothers (Rosetta, The Kid with a Bike) are masters of subtlety, telling simple stories about ordinary working class people, which reveal more about us as human beings, than thought possible. Here we encounter Sandra (Marion Cotillard) a blue-collar worker, emerging from a severe bout of clinical depression, only to be told that her job is no longer viable, an unfathomable...

By Adam Clark @AdamClarkers Luc Besson’s Lucy treads the line between ambition and wilful eccentricity with mixed results. The set-up is fairly simple - Scarlett Johansson gets mixed up with a gang in Taiwan, where she becomes the unwilling drug mule for a new superdrug intended for the European party scene. However the drug has the potential to unlock ‘100% of the human cerebral capacity’ and transforms Johansson from naive victim to superhuman killer seeking both revenge and survival. The...

By John S. Locke I first saw Robin Williams on ‘Happy Days’, the classic American TV sitcom when I was a wide-eyed kid – he was electric! He was like a comedy Elvis! He was a comedic whirlwind – he changed comedy completely from that point onwards. This lightning rod, who zapped out of the big telly box and lit up our small 1970′s North Walian living room, was a laughter bolt which energised, enthralled and entertained like none before him. He literally...

By James Mackney @JimMackney Six years ago Marvel set out its stall in bringing a series of high budget films initiating the world into everything Avengers based. Despite spending nearly $1 billion in the process (on that felt exhaustive and fundamentally unnecessary aside from Iron Man 1&3, Thor and the final culminating film Avengers Assemble), that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop making Avengers films… This year it is the turn of the Guardians of the Galaxy comic book series to...

By Dan Sampson @dan_sampson The debate over what constitutes ‘art’ is as old as art itself. Quite why there is such a divergence of opinion is difficult to tell but personal taste, whether admitted or not, is probably the most significant factor in the discussion and is also why it continues: people have different standards, dispositions, and preferences, and these drive their reaction to (and judgment of) works of art. A better question than what art is could be what...

By Matthew Sanders, film critic This is not a music biopic like Ray or Amadeus. This is a fictionalised account of Jon Ronson's former life with Frank Sidebottom and his erstwhile band. Frank Sidebottom was a creative genius and a cult figure created by the late Chris Sievey. He was legendary in his own circle, and although his music never made it into public popular culture his large papier-mâché head certainly did. The story follows a struggling musician (Jon played...

By James Mackney, Film & TV critic Boyhood has the tonal feel of wandering across Hungerford bridge at 2am, you know you could walk across prettier bridges but you're here for the view and you can see everything from Hungerford bridge. There may have been more exciting coming of age films than Boyhood but very few achieve this level of sophistication. Richard Linklater's Boyhood is a sterling achievement and one that took me a while to take in. I will...