Numb

8:41am Thursday 26th June 2008

There isn't much time for television when you spend up to eight hours a day watching films. Consequently, this critic has missed out on many of the programmes that have provided the great watercooler moments of the last decade. But, of late, I have been catching up on the likes of The Simpsons, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, and have rather enjoyed watching them without the tabloid hype that surrounded their original transmission. Maybe one of these days, I'll get round to The Sopranos, The West Wing and Frasier, too.

Belated touring tribute to David Lean

10:24am Thursday 5th June 2008

Although the BFI has missed David Lean's actual centenary by two months, its Southbank venue is hosting the first in a two-part survey of his remarkable career. One of the forgotten films of Lean's early period, The Passionate Friends (1949) is being given an extended run and will form part of a touring programme that, hopefully, may fetch up at the Phoenix.

	Gone Baby Gone and Superhero Movie
	10:21am Thu 5 Jun 08
	Art reflects real life: sometimes with affection, sometimes with brutal honesty that sends a chill down the spine. Gone Baby Gone, a hard-hitting adaptation of the crime thriller by Dennis Lehane about the abduction of a four-year-old girl, was scheduled for release in December last year, only to be postponed because of its similarities to the Madeleine McCann case.

	Terror's Advocate, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? and RFK Must Die,
	2:57pm Wed 14 May 08
	Jacques Vergés is an enigma shrouded by mystery inside a conspiracy. An anti-colonialist since his childhood, Vergés was a student friend of Pol Pot, the future dictator of Cambodia. He made his name defending Algerian heroine (and future wife) Djamila Bouhired and earned instant notoriety for agreeing to represent the Nazi Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie. Then, having disappeared for eight years that have still to be satisfactorily accounted for, he returned to take on such insalubrious clients as Carlos the Jackal, whose wife, Magdalena Kopp, became a close personal friend.

La Antena, XXY, Caramel and Heartbeat Detector

2:54pm Wednesday 14th May 2008

The continuing strength of New Argentine Cinema is demonstrated by two films on release this week. Dazzlingly inventive throughout, Esteban Sapir's La Antena is a noirish fantasy set in the Year XX in the City Without a Voice, whose population has been struck dumb by the TV broadcasts of the sinisterly omnipresent Alejandro Urdapilleta.

	Speed Racer
	3:01pm Wed 7 May 08
	Go, Speed Racer, Go!" Based on the Japanese animated series, Speed Racer signals the return of Andy and Larry Wachowski, the publicity-shy brothers who pioneered 'bullet time' in The Matrix trilogy.

	Honeydripper, Un Secret and I Served the King of England
	2:58pm Wed 7 May 08
	Screen history is pocked with African-American musicals showcasing stars who were rarely allowed to exhibit their talents in mainstream pictures. Indeed, on the rare occasions when the likes of Lena Horne, Bill Bojangles' Robinson or the Nicholas Brothers were accorded guest slots in prestigious studio pictures, their numbers were invariably cut from prints destined for the Deep South for fear of offending supremacist audiences.

The Iron Man

5:37pm Wednesday 30th April 2008

The tug-of-war between altruism and materialism is at the heart of Iron Man, Jon Favreau's marvellous nuts and bolts realisation of the red and gold armoured Marvel Comics superhero, writes Damon Smith. Following the lead of the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises, Favreau devotes the majority of the opening hour to the characters. He fleshes out their personalities, insecurities and the underlying tensions (attraction, jealousy, irritation) which light the fuse on an action-oriented second half, awash with spectacular visual effects.

	The Oxford Murders
	5:33pm Wed 30 Apr 08
	John Hurt, the star of The Oxford Murders, recalled at its premiere in the city last week that he had last filmed here nearly 30 years ago on Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. The vast sums lavished on this legendarily over-budget movie contrast sharply with the parsimony evidently practised over the new and rather disappointing film from Spanish director Álex de la Iglesia. Cimino spent weeks transforming Mansfield College into 1870s Harvard - thousands of leaves were stuck on trees to give the appearance of high summer - for a scene that lasted two minutes; de la Inglesia spent less than a week in Oxford (and infinitely tinier sums) on the making of a whole film.

Joy Division and Tovarisch I Am Not Dead

5:30pm Wednesday 30th April 2008

The Manchester music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s has already been explored in Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People and Anton Corbijn's Control. But, for all the knowing irony of the former's profile of Factory Records boss Anthony Wilson and the grim melodrama of the latter's study of troubled singer Ian Curtis, the feeling lingered that the full story had yet to be told. However, director Grant Gee and screenwriter Jon Savage have gone a long way to putting the record straight in the documentary, Joy Division.

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