1. Animal Kingdom |
There’s enough in Animal Kingdom, David Michôd’s febrile tale of a Melbourne crime family, for a whole miniseries’ worth of sweat and apprehension. He packs a lot in – it’s a writing-directing debut with a thousand ideas and no intention of saving them for later.
The financial crisis is a subject that’s been waiting for the right filmmaker to come along and nail it. That person is Charles Ferguson, the veteran documentarist whose Iraq occupation film No End in Sight (2007) was, like his new one, deservedly Oscar-nominated. Inside Job tackles the mess head-on with a kind of bitter pragmatism, reconstructing the system that failed and circling its weak spots.
3. Howl |
Howl is the American version of The King’s Speech. It’s about a man, haunted by demons, sometimes afraid for his mental health, who’s struggling to find his voice and delivers a paean to freedom: his 1955 poem Howl. But this ode to freedom isn’t stiff and stammering. It’s a jazz-drenched, swaggering, ecstatic incantation that’s also a valentine to social outsiders.
4. Wasteland |
Lucy Walker’s Oscar-nominated documentary profiles Vik Muniz, the Brazilian artist and photographer who uses everyday items as raw materials: his latest project centres on the Jardin Gramacho, a Rio refuse dump so vast it has its own community of foragers and gleaners, sorting the recyclable wheat from the festering chaff.
5. West is West |
Teenager Sajid swears, he steals, he becomes a tearaway. The only solution, according to his dad, is to send him home to Pakistan for a dose of decent values. West is West is full of delights: Peter Robertson’s airy cinematography is casually gorgeous, the Hindi film songs on the soundtrack are delightful, and the acting consistently top-notch.
6. True Grit |
Gruff, growling Jeff Bridges is Rooster Cogburn – the role that marked the climax of John Wayne’s career – in a Coen brothers reworking.
If Justin Bieber's 3D hand coming out of the screen towards you doesn't draw you in, the young star's fascinating story just might.
8. I Am Number Four |
An action-packed thriller about an extraordinary young man forced to go on the run.
9. Drive Angry 3D |
Nicolas Cage plays a man escaped from hell, seeking revenge for the killers of his wife and kidnapped daughter.
10. No Strings Attached |
No Strings Attached is nominally a raunchy romantic comedy, but Natalie Portman betrays little indication of enjoying herself. Though Ivan Reitman directed this with butterfingers, the screenplay, by Elizabeth Meriweather, has a chatty, girly sensibility you want to indulge.
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