1. Black
Swan | Rating: * * * * *
Natalie Portman – widely tipped for Oscar glory – delivers a startling
performance as a ballerina cracking under the pressure of her latest role.
Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is delirious hokum, high-class trash, the best
movie Ken Russell never made.
2. Barney's
Version | Rating: * * * *
If you don’t mind the lack of hype around it, this is a refreshingly
idiosyncratic drama, rambling and self-absorbed, but also smart and
literate. At times, it recalls those other vagrant treasures, Wonder Boys
and Sideways.
3. Blue Valentine | Rating: * * * * *
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are simply astounding in this deeply affecting study of a young couple’s doomed marriage. Blue Valentine is a terribly sad film, wounded and wounding in equal measure. Yet it’s also so acute, well realised and beautifully acted that it feels treasurable. The hurting it delivers is a gift, an act of kindness.
4. Tangled | Rating: * * *
What’s disarming about Tangled, underneath the 3D and the savvy sense of humour and the bedazzled girly-girl appeal, is how traditional it actually remains, a romance with songs, and none of them thankfully sung by animals.
5. The Machanic | Rating: * * *
Jason Statham inherits the role of a laconic assassin, played by Charles Bronson in the 1972 Michael Winner film of the same name. Simon West's best film since Con Air.
6. Buitiful | Rating: * * *
Javier Bardem, Oscar-nominated for the third time, hulks over Biutiful like a sorrowful bear. He’s Uxbal, a fixer for illegal immigrant labour in Barcelona, who finds out he has inoperable prostate cancer.
Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography, tremendous as usual, provides exactly the darkly illumined vision of working-class drudgery in Barcelona that the script struggles to make convincing.\
7. Conviction | Rating: * * *
Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell give dramatic performances in this true story of a US murder trial. Hilary Swank is Betty Anne Waters, a Massachusetts single mother, who put herself through law school to get her brother (Sam Rockwell, also great) off a shaky murder charge.
8. How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster? | Rating: * *
A handsome portrait of one of the most esteemed architects of the modern age: Norman Foster. It offers up for awe, if not critical inspection, many of the structures with which he has made his name over the last four decades.
9. How Do You Know | Rating: *
Reece Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, and Paul Rudd star ina dire rom-com. Can it be a good sign that the most compelling drama here is that of trying to decide whether it’s Lisa or Matty who has the nicest hair?
10. Hereafter | Rating: *
Clint Eastwood displays something close to Woody Allen’s knack for making London feel like an unreal toytown of shallow contrivance. This large-scale failure about the beyond has 'bottom drawer' and 'huge padlock' scrawled all over it.
According to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/5278191/Top-10-films-of-the-week.html
3. Blue Valentine | Rating: * * * * *
Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are simply astounding in this deeply affecting study of a young couple’s doomed marriage. Blue Valentine is a terribly sad film, wounded and wounding in equal measure. Yet it’s also so acute, well realised and beautifully acted that it feels treasurable. The hurting it delivers is a gift, an act of kindness.
4. Tangled | Rating: * * *
What’s disarming about Tangled, underneath the 3D and the savvy sense of humour and the bedazzled girly-girl appeal, is how traditional it actually remains, a romance with songs, and none of them thankfully sung by animals.
5. The Machanic | Rating: * * *
Jason Statham inherits the role of a laconic assassin, played by Charles Bronson in the 1972 Michael Winner film of the same name. Simon West's best film since Con Air.
6. Buitiful | Rating: * * *
Javier Bardem, Oscar-nominated for the third time, hulks over Biutiful like a sorrowful bear. He’s Uxbal, a fixer for illegal immigrant labour in Barcelona, who finds out he has inoperable prostate cancer.
Rodrigo Prieto’s cinematography, tremendous as usual, provides exactly the darkly illumined vision of working-class drudgery in Barcelona that the script struggles to make convincing.\
7. Conviction | Rating: * * *
Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell give dramatic performances in this true story of a US murder trial. Hilary Swank is Betty Anne Waters, a Massachusetts single mother, who put herself through law school to get her brother (Sam Rockwell, also great) off a shaky murder charge.
8. How Much Does Your Building Weigh, Mr Foster? | Rating: * *
A handsome portrait of one of the most esteemed architects of the modern age: Norman Foster. It offers up for awe, if not critical inspection, many of the structures with which he has made his name over the last four decades.
9. How Do You Know | Rating: *
Reece Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, and Paul Rudd star ina dire rom-com. Can it be a good sign that the most compelling drama here is that of trying to decide whether it’s Lisa or Matty who has the nicest hair?
10. Hereafter | Rating: *
Clint Eastwood displays something close to Woody Allen’s knack for making London feel like an unreal toytown of shallow contrivance. This large-scale failure about the beyond has 'bottom drawer' and 'huge padlock' scrawled all over it.
According to http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/5278191/Top-10-films-of-the-week.html
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