August 2009
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Features
Gangsters special, part 3: Thunder roads
Since the 1960s, independent-minded US film-makers have been revisiting the Great Depression. Michael Atkinson explores the era's enduring appeal
Seeing red: restoring The Red Shoes
With a little help from its greatest fan Martin Scorsese, Powell and Pressburger's 1948 masterpiece The Red Shoes returns to the screen in full Technicolor glory. But what does a restoration project on this scale really involve, asks Ian Christie
Making the waves
After the maelstrom of Cannes, where his extraordinary new horror film Antichrist earned a Best Actress award for Charlotte Gainsbourg - and a chorus of critical outrage - Lars von Trier talks to Stig Björkman in the calm of his writer's cabin outside Copenhagen
Give 'em enough rope
Like Sacha Baron Cohen's previous comic creations Ali G and Borat, Brüno forces us to confront our prejudices. But is the formula wearing thin, asks Kim Newman
Gangsters special, part 1: Johnny too bad
With Public Enemies, Michael Mann reinvents the gangster legends of his home city Chicago as his own distinctive brand of alpha-male head-to-head. But it's the look as much as the psychology that seems to fascinate him, says Nick James
Gangsters special, part 2: Bad company
For a few thrilling years in 1930s America, the real-life crime wave transformed both the kind of films made in Hollywood and the kind of writers and actors making them - and the gangster movie was born. By Lee Server
Steady as she goes
A tender portrait of the relationship between a father and his daughter, 35 Shots of Rum reveals a gentler side to risk-taking director Claire Denis. By Catherine Wheatley. PLUS James Bell talks to Claire Denis about trains, Ozu and the perfect father
Selected reviews
Film of the month: Frozen River
A bleak tale of people-smuggling in the icy terrain of the US/Canadian border, Courtney Hunt's Oscar-nominated Frozen River exemplifies US indies' new concern with the lives of the poor, argues Ryan Gilbey
DVD review: In Treatment
In Treatment makes gripping drama out of the conversations of a therapist and his patients. Tim Lucas analyses its success
Film review: Moon
In Duncan Jones' sci-fi chamber drama, Sam Rockwell meets a multiplicity of himself on the dark side of the moon. Reviewed by Philip Kemp
Film review: Rumba
Francophone mime duo Abel and Gordon revive the art of silent physical screen comedy in their elegantly absurdist second feature. Reviewed by Kate Stables
Reviews in this issue:
- 35 Shots of Rum
- Adam
- Alice Neel
- Antichrist/Antychryst
- Bandslam
- Blood The Last Vampire
- Burma VJ Reporting from a Closed Country/Burma VJ Reporter i et lukket land
- Charles Dickens's England
- Coco before Chanel/Coco avant Chanel
- Dogging A Love Story
- Doghouse
- Echoes of Home/Heimatklänge
- Embodiment of Evil/Encarnaçao do demônio
- Fired Up!
- Film of the month: Frozen River
- Ichi
- DVD review: In Treatment
- Land of the Lost
- Louise Bourgeois The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine
- Mad, Sad & Bad
- Mesrine: Killer Instinct/L'instinct de mort/Nemico pubblico Nº1 L'istincto di morte
- Film review: Moon
- Objectified
- Public Enemies
- Revenge of the Fallen
- Film review: Rumba
- Skin
- The Hangover/Hangover
- The Heavy
- The Proposal
- The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
- The Yes Men Fix the World
- Three Miles North of Molkom…
- Transformers
- Year One