Film-Forward

Foreign

My Piece of the Pie

Written & Directed by Cédric Klapisch Produced by Bruno Levy Released by Sundance Selects English & French with English subtitles France. 109 min. Not rated With Karin Viard & Gilles Lellouche Cédric Klapisch’s boisterous films cram many characters and storylines into two (or so) hours. His last effort, Paris, was even more kaleidoscopic than usual, […]

London River

Directed by Rachid Bouchareb Produced by Bouchareb and Jean Bréhat Written by Bouchareb, Zoé Galeron & Olivier Lorelle Released by Cinema Libre Studio UK/France/Algeria. 90 min. Not Rated In English, French & Arabic with English subtitles With Brenda Blethyn, Sotigui Kouyaté, Sami Bouajila & Roschdy Zem The events of 7/7—the day terrorist attacks struck public […]

Outrage

Written & Directed by Takeshi Kitano Produced by Masayuki Mori & Takio Yoshida Released by Magnet Releasing Japanese with English subtitles Japan. 109 min. Rated R With Beat Takeshi, Kippei Shiina, Ryo Kase, Tomokazu Miura, Jun Kunimura, Renji Ishibashi & Tetta Sugimoto The bleakly funny Japanese gangster drama Outrage came out in its home country […]

Shame

Directed by Steve McQueen Produced by Iain Canning & Emile Sherman Written by Steve McQueen & Abi Morgan Released by Fox Searchlight UK. 99 min. Rated NC-17 With Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale & Nicole Beharie Earnestly somber, Shame arrives with a lot of baggage, namely an envelope-pushing amount of sex and nudity. (The […]

The Artist

Written & Directed by Michel Hazanavicius Produced by Thomas Langmann Released by the Weinstein Company France/USA. 100 min. Rated PG-13 With Jean Dujardin, Bérénice Bejo, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Malcolm McDowell, Missi Pyle, Beth Grant & John Goodman Studded with easy-to-spot film references, the black-and-white silent film The Artist is the type of film that […]

House of Pleasures

Written & Directed by Bertrand Bonello Produced by Bonello & Kristina Larsen Released by Sundance Selects French with English subtitles France. 125 min. Not rated With Hafsia Herzi, Céline Sallette, Jasmine Trinca, Adèle Haenel, Noémie Lvovsky, Alice Barnole & Iliana Zabeth Set in a brothel at the turn of the 20th century Paris, this methodical […]

The Other Israel Festival 2011

The just-concluded Other Israel Film Festival showcased notable films by and about the 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Arab (Christian, Muslim, Bedouin, and Druze) and other minorities, like migrant workers and immigrants.  (Some of the films from previous editions, and other festival activities, are also streaming online on demand at OtherIsraelOnDemand.org.)  Including U.S. […]

Tyrannosaur

Written & Directed by Paddy Considine Produced by Diarmid Scrimshaw Released by Strand Releasing U.K. 91 min. Not Rated With Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman & Eddie Marsan Joseph (Peter Mullan) lumbers into the opening scenes like the drunken, violent, angry lout of so many working-class films from Great Britain and Ireland. Here in Yorkshire, the […]

King of Devil’s Island

Directed by Marius Holst Produced by Karin Julsrud, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Ewa Puszczynska, Mathilde Dedye & Johannes Ahlund Written by Dennis Magnusson Released by Film Movement Norwegian with English subtitles Norway/France/Sweden/Poland. 115 min. Not rated With Stellan Skarsgard, Benjamin Helstad, Kirstoffer Joner, Trond Nilssen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen & Magnus Langlete There is no way that […]