Film Review: I Am Belfast

★★★★☆

The city as a symphony of long-forgotten memories, Mark Cousins' I Am Belfast is a refreshingly hopeful depiction of a place habitually represented in cinema as a battleground of sectarian violence. In Cousins' latest essay film, Helena Bereen plays Belfast, the city personified as a 100,000 year-old woman; a voice at once intimate and removed. Her role is to tell the story of Belfast. "Not the whole story," she remarks "but bits, like a movie". "I like movies," replies Cousins with childlike glee. Switching back and forth between past and the present, I Am Belfast paints a psychogeographical portrait of the Northern Irish capital: a city once renowned for shipbuilding and linen; now more commonly known for the Troubles.

Film Review: The Huntsman: Winter's War

★★☆☆☆

Four years on from Rupert Sanders' critically derided yet financially lucrative Snow White and The Huntsman we have the delayed, inevitable follow-up: The Huntsman: Winter's War. Chris Hemsworth is back as the axe-wielding hero in a loose retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen. In many ways this is an adult Frozen with Gothic sensibilities by way of The Lord Of The Rings, making for a derivative pastiche of the past two decades' cinematic fantasy offerings. Replacing Sanders in the director's chair this time around is former visual effects artist Cedric Nicolas-Troyan.

Film Review: The Last Man on the Moon

★★★☆☆

Not too many men can sit by a campfire at night, look up at the moon and know that they once bounded across its chalky grey surface. Gene Cernan is one of only twelve lucky souls to have done so, leaving the final human footprints of the Apollo missions in its lunar dust. The Last Man on the Moon shines a light on a charismatic, courageous – some might say foolhardy – thrill seeker and spaceman whose contribution to exploring the great yonder is on a par with any of his pioneering band of brothers, including a famous colleague who once took a giant leap for mankind. Director Mark Craig benefits from an engaging, easy-going subject, whose snow white hair and advanced years cannot disguise an infectious vigour and enthusiasm which would be the envy of many half his age. A documentary biopic that shares nostalgia for a bygone era of discovery and a reverence for remarkable feats of human engineering and endurance, it will have you gazing skyward with wonderment and exhilaration.

Film Review: Hardcore Henry

★★☆☆☆

If there's one thing that can be said in favour of Russian director Ilya Naishuller's ultra-violent Hardcore Henry, it's that you're unlikely to see anything else like it, which deserves to be celebrated in and of itself. On the downside, its central gimmick does wear thin - and begin to grate on the eyes - by the end of what is in reality a sprightly runtime. Run being the operative word as it hurtles at 100 miles per hour from its opening action beat to its (literally) adrenaline-fuelled finale, leaving myriad bullet-holes and severed limbs along the way. The title sequence gives a fair impression of what's to come with a pounding soundtrack to slow-motion close-ups of knives penetrating throats and guns smoking.

Film Review: Dheepan

★★★★☆

Jacques Audiard is a strict adherent to the notion of quality over quantity. A career now spanning more than two decades customarily sees "the French Scorsese" spend three to four years in the development of a project. His seventh feature, Dheepan, does not bristle and hum with the same kind of violent magnetism as A Prophet or Rust and Bone but retains their spellbinding lyricism. This is a more subdued, intimate picture, detailing the every day lives of three Sri Lankan refugees who exchange their war-torn homeland for the battleground of a French urban jungle. Though the director makes no ostensible claims of social commentary, this release into the current European climate makes for a timely and pertinent study.

Film Review: Couple in a Hole

★★★☆☆

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise. Living a survivalist existence to rival any of Bear Grylls exploits deep in the Pyrenean wilderness are John (Paul Higgins) and Karen (Kate Dickie). Not the post-apocalyptic tale that one might expect from such an opening premise, Belgian director Tom Geens' sophomore film, Couple in a Hole, features a Scottish man and wife who have purposefully regressed to feral subsistence. The titular void represents both the physical hovel which they have chosen to inhabit and the figurative state of helplessness and desperation felt after a great loss. Deliberately paced, minimalist in its structure and plot, Couple in a Hole evokes a gripping and stridently unconventional depiction of grief.

Film Review: Boulevard

★★☆☆☆

The majority of headlines and reviews on Boulevard – this one included – will preface any thoughts on Dito Montiel's latest offering with the simple fact that it is Robin Williams' last appearance onscreen. Considering the final performance of a cinematic great brings with it a tendency for nostalgia and, occasionally, undue praise, so while remaining compassionate it's important to be as dispassionate as possible. With the best will in the world it must be said that Boulevard is a less than worthy denouement to a fine career.

DVD Review: Three Brothers

★★★★☆

The Years of Lead was a period ranging from the late 1960s to the early 80s in which Italy existed in a state of civil unrest and suffered a surge in terrorism from both left and right-wing groups. This social turmoil provided fertile ground for filmmakers such as Francesco Rosi, who were willing to challenge the world around them with their art. He once explained that he was not making a study of the characters in his films, but of the society they inhabited. This position had perhaps shifted slightly by 1981's Three Brothers, but it gives interesting context when examining this beautifully shot film of sublime grace, underwritten by an exploration of the tumultuous social landscape.

DVD Review: Sunset Song

★★★★★

Terence Davies is one of our greatest cinematic poets, yet he has very often struggled bringing projects to the screen. As many directors are well aware, critical acclaim and gushing reviews on release day are simply not enough. Other factors come into play. The business of cinema is neither logical nor sound. It's something close to unbridled joy, then, that Davies has managed to deliver three pictures in eight years and has already premiered his new production, A Quiet Passion, at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

DVD Review: Culloden, The War Game

★★★★★

Peter Watkins didn't enjoy an especially long career at the BBC. The furore surrounding his second documentary saw him not only resign, but flee the UK into self-imposed exile. The project that sparked the controversy was 1965's The War Game, a harrowing imagining of a potential Soviet nuclear attack on Kent. The UK government had concerns over its damning portrayal of the country's nuclear preparedness and put pressure on the BBC to bury it upon its completion. Despite a theatrical release that resulted in it winning the Best Documentary prize at the 1967 Academy Awards it wasn't aired in Britain until 1985, and now receives a much appreciated BFI Blu-ray release alongside Watkins' other BBC offering.

Film Review: Victoria

★★★★★

The one-shot feature has yet to work its way into the cinematic landscape in the same ubiquitous way that the found footage conceit once did. But even if it grows into a popular storytelling tool, it's doubtful we'll see as stunning an achievement as what director Sebastian Schipper and his creative team have pulled off with Victoria. Remarkably, the film doesn't have any magic masking cuts in the whole of its ambitious 138 minute running time. It exists as an entirely immersive and immediate experience without once drawing attention to the framing device.

Film Review: Ran

★★★★★

During his illustrious career, when asked what he considered to be his best film, Akira Kurosawa would always respond "my next one". After 1985, however, his answer changed to Ran. At once gloriously epic and deeply personal, there are clear parallels to be found between the ageing director - who was 73 when filming started - and his crumbling protagonist, Hidetora (an incredible Tatsuya Nakadai). By the time the production began, Kurosawa was almost blind, with his long-time collaborators such as cinematographer Asakazu Nakai and production designer Yoshirô Muraki crafting his vision from descriptions and canvases that the he painted in preparation.

Film Review: Eddie the Eagle

★★★☆☆

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Eddie the Eagle, British actor Dexter Fletcher's third directorial outing after Wild Bill and Sunshine on Leith, is a speedy, light-hearted biopic of the remarkable young lad from Cheltenham who took the ski jumping world by storm at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. A film which is both reassuring and a little disappointing in its compliance with standard triumph over adversity sports pictures, its formula is a tried and tested one which nevertheless hits all the right highs and lows to provide a familiar roller-coaster of a feel-good movie.

Film Review: Black Mountain Poets

★★☆☆☆

The last chapter in his 'Modern Romance Trilogy' sees writer-director Jamie Adams and a band of British talent take to the hills in quirky, sardonic comedy Black Mountain Poets. Combining a hippy writers retreat with a shambolic Duke of Edinburgh expedition, it revolves around the uncontrollably mischievous antics of sisters Lisa (Alice Lowe) and Claire (Dolly Wells). Less than successful con artists on the run after the failed theft of a JCB digger, the reasons for which are left intriguingly unexplained, they stumble upon the Poet's Poetry Society gathering by mistake after stealing the car of renowned verse-writing duo The Wilding Sisters. It's an oddball, meandering journey where demons must be excised, navel-gazing is more important than any physical destination and pretence must be maintained at all costs, for there is an £11,000 prize at stake.

Film Review: Anguish

★★★★☆

The previous credits of Sonny Mallhi, directing for the first time with Anguish, may not have inspired much confidence. Co-producing the Oldboy remake and exec-producing The House at the End of the Street - the one Jennifer Lawrence film people are prepared to forget - will do that. Thankfully, Anguish is accomplished enough to make you excited for whatever Mallhi works on next. Having premièred in the UK at Glasgow's FrightFest in February, the film is about two disaffected Illinois teenagers with a paranormal link. Lucy (who insists on being called Lucinda) is the one tragically killed by a truck, and Tess (Ryan Simpkins) is the one moving to the same town, bearing a history of severe anxiety problems.

DVD Review: The Great Passions

★★★★☆

British director Ken Russell passed away in 2011 leaving behind a life's work devoted to filmmaking at its most exuberant and vital. Russell made a number of films in the early part of his career which depicted artists brimming with the same enthusiasm of expression as the director himself. The Great Passions is one of two collections which the BFI are releasing to honour his distinctive approach to the biographical form. The three films collected here are dedicated to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Dante's Inferno), Isadora Duncan (Isadora) and Henri Rousseau (Always On Sunday) - three artists whose eccentricity provide a perfect foil to Russell's own bravura style.

DVD Review: Horse Money

★★★★☆

Horse Money is one of those films that makes more sense after watching than during. Pedro Costa's latest feature has no conventional narrative to speak of, but follows ghostly presence Ventura (an immigrant from Cape Verde living in Lisbon playing himself) as he wanders - alone or accompanied by mute, white coated doctors - through dark spaces at times resembling abandoned hospital corridors, at other times catacombs or ancient caverns. His hands tremble incessantly, perhaps because of a nervous disorder he may or may not have. Ventura is a man of few words, but his weary expression and shuffling gait speak volumes about the life he has lived.

Film Review: Batman v Superman

★★☆☆☆

When the suits at Warner Bros. managed to convince Christopher Nolan to spearhead a new Superman movie and kickstart DC's cinematic universe, they surely can't have envisioned something like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice rocking onto screens just a few short years later. Man of Steel reimagined the big blue boy-scout in a dour modern world devoid of colour and aspiration. Zack Snyder, who directed the first film, takes full control this time around and leaps past Nolan's self-seriousness in a single bound into a bombastic and incoherent world overflowing with half-baked allegory, baffling characterisation and back-breaking mythological portent. It's a laudably bold, utterly exhausting, mess of a film.

Film Review: Zootropolis

★★★★☆

Zootropolis is an absolute delight from first to last. With the kind of thought-provoking depth as seen in Inside Out, albeit not quite as emotionally stirring, it is packed full of charm, a riveting adventure and a number of valuable lessons for humankind by way of the animal kingdom. It is a triumphant, big-hearted return for Disney after the colossal commercial success of Frozen. Front and centre, but pint-sized, is intrepid, resolute and fearless rabbit, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin). Determined from a young age to become the first of her kind to make the police force, she becomes the titular city's newest recruit alongside far more fearsome colleagues. What Judy may lack in stature she makes up for with plucky resolve but her brutish buffalo boss, Chief Bogo (Idris Elba), assigns her to parking duty.

Film Review: Welcome to Me

★★★★☆

Mental health is a tricky topic to tackle sensitively in film, no less so when that particular film is a comedy. Shira Piven's Welcome to Me achieves the impossible in delivering laughs all the while carving out a central character with a disorder who's not only well defined, but also an honest reflection on what it is to be off-centre. Kristen Wiig stars as Alice Klieg, an unemployed and single sufferer of borderline personality disorder who hides away, thriving off watching old recordings of Oprah episodes. When she unexpectedly wins $86M in the California Stacks sweepstakes, she fires her therapist and moves out of her colour-coordinated apartment and into a casino.

Film Review: Speed Sisters

★★★☆☆

The young ladies of Amber Fares' Speed Sisters are very much doing it for themselves. Tyres squeal, engines roar, rubber bullets are fired and tear gas canisters thrown in a documentary which charts the pioneering activities of the first and only all-female Palestinian motor racing team against the backdrop of a perennial conflict. Hailing from a region of the world where women are so often subjugated to little more than submissive housewives, in both cinema and the media at large, the steadfast courage and well-rounded identities painted by Fares makes for an offbeat, engaging and insightful watch.

Film Review: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

★★★☆☆

Ah to be of Athenian stock: cradlers of democracy, cookers of mezze and proud audience to My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2. Fourteen years on from the release of the phenomenally successful first film, writer and star Nia Vardalos has returned to the Hellenic well and developed a sequel. Evidently the prospect of My Big Fat Greek Christening wasn't quite right, but really - who can resist a wedding? Much time has passed since the first film, but as the tagline makes abundantly clear: 'People Change. Greeks don't'. Toula Portokalos-Miller (Vardalos) is almost back where she began - her family are still suffocating and her (now, married) love life has gone a bit stale.

Film Review: Mojave

★☆☆☆☆

Pablo Picasso once said that good artists copy but greatest artists steal. Mojave's opening moments see noted filmmaker Thomas (Garrett Hedlund) sit in the squared off aspect ratio of an interview. Comparisons are made to Lord Byron and fame from the age of nineteen is bemoaned. Highly pretentious beginnings capture the entirety of writer-director William Monahan's sophomore attempt behind the camera in a nutshell. An awful lot of very big ideas, elaborate rhetoric and name-dropping of cultural luminaries attempt to elevate an old-fashioned game of cat and mouse to a higher plain but are lost in the mire. With aspirations a long way above its station the whole endeavour is soon caught in quicksand before going under completely.

Film Review: Iona

★★☆☆☆

Scottish director Scott Graham follows up his impressive, underseen debut Shell with Iona, a similarly sombre tale of isolation and familial relations. A film inspired as much by the dark sophistication of Carl Theodor Dreyer's Ordet as the spiritual clash of cultures in Peter Weir's Witness, Graham's rural study of guilt, faith and redemption is swaddled in an alluring mist of mystery yet lacking in narrative lucidity. The film's title refers to both its central character and its Hebridean setting. The story begins with Iona (Ruth Negga) and her son Billy (Ben Gallagher) on the run, travelling to the remote island she's named after.