Wall-E has arrived, and the genius of Pixar is declared once again. A simple yet multi-layered tale of a U certificate robot love on post-apocalyptic earth, it’s the silent first half hour that really has the critics rhapsodising. The Times (4-stars) calls the film a “magical animation” while the Guardian (4-stars) says it’s “an exquisitely rendered piece of work.” Over at Empire it’s 5-stars, describing the film as the “most ambitious undertaking since Toy......

Difficult to avoid the Bat-hype machine this week, as the release of The Dark Knight has prompted calls for a posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger. Luckily, as always, London provides for those who don't necessarily want the latest marketing churn poured down their throat. For your consideration this week: Thursday: Wong Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love is the next film at Rivington Place, in conjunction with their Oscar Munoz retrospective. After his......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... So along comes Mamma Mia, the ghastly looking film version of the apparently much loved West End Musical. If you didn’t run screaming when you saw the trailer featuring Meryl Streep and her ridiculous dungarees prancing around some Greek island then maybe, just maybe, you can handle this. For the rest of us, please listen to Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian who gives......

We hate to keep droning on about it, but There Will Be Blood is one of the most amazing films we've seen in years, and with the DVD about to be released it seems important to remind people that this is exactly the kind of movie to be watched on the expansive screen of a cinema setting rather than a tiny box in a living room. The Roxy in Borough High Street is showing it......

Can't decide on whether to take an umbrella or a sombrero out in this ever-changeable climate? The answer's both, unfortunately, so we recommend that instead of facing the elements you bed down in a hushed auditorium, where this week's selection includes a season of films from an island where the sunshine is just that little bit more reliable. Thursday As part of their retrospective of Oscar Munoz, which we reviewed last month, Rivington Place......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... No prize for guessing what Kung Fu Panda is about. DreamWorks’ latest animation has Jack Black as lazy fat panda, Po, embarking on a quest to be kung fu champ and escape his humdrum life of noodle-making. It’s making the critics smile. The Times (4-stars) calls it “a slight story, but it’s charmingly executed. This is the most handsome animation that DreamWorks has......

While our Saturday Cinema Summary does an admirable job of rounding up the week's new releases, London's celluloid attractions run deeper than the local multiplex's offerings. From retrospectives of filmmaking greats, to cult classics introduced by obsessive cinephiles, each week we'll offer a preview of the forgotten films and rare screenings worthy of your attention. Wednesday: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, the stark Romanian film that snatched the Palme d'Or at Cannes last......

Another week and another set of under-whelming blockbusters. First up is James McAvoy going A-List in Wanted, as Angelina Jolie plucks him from a life of mediocrity to run around as a super-assassin firing bullets around corners and doing cool only-in-movies stuff . Overall the reviews have been OK but the UK broadsheets are having none of it. Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian loathes it with his customary eloquence (1-star), ‘you could gargle bitumen......

Getting the most press this week is The Edge of Love, an account of the women who surrounded legendary boozer (and occasional poet) Dylan Thomas during the Second World War. London lovers will cherish it for the “wonderful rendering of Blitz London” (Independent, 3-stars) but overall it’s got very average reviews. The Guardian (2-stars) calls it an “exasperatingly unfocused and underpowered movie.” The performances of Keira Knightly, Sienna Miller and particularly Mathew Rhys (as......

Yes, you read that right. Film4 are offering you the chance to win a Phillips Home Cinema. This is quite simply AWESOME. You must read on... Film4 Summer Screen at Somerset House returns for ten nights from 31st July to August 9th 2008. The magnificent Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court at Somerset House will once again be transformed into a full-scale open-air cinema with state of the art giant screen, 35mm projection and surround-sound. The......

This week needs to be officially declared ‘Useless Blockbuster Week’ as our critics clobber the two big releases, The Incredible Hulk and The Happening. First up we have the rebooted Hulk trying to succeed where Ang Lee’s 2003 effort failed for not making enough money. The new approach is to cut to the core of Hulk’s appeal by focusing purely on the angry green Hulk-smashing action and not much else. Edward Norton reluctantly stars......

So, the smack-down that was Indy v SATC was officially won by Indy (presumably with one of his famed punches to the face). While those two films continue to soak up every last ton of box office cash we have a blockbuster free week of smaller scale films. The biggest release of the week is Gone, Baby Gone. It’s directed and co-written by Ben Affleck who’s looking for career salvation after being unforgivably rubbish......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan... The tsunami of hype has crested and the reviews are in. As if you hadn’t heard, four years after they bowed out on the small screen, the fading stars of Sex and The City have returned for their close-up. Yes, we know it’s an orgy of shameless consumerism or, as one blogger describes it, “a Taliban Recruitment video”, but are they still worth......

The global siege that is Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is in full swing. Right now, millions of people are sitting in the cinema waiting for the iconic theme music to kick in so they can hopefully bask in the nostalgic glow of their youth. It’s been a tough ride getting here, from the highs of the trailer to the lows of the early reviews. So while it may hoover......

While we're waiting for details of the new Bond film to start leaking, The Barbican are celebrating what would be author Ian Fleming's 100th birthday with a weekend dedicated to the suave legend. The full list of Bond films was voted down to 4 by Barbican website users and they've just announced that the winning films are 'Goldfinger', 'From Russia With Love', 'Casino Royale' and 'Dr No'. Showing on the weekend of 7/8 June,......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week lead character Speed Racer stars in the film Speed Racer (see what they did there) and Morgan Spurlock bottles it like a shandy in Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? It’s difficult to forgive the Wachowski brothers for the lameness of the Matrix sequels and their bid for redemption, Speed Racer, isn’t going to win them any new fans.......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, Robert Downey Jr. gets suited and booted as Iron Man, more romantic comedy nonsense in Made Of Honour and Joy Division get the referential documentary treatment. Like the first lamb of spring, the first comic book film of the summer marks the changing of the seasons. With Hellboy, Batman and the Incredible Hulk all just around the corner Iron Man is,......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, London tube comedy Three and Out, the erotic thriller that is a Deception and Russell Brand tries to take America in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It’s baffling that as a nation we’re so consistently bad at comedy films. Despite having the home-grown talent, British comedy films, as a general rule, suck. So it is with Three and Out, the Tube suicide comedy......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week Irish hitmen are on the run In Bruges, Mike Leigh’s deliriously upbeat Happy-Go-Lucky and Daniel Craig remembers his hazy youth in Flashbacks of A Fool. Several years ago Hollywood fell hook, line and sinker for the plucky charm of Colin Farrell and he's been under-delivering in major films ever since. He turns the tables in his latest, In Bruges, by actually......

Tube drivers are irked by a new film that takes a light-hearted look at one of the more harrowing aspects of working for London Underground: the "person under a train", TfL-speak for a suicide. Members of the Aslef union plan to picket the premier and hand out fliers expressing their displeasure. Three And Out, released next Friday, tells the story of a Tube driver unfortunate enough to experience two "one-unders" in quick succession. Discovering......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week The Rolling Stones get the concert film treatment in Shine A Light and George Clooney goes screwball in Leatherheads. If you’re the Rolling Stones, you get directors of the calibre of Martin Scorsese making your concert films. In Shine A Light they’re captured in all their craggy-faced glory playing a small NY benefit concert. The critics are split on this. Kevin......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week's two big releases are the Eighties nostalgic Son of Rambow and the terrifying-sounding Funny Games. British film Son of Rambow is the story of two suburban boys who make their own sequel to Rambo: First Blood after watching it on pirate video. Set in the early Eighties it's full of affection for the period (skill!), Peter Bradshaw notes in his 2-star......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… Unfortunately there’s not much to whet the cineaste’s appetite this week. Most of this week’s releases are comedies ranging from the mediocre to the terrifyingly bad. Let’s dive right in. First up is a film that comes to us deep-coated in vitriol and with the promise of being so spectacularly bad that you should rush to the cinema immediately to witness this once......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week we’ve got superior Spanish horror The Orphanage, Easter kids fantasy film The Spiderwick Chronicles and po-faced environmental documentary The Eleventh Hour. The Orphanage gets great reviews from The Guardian and The Independent with The Times differing its opinion. Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian (4-stars) says that the: chiller, set in contemporary Spain, is involving and disturbing, and revives the genre's great......

Our friends at Film Friends Forever are holding their monthly film night tomorrow night, and they have an absolutely cracking line-up of Oscar, Bafta & other award winners and nominees. Check out the viewing list here, all to be enjoyed in Corbert Place, Truman Brewery from 6.30pm - there's animation, arthouse, short music movies and live music as well as £3 beers. Sounds good? Yes, it does and it should, seeing as this monthly......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week’s big releases are Brian DePalma’s multimedia Iraq film Redacted and prehistoric CGI romp 10,000 BC. Redacted, Brian DePalma’s controversial and supposedly anti-American film about the Iraq War might not have impressed many critics (or moviegoers) in the US but it’s getting good reviews this side of the Pond. James Christopher in The Times (4-stars): Redacted is not just a damning inside......

The London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival is nearly here and to celebrate, we've got a pair of tickets to give away for the BFI IMAX's All Night Musicals on Saturday 29 March. The 70s themed line up of films gets incrementally camper, and the costumes get more outrageous, the later it gets. The recent Dreamgirls movie opens the bill, followed by 80s-tastic dance and drama spectacle, A Chorus Line (based on the 1970s......

Thanks to a lousy US box office reception, Grindhouse – the adored bastard sprog double-feature of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez – was hacked in two when it finally came here. Film nerds agog at the prospect of a three-hour neo-exploitationfest had to cough for Planet Terror and Death Proof separately, and miss out entirely on the geekalicious treat of the fake trailers that accompanied them. O cruel fate/boringly cautious distributors. But at last......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, royal bodice-ripper The Other Boleyn Girl, zombies ahoy in Diary of the Dead, multiple viewpoint assassination thriller Vantage Point and The Rock doing one for the kids in The Game Plan. Don’t expect to learn much history in The Other Boleyn Girl, a film James Christopher in the Times describes as a “ravishing piece of trash” in his 2-star review. The......

Here's a novel idea for a film festival: instead of just showing a director's oeuvre straight, why not throw in a handful of films that complement, or contradict, or just plain go nicely with the main work? Ciné Lumière is doing just that with a "retrospective in context" of the work of Michael Haneke, the Austrian director who has made a career out of cracking apart the complaisant, cosseted world of the continental middle......