Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over
Staring: Audrey Tautou

Classy film, 2010-03-07
Judging by the reviews here ,this seems to be a love or hate film. Well I loved it, the small scenes were engrossing & the big scenes sumptious. All the acting hit the right mark for me .My other half loved it too & he didn't even want to watch it, so not a 'ladies film 'as such.I've no problem with subtitles myself but if you have - beware of foreign films !

Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over

amazing!!!, 2010-01-16
ok so when i first saw this i didnt expect andthing special, maybe a 3 star movie.
i was wrong this movie is really good,it has comedy,romance, and really visually fantastic.
BUT...
the only thing is if your going to watch it in english don't put the subbs on because
the subbs say different things to what the characters are saying at that time.

i would reccomend this movie to anyone my age or older,
i think all people will like it but girls might be more connected to the film than boys if i say so myself.

Rated: Suitable for 18 years and over
Staring: Penélope Cruz, Lola Dueñas, Angela Molina
Director: Pedro Almodóvar

Pedro Almodóvar continues to reinvent Hollywood's Golden Age for a new era with Broken Embraces. A blind screenwriter in the present day, Mateo Blanco, a.k.a. Harry Caine (Lluís Homar), reminisces about his favourite leading lady to his assistant, Diego (Tamar Novas). In 1992, when Caine met Lena (Penélope Cruz), stockbroker Ernesto (José Luis Gómez) had just made the cash-strapped secretary his mistress. First, Ernesto pays for her mother's medical care; then he supports her dream to act. In the process, Caine casts her in his screwball comedy and falls in love, and a passionate affair begins. Ernesto suspects something is up, so he hires his shifty son, Ernesto Jr. (the off-key Rubén Ochandiano), to film the couple surreptitiously, and a lip reader translates their conversations. Caine's production manager, Judit (Volver's Blanca Portillo), further complicates the scenario. By the end, Caine, whose name serves as a tip of the hat to hard-boiled author James M. Cain (The Postman Always Rings Twice), has lost his vision and his girl, and the culprit isn't as obvious as it seems. With Embraces, Almodóvar riffs on Tinseltown classics where greed and...
Girls and Suitcases, 2010-02-21
"Broken Embraces" is a quality piece of world cinema featuring the exquisite Penelope Cruz in the leading role. The film is set in the present day as a blind film director reminisces on a love affair from the mid 1990's with an actress played by Cruz. The director became infatuated with her during the making of a film , but her elderly partner , a powerful businessman, was equally obsessed with her and was not prepared to lose her without a fight. Needless to say the whole affair ended in tragedy. "Broken Embraces" is stylishly made and very well acted by the Spanish cast. It is an intriguing story and all of the characters and relationships are credible, while Cruz lights up the film throughout with her powerful on screen charisma and sultry good looks. "Broken Embraces" is definitely one of the better foreign language films that I have seen over the past few years.

Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over
Staring: Juliette Binoche, Fabrice Luchini, Albert Dupontel, Gilles Lellouche, Karin Viard
Director: Cedric Klapisch

A life in Paris., 2010-01-08
Great film !
For people who have visited Paris ,this is a story of [what goes on behind closed doors ].
Five star acting ,great street life even in winter, all drawn together by a superb cast.

Rated: Parental Guidance
Staring: Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, Emmanuelle Beart, Hippolyte Girardot, Gerard Depardieu
Director: Claude Berri

Great films tous les deux., 2010-03-03
I think Manon des Sources is better than Jean de Florette part 1, but they really are different parts of the same whole. Memorable in so many ways - Yves Montand is brilliant as is Daniel Auteuil as the backward nephew, these films are witty, sharp, poignant and with the most memorable plot twist at the end - better even than the usual suspects. Top drawer.

Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over
Staring: Christian Friedel, Leonie Benesh, Burkhart Klaussner, Steffi Kühnert
Director: Michael Haneke

Haneke's best film yet., 2010-02-21
Michael Haneke's films are generally thought provoking, austere, perceptive and acutely insightful on more uncomfortable truths about human nature. In The White Ribbon he has outdone himself. The film is a masterpiece in many ways. Beautifully crafted, many of the scenes stick in the mind for the photography - Ansel Adams would have been proud of some of the shots. Historically too, the film rings true - Haneke himself has talked about the hundreds of hours of research to create a historically realistic picture of German community life in the early 20th century.

However it is the characterisation of community members that is the finest achievement; each character has his/ her own place and sticks to it and the dysfuntional dynamic that ensues appears a logical outcome. There are scenes and characters here that will stick in your mind for years and as with many of his films these will not necessarily be comfortable memories. Haneke is a masterful film-maker; he establishes a framework and then rips away the preconceptions we have at the outset to establish the deeper more uncomfortable realities beneath. This is an unsettling film because it does not point to warm fuzzy truths about human nature, historical progress or social development or to a clear sanitised understanding of such issues. It begs the questions as much as it answers them and given the historical context what is implied is disturbing.

If sitting back and getting entertained is what turns you on this is not your film; if more thought provoking challenging fayre is your thing this is 5* all the way. An amazing film.

Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over
Staring: Hilda Peter, Tibor Palffy, Norbert Tanko, Melinda Kantor
Director: Peter Strickland

The Consequences of Revenge, 2009-11-06
What makes Katalin and her son leave their native village and take to the roads? What happened in her past that comes back to haunt her?

The film raises these questions at the beginning in a sequence that shows the Transylvanian village and lifestyle of Katalin's home. From there we are taken on a journey with her that not only leads us through the beautiful countryside of this little explored area of Europe but also on a journey of Katalin's past. A single but devastating incident changed forever Katalin's life and world. Now she travels back to the scene of this incident and extracts a terrible revenge.

Her choices have far reaching consequences for the people she meets and those she seeks out. Principally it is those who are innocent and unknowing who suffer the greatest impact.

The film is mainly in Hungarian with some Romanian.

Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over
Staring: Khalid Abdalla, Atossa Leoni, Shaun Toub
Director: Marc Forster

Like the bestselling book upon which it's based, The Kite Runner will haunt the viewer long after the film is over. A tale of childhood betrayal, innocence, harsh reality, and dreamy memory, The Kite Runner faces good and evil--and the path between them, though often blurry and sorrowfully relative. Director Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland) presents a painterly vision of Afghanistan before the Soviet tanks, before the Taliban--lush, verdant, fertile--in its landscape and in its people and their history and hopes. The story follows two young boys' friendship, tested beyond endurance, and the haunting of their adult selves by what happened in their youth--and what horrors befall their country in the meantime. The performances of the two boys--Zekeria Ebrahimi (Amir) and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada (Hassan)--are the film's strongest, unforced and gently evocative. The penance paid by their adult selves is foreshadowed, but never predictable--and the metaphor of innocence lost, a common theme in Forster's work, keeps the film, like the title kites, truly aloft. --A.T. Hurley
Thought provoking, 2010-02-24
I would definitely reccommend this film. Dont let the subtitles put you off they are only at the start and you get so engrossed you dont mind them.
I would agree with the other reviews that I would'nt like a twelve year old to watch some of the scenes.
The landscape really got to me so barren and in places so desolate.

Rated: Suitable for 12 years and over
Staring: Kristin Scott Thomas, Elsa Zylberstein, Serge Hazanavicius, Laurent Grevill, Frederic Pierrot
Director: Philippe Claudel

Introvert account of re-integration., 2010-01-25
Plot of 'I've Loved You So Long' unfolds ever so slowly - and beautifully. Juliette has been inside for 15 years. Once released, her sister Léa offers Juliette board and lodgings at hers. There used to be a big bond between the two sisters. After 15 years doing time, both sisters take up where they left off. The reason for Juliette's captivity is revealed half way through, whereas her motivation, which brought her to commit a heinous crime, remains a secret, right up to the very end. With the secret eventually out in the open, Juliette considers herself to be fully re-integrated into society. In spite of the 'thriller'-elements, I wouldn't label ILYSL as such. It is a report of the insecurities and anxieties one encounters, being back into society after 15 years absense. In Juliette's case, she's helped along tremendously by Léa and her family. Even THEY fall out occasionally. ILYSL provides an insight into the mind of somebody who committed a major crime. Due to this exposion I very much sympathised with Juliette. Butter wouldn't melt if I said I'd not done the same, given the circumstances. Kristin Scott Thomas and Elsa Zylberstein acted outstandingly and director Philippe Claudel coached the entire cast into an intelligent and introvert account of re-integration, and everything it entails.

Rated: Suitable for 15 years and over
Staring: Edgar Flores, Paulina Gaitan, Jesus Lira, Emir Meza, Kristyan Ferrer
Director: Cary Fukunaga

Sin nombre, 2010-03-06
This film addresses immigration and violence issues in Central America fairly accurately. To me it only lacks a bit more interference from the "security forces", that is, the role of the army and the different polices in the whole immigration story, which is much more influential (negatively) than what is depicted in the film. An excellent must-see anyway.