Winter’s Bone, directed by Debra Granik Flirting with heroic individualism, this story insists instead on age-old community bonds that everyone else seems to have written off
The Secret In Their Eyes, directed by Juan José Campanella Tom Jennings finds that there’s rather more than meets the eyes in this entertaining, if excessively…
Labour Intensive, by Sally Madge & Carole Luby This performance artwork powerfully evokes the blood, sweat and tears of the nurturance underpinning social reproduction, according to Tom…
The Killer Inside Me, directed by Michael Winterbottom Tom Jennings is disappointed with two films which purport to illuminate and critique violence…
Exit Through the Gift Shop: a Banksy film This entertaining pseudo-documentary mocks contemporary art’s commercial premises as well as the mystique of individual genius. Tom Jennings…
Precious, directed by Lee Daniels This tale of the transcendence of wretched suffering retains some integrity despite pushing so many bleeding-heart liberal buttons
Starsuckers, directed by Chris Atkins, and Capitalism: A Love Story, directed by Michael Moore Tom Jennings suspects that lack of political imagination explains the patronising…
Common Words and the Wandering Star, by Keith Armstrong Tom Jennings is grateful for this comprehensive documentation of its author’s efforts to keep Jack…
The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow Tom Jennings is relieved that this film avoids lazy liberal moralising in exploring the mundane traumas of courage under fire.
Generation Kill, by David Simon & Ed Burns This deadpan account of a US Marine company’s exploits encapsulates for Tom Jennings the baleful banality of the Iraq war.
Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee, directed by Shane Meadows Tom Jennings chuckles along with the pointed proletarian poignancy of Meadows’ latest chamber-piece.
Film Fictions of the Iraq War Tom Jennings examines television and cinema stories about the US/UK ‘war on terror’ in terms of the notion that ‘war is the health of the state’.
