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Priceless

Priceless, in my opinion, is just that – absolutely priceless! Audrey Tautou plays Irène, who flits around the world, with older, richer men, moving on when she finds a man wealthier. Bored and restless one night whilst her current beau sleeps, she ventures alone to the hotel bar, where she finds the be-suited bar man Jean (Gad Elmaleh) asleep on the job. She mistakenly assumes that he is a wealthy patron and turns on the charm, ending up in bed with him. When she is busted by her beau, she discovers that her new hope is a fraud. As he desperately tries to win her affection, he stumbles into the same gold-digging game…

Man on Wire

Documentaries are often thought of as TV material, so going to see one at the cinema might not be at the top of your list. But every once in a while one comes along that blows you away, and Man on Wire is certainly cooking up a storm.

This is not the first film to be made about Philippe Petit, the eccentric Frenchman who illegally and audaciously walked a tightrope between New York’s twin towers in 1974. But Man on Wire is created with the kind of realism and intensity that has you biting your nails, clenching your teeth and holding your breath in anticipation.

WALL.E

Welcome to the wonderful world of WALL.E – the next Disney / Pixar collaboration that is set to follow in the footsteps of Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Ratatouille. This film has everything that we have come to expect from these genius animators, who incidentally, have netted staggering worldwide box office takings in excess of $4.3 billion* from their films.

Disney tales have often dealt with the dark side of human life – parental death, evil stepfamilies, the dangers of the sea. But WALL.E brings these issues bang up to date by looking at those facing the 21st century. The obesity situation; the growing isolation of individuals in society; the increasing power of brands over governments; the problems of consumerism and the effects on the planet of our throw-away mentality. All of these issues are rolled into a heart-melting love story of two robots.

Kung Fu Panda

In Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black voices Po, a rather large and verbose panda, who dreams of being a martial arts expert. After gate-crashing a ceremony, he is selected by the wise turtle Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim) to be the prophesised saviour of the village. A band of elite warriors, the Furious Five, are less than impressed that this clumsy amateur has displaced them and their life’s work, and neither is their Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman), who has the unenviable job of training Po.

But things take a turn for the worse when the deliciously evil snow leopard, Tai Lung (Ian McShane), escapes from jail, impressively ‘out-kung-fu-ing’ 1,000 rhino prison guards. He is hell-bent on getting his paws on the ancient scroll, holding the key to ultimate power, and which the hapless Dragon Warrior, Po, is sworn to protect.

Female Agents

Despite progress since the 1940s, gender roles are still stifling under the weight of stereotypes. There are jobs that many people think should only be done by men, and others that are viewed as women’s work. So when we see departures from the norm, they should make us challenge our assumptions.

The wartime drama, Female Agents, looks at the part that a handful of women played in the Allied effort to launch a decisive offensive against Germany. Set in the spring of 1944, a French Resistance member, Louise (Sophie Marceau), is given an important assignment by Special Operations in London. She is to head up a rescue mission to free a British agent from the clutches of the Nazis, before they uncover details of top-secret plans for the Normandy Landings.

The Escapist

We’ve all seen prison break films before, and classics such as The Great Escape, Escape from Alcatraz and The Shawshank Redemption, abortive or successful, are ingrained in most of our memories. What’s more, when a big US TV channel makes several series of a drama about busting out of the slammer, you know that there’s a market for this genre.

Co-writer and director Rupert Wyatt’s, The Escapist, is centred on Frank (Brian Cox), an institutionalised con who’s doing ‘life’. That’s just the way things are now, and he doesn’t have a problem with it. But when, after years of silence from his wife, she tells him that their teenage daughter is both a druggie and seriously ill, he suddenly realises that he might be losing the single most important thing in his evanescent existence. That’s when he decides that he has to see his ‘baby’, and imminently. But getting out means formulating a plan and bringing together the right bodies to action it.

Sex and the City

There were few press screenings of Sex and the City, so I queued out the door – like everyone else – with a big group of girlfriends to get the golden ticket. This was the only film so far this year that I had been waiting to see with baited breath.

Having watched the TV show religiously, it showed me the kind of glamorous lifestyle that I wanted, and reflected my hopes for the future. The film version of this popular series is a wonderful closing chapter to all of those years spent devoted to the girls and their trials and tribulations.

Smart People

This week lots of people will have one film on their minds: Sex and the City. Will she or won’t she marry Big? But SJP, queen of the dysfunctional, 30-something single women, also stars in Smart People, a good movie that you shouldn't overlook.

This situational comedy focuses on some deeply unhappy and messed-up individuals, with the kind of hilarity that is entirely believable. Dennis Quaid plays Professor Lawrence Wetherhold, a cantankerous, single-parent lecturer, whose life has been on hold for a decade since he lost his wife. 

Jules et Jim (1962)

As with music and books, our obsession with the next big thing and the week’s new releases means that we often forget about the huge store of great old movies that are already out there and deserving of our time. Thanks to the BFI’s programme of creating and distributing new prints of old films, more and more of cinema’s classic moments can now be seen and enjoyed in all their original glory.

Out again this month is Jules et Jim, François Truffaut’s 1962 masterpiece of French New Wave cinema. It’s the story of Jules (Oscar Werner) a reserved Austrian and Jim (Henri Serre) a sophisticated Frenchman, two aspiring writers who meet in the bohemian Paris of 1912 and form a friendship through their desire to discover more about the arts, women and French boxing. When the enigmatic Catherine (Jeanne Moreau) comes for lunch one day the scene is set for one of cinema’s most famous and disturbing love triangles.

Of Time and the City

From very humble beginnings, Terence Davies’ Of Time And The City is one of the underdog triumphs of Cannes 2008. The elegiac tone-poem tribute to the director’s birth city of Liverpool has elicited critical hurrahs in all quarters.

Davies established himself as one of the UK’s signature directors in the 1980s and 90s with films such as The Long Day Closes and Distant Voices, Still Lives. But ever since his adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The House Of Mirth in 2000, he has failed to gain backing for a new film. That was until 2007, when Liverpool announced a competition to allow three local film-makers to produce a micro-budget film that would premiere as part of the City Of Culture celebrations in 2008. Davies was one of the three winning teams (from 156 submissions), who each received a modest £250,000.