¡Viva! Opening Gala, Cornerhouse

Reviewed by Ian Betts March 2012

Why do we need foreign language film festivals? Should we even group films by the language they are produced in? There is an argument that movies should be judged on equal terms and not ghettoised by notions of national identity, or ignored because they carry subtitles.

Rampart at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Reviewed by Ian Betts March 2012

Apparently, Woody Harrelson’s father was a contract killer. Convicted for murder in 1973 when Woody was 12, and later given a life sentence for murdering a judge, Charles V Harrelson spent the majority of his son’s life in prison until he died there from a heart attack in 2007.

The Comedy of Errors, National Theatre

Screened at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Reviewed by Anne Ryan March 2012

In these harsh times, it's good to see the National Theatre so popular, with international screenings of audience friendly plays and performances like this, including the likes of Lenny Henry. Following the success of James Cordon in One Man, Two Guvnors, once more we see a comedian and TV star on stage, beamed to a screen at the Cornerhouse.

The Woman in the Fifth

Screened at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Reviewed by Anne Ryan February 2012

The fashion for established Hollywood actors to laud the films of the 1970s and lament the fact that adult films are no longer made continues with The Woman in the Fifth. While Ethan Hawke may not have the stature of Clooney or Pitt he too has spoken of this film harking back to a golden age. This is a self-consciously European film showing the terrible things that can happen to the innocent American abroad.

A Dangerous Method

Screened at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Reviewed by Anne Ryan February 2012

There is a long tradition of films treating psychoanalysis, from its initial introduction to the Hollywood community with the pre-war influx of intellectuals fleeing Nazi persecution – as shown in Hitchcock’s ‘Spellbound’ to the more comic ‘Analyze This’ – films which increasingly show that the analyst may be more screwed up than the patient.

Travelling Light by National Theatre

Screened at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Reviewed by Anne Ryan February 2012

With The Artist and Martin Scorsese’s ‘Hugo’ film seems to be looking back to its roots, and in Nicholas Wright’s play Travelling Light we see the people who made Hollywood. Thesea are the eastern European immigrants who brought their story telling skills to the new medium and, perhaps more than anyone else, created the American identity. Men like Louis B Mayer who chose 4th of July for his birthday and established the Hardy family as the American archetype.

Carnage, Directed by Roman Polanski

Screened at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Reviewed by Anne Ryan February 2012

Sartre said that hell is other people, he must have had the four characters in this film in mind. Here are four people whose flaws are magnified by contact with each other.

Haywire and female action heroes

Reviewed by Ian Betts January 2012

Gina Carano is an extraordinary woman: star of American Gladiators and professional Mixed Martial Arts, she’s a lethal purveyor of rib-busting kicks and jaw-shattering blows. Undefeated until her recent encounter with Cristiane ‘Cyborg’ Santos (has since been accused of steroid use), Carano is known for her untarnished good looks, indomitable grit and killer moves such as the ‘rear-naked chokehold’.

She’s no lady... well, not in the Victorian sense of the word. She was recently quoted as saying, “I think everybody should get punched in the face once in a while just to, like, wake them up, you know?”

The Descendants

Screened at Cornerhouse, Manchester

Reviewed by Anne Ryan January 2012

Yet another Oscar nominee hits our shores and this time it is George Clooney’s latest work – where Mr Smooth plays a family man facing up to the responsibilities of fatherhood in the idyllic setting of Hawaii.