Romance

Based on Louise Rennison’s popular series of teen novels, Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is a Bridget Jones-style coming-of-age comedy which follows a group of 14-year-olds as they attempt to escape the shackles of their snooping parents and move into the more exciting world of boys, bras and parties. Viewers who’ve endured teen gross-out comedies such as American Pie will find this Brit-flick from Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham) refreshingly gentle. There’s no swearing and no mention of drugs, no-one has sex and there are no unwanted pregnancies.

Set in the seaside town of Eastbourne, the story centres around Georgia Nicholson (Georgia Groome) and her circle of giggly, gawkish friends. Her chief aims in life are to secure a fit boyfriend and persuade her parents to throw her the best 15th birthday bash EVER at the local nightclub. Her biggest gripes are her embarrassing, old fashioned parents (Alan Davies and Karen Taylor) and her freakish little sister Libby (Eva Drew), who thinks she’s a cat. When two “sex-gods” called Robbie (Aaron Johnson) and Tom (Sean Bourke) join their school, Georgia and her best friend Jas (Eleanor Tomlinson) are determined to bag them for themselves. Trouble is, the slutty and popular Lindsay (Kimberley Nixon), who wears a padded bra and unbuttons her shirt as low as school uniform rules will allow, has got there first.

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The Children of Huang Shi recounts the true story of a British journalist’s rescue of dozens of Chinese orphans in the face of the advancing Japanese.

The British reporter George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Myers) has been sent to China to report on the 1930s war involving the Japanese invaders and the Nationalist and Communist Chinese. Reckless and inexperienced, he takes hundreds of covert photos of the atrocities for newspapers back home, including a massacre of Chinese civilians. However, the Japanese soon twig that he is not the aid worker he said he was and capture him, along with all of his photos.

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Zhang Ziyi, Tony Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro star in this epic tale of duty and passion from Chinese director Zhang Yimou (Hero, Red Sorghum). When translated into English, the film’s Mandarin title (Shi Mian Mai Fu) literally means ‘Ambushed from Ten Directions’. It’s the perfect description of this martial arts love story, whose main trio is both supported and attacked by numerous warring factions.

The year is 859 AD and the great Tang dynasty is waning. Numerous rebel groups are gaining strength, including the infamous House of Flying Daggers. Though the group’s old leader was captured and killed, a new one has risen in his place, his identity unknown. Jin (Kaneshiro) and Leo (Lau), two police chiefs, have been ordered to kill the mysterious leader within ten days.

Their first port of call is a teahouse, home of the blind dancer Mei (Zhang) who is thought to be the dead leader’s daughter. (more…)

Sex has become such an idol in modern times, and especially in Hollywood, it’s difficult to understand how a middle-aged man could have spent his life avoiding it. In one of his funniest movies to date, Judd Apatow, creator of such off-beat gems as Anchorman, Knocked Up and Pineapple Express, presents us with just such a creature.

Meet Andy Stitzer (Steve Carrell, who also co-wrote), the titular ante-hero who has spent years of bachelordom collecting action hero figurines and making egg mayonnaise sandwiches. Working in the stockroom of an electronics store by day and watching Survivor with his elderly neighbours by night (”I’ll bring the soda!”), Andy seems unlikely to ever woo a woman to bed - until three of his fellow workers stumble upon his secret.

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Toying with ideas of prejudice, loneliness and redemption, Eden tells the story of a reclusive chef whose greatest pleasure is creating dishes that arouse people to dizzying heights of pleasure.

Eden opens with a grotesque scene of a fat chef, Gregor (Josef Ostendorf), skinning a furry animal with sensual relish before chucking large chunks of meat into a pan. We next meet him in a local café, engaged in the second of his two hobbies: ogling the local waitresses. Strolling in the park after his habitual espresso, our friend rescues a disabled girl from drowning in the fountain and returns her to her mother, Eden (Charlotte Roche), who is none other than the waitress who served him. (more…)

There’s so much wrong with The Accidental Husband you hardly know where to start. The jokes fall painfully flat, there’s almost zero chemistry between the characters, and the initial premise - that you can get someone else hitched with just a few clicks of a mouse - is so far-fetched, it’s a struggle to give your attention to its numerous ramifications.

Uma Thurman, who also produced, plays Emma, a self-titled ‘love doctor’ who has made a career for herself trying to sort out other people’s relationship woes, but despite a hit radio show and bestselling book on the subject, she has a few problems keeping her own love-life in check. She is engaged to Richard (Colin Firth), her well-off and eminently sensible fiancé, but things come a cropper when discovers that she is already listed as legally married when she goes to register at the City Hall.

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“I’m gonna tell you the story and I’m not telling you who your mum is, you have to figure that out for yourself. I’m gonna change all of the names and some of the facts…”

This is the way that advertising manager Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) introduces his confused premarital history to his precocious ten-year-old daughter Maya (Abigail Breslin from Little Miss Sunshine), who has come home after a school class on the birds and the bees. And whilst Hayes presents his philanderings in the sweetest way possible, this is definitely no children’s fairy tale. As Maya puts it, “it’s like a love-story-mystery!”, and the poor girl is stuck in the middle, wondering whether she is nothing more than the result of a drunken party.

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A welcome addition to that sub-genre of films depicting dour north Europeans falling for Latino charm (c.f. Italian for Beginners), Mostly Martha is a German comedy from writer/director Sandra Nettleback about a workaholic chef who has to force herself out of her fixation and learn to live a bit.

Martha (Martina Gedeck) is head chef of a fancy Hamburg restaurant who has no problem with lecturing customers who object to the texture of her fois gras. Her obsessive attitude towards her work has kept her single and her colleagues at arm’s length. Because of her phenomenal culinary abilities (she is reputedly the second best chef in Hamburg) and dedication to her work, her boss, Frida (Sibylle Canonica), cuts Martha plenty of slack. In spite of regular appointments with a therapist, played by August Zirner, Martha finds it difficult to control her temper in and out of the kitchen. On one occasion she throws a raw slab of meat at a customer who complains that his steak is overdone. Even her kindly new neighbour Sam (Ulrich Thomsen), for whom she offers to cook, fails to remove the deep furrows from her brow.

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Watching Renee Zellweger scribble frantically into a notebook whilst musing to herself in characteristic British staccato, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d stumbled upon another Bridget Jones sequel. But whilst Brigit and Beatrix may share some character traits, the latter emerges as a brilliant, headstrong woman whose continual struggle against her restrictive upper-class background pays its returns.

Set in turn of the century London, Miss Potter begins in the publishing house of Frederick Warne and Sons, where Beatrix is hoping to secure a contract for her first book, ‘The Tale of Peter Rabbit’, after several failed attempts with other establishments. The proprietors decide to take her on as a first project for their younger brother, Norman (Ewan McGregor), who is looking for a leg-up into the industry. Far from dismissing Beatrix’ tale as no more than childish scribbling, as do his brothers, Norman is as fascinated by her illustrations as she is and helps to propel the book into the bestseller lists. Beatrix strikes up a friendship with Norman’s sister Millie (Emily Watson) and eventually Norman proposes, much to the chagrin of Beatrix’ snobbish parents who shudder at the thought of their only daughter marrying into “trade” and insist the engagement be kept secret.

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Propelled to fame playing regal beauties in grandiose historical dramas such as Raise the Red Lantern and Farewell my Concubine, Chinese actress Gong Li takes a professional U-turn in this bittersweet romance with hints of French cinema from director Zhou Sun, recasting herself as Zhou Yu, a thoroughly modern, independent woman whose sexuality is part of her personality. Torn between two lovers, the ethereal introvert and the easygoing charmer, Gong takes comfort in somnolent train journeys through the countryside of northwest China. Zhou Yu’s Train is adapted from the novel by Cun Bei.
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