“Basically Army of Shadows with tits and ass, Verhoeven’s film trades regularly in nudity and sex. For the Dutchman, neither is complete without the titillation of violence, and there’s something reckless, if not dangerously arousing about his penchant for flesh and blood while dealing in the historical gravity of WWII. But it’s through such a treacherous minefield of moral ambiguities and the blurring of friend and foe... that Verhoeven manages to deliver more truths about the war than the self-righteousness of Schindler’s List, or the numbing combat realism of Saving Private Ryan. More than a Darryl F. Zanuck throwback, Black Book is in fact the kind of movie Steven Spielberg used to make: loud, pulpy, wildly inflated, and utterly gripping. It also understands the decadence of war by simply allowing itself to entertain. Guilt is part of its pleasure, and Verhoeven wrote the book on spectacular bad movies. I wouldn’t write off Black Book though; so ballsy and unadulterated in execution, you’ll struggle to put it down.” TIM WONG’s praise continues....[Read More]

Rarely is there middle ground with Paul Verhoeven, and in contrast KATE BLACKHURST determines Black Book as “one-dimensional” and “The well-lit scenes appear staged and with dramatic music underscoring fight scenes, it felt like watching West Side Story.” In further head-to-heads, TIM WONG describes I Served the King of England as “A two-hour Stella Artois commercial,” while JOE SHEPPARD adds “The whimsical humour has a charming and timeless appeal to it... Served celebrates life’s pleasures, and the appreciation of food, women, money and Pilsner is realised gorgeously.” Also on Tekkonkinkreet: “The imagination and effort behind the detail, colour and shape of this epic behemoth is stunning.” KIM CHOE chimes in with: “Aesthetically, Tekkonkinkreet is proof that you don’t have to be Japanese to make good anime.” She concludes: “The film’s story and its message could have been delivered far more effectively without half an hour’s worth of fire and monsters. It’s a shame, because it’s so textured with symbolism and allegory that it would easily stand up to multiple viewings otherwise.”

SIMON SWEETMAN casts his eye over another music documentary: “I’m Your Man is essentially a live concert show with some talking-head interview slots fleshing it out just enough to justify it as a documentary. Nonetheless it’s a great glimpse in to the world of Leonard Cohen. As a confessional writer, Cohen has always allowed plenty of his psyche in to his work, but only measured amounts of his actual life, so anyone disappointed at the fact that this music doco doesn’t quite dish the dirt is missing the point... to celebrate the man’s work, something Cohen seems incapable of doing himself, hardly touring, recording only sporadically and never, as he basically says himself, looking back.” “Wow. Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness was all that I hoped it might be,” echoes JACOB POWELL in more enthusiasm for the Scottish gem.