20th Century Flicks, Bristol

An artful documentary about the life of Daniel Johnson, singer/songwriter, artist, cartoonist and general artistic genius, but a man sadly afflicted with a severe mental illness that makes him totally self-delusional and an occasional danger to both himself and others. Daniel, raised in a Christian fundamentalist family in deepest West Virginia, amongst many of his fantasies, sees Devils everywhere, and with his overblown self-importance, not helped by his legions of admirers, vying with his low find out more...

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (2006)

Certification12 Our Rating

It's 1980s East Germany and our anti-hero, an accomplished surveillance officer, is ordered to spy on a successful and outwardly loyal playwright and his actress girlfriend, but the motive is not entirely political, involving the lust for the girl of a political commissar and the career prospects of his immediate superior. The Stasi officer is dragged into the Kafkaesque web created by this moral duplicity in this compelling and twisting tale. First class. find out more...

THE NAMESAKE (2006)

Certification12 Our Rating

Gogol is a very strange name and somewhat of an embarrassment, as are his parents with their strange sub-continental ways, to a first generation Bengali American, but it is a name that will have relevance to his struggle to forge a personal identity. This charming film spans over three decades from the first fumbles of a successful arranged middle-class Calcutta marriage, through pain and gain, to a slow integration into an American immigrant identity. Not quite an epic, but a heart-warming tale find out more...

THE READER (2007)

Certification15 Our Rating

Germany, 1954; teenager Michael Berg becomes ill on his way home and is helped by Hanna, a taciturn, but attractive woman twice his age. When recovered Michael returns to her apartment to thank the stranger for her kindness he swiftly finds himself involved in a furtive, impassioned affair. As this relationship intensifies Michael discovers Hanna's love of being read to. When Hanna disappears without a trace the young lad is left confused and bereft. find out more...

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (2005)

Certification15 Our Rating

What do you do when your parents are divorcing? More to the point what do you do when it's as ugly as hell and they make your sparse teenage wisdom look like the epitome of well rounded reason? These are the unpleasant dilemmas facing Noah Baumbach's protagonist and it would seem there are no simple answers....if indeed there are any answers at all. The Squid And The Whale is an excruciatingly toe curling comedy drama, painfully, squirmingly funny, with an outstanding performance from Jeff Danie find out more...

THE TIME THAT REMAINS (2010)

Certification15 Our Rating

Based round extracts from his father's diaries and his mothers letters to relatives living in exile, Elia Suleiman recreates life, in four episodes, as an Israeli Arab from the creation of the Israeli state in 1948 until today.
Eloquent and dryly humorous. find out more...

THIS IS ENGLAND (2006)

Certification18 Our Rating

Back in England, in the early 80s, bullied at school and mourning his father, recently dead in Thatcher's heroic Falklands War, lonely 12-year-old Shaun finds solace with a gang of older youths in the ska influenced skinhead subculture, a culture that was about to be hijacked by a nasty and virulent form of white power nationalism. Largely based round Shane Meadows' own experiences growing up on an impoverished Nottingham housing estate. Strongly recommended. find out more...