The Man Who Can't Stop Hiccupping (2010)

Recommended

UK

Short Television Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Luke Menges

Narrator: Amanda St John

Featuring: Christopher Sands

This brief but effective documentary follows Christopher Sands, a 25-year-old aspiring musician who has suffered from hiccups for nearly three years, as he attempts to find a cure or explanation for his debilitating condition, which makes it impossible for him to work and nigh impossible for him to eat, sleep, or socialise. Iain.Stott

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Robinson in Space (1997)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director/Cinematographer: Patrick Keiller

Narrator: Paul Scofield

Following on from the oft delightful London (1994), Keiller’s docu-essay again sees an unseen narrator and his companion, Robinson, setting out on a journey to paint a picture of the state of the nation, this time leaving behind the capital to explore the provinces, seeking out sights of historical interest whilst lamenting modern trends, and whilst it’s just as insightful and informative as its predecessor it is decidedly less witty. Iain.Stott

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London (1994)

Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director/Cinematographer: Patrick Keiller

Narrator: Paul Scofield

Our narrator, accompanied by his former lover, Robinson, take us on several journeys around London throughout 1992, imparting pithy observations and pessimistic insights about the state of the nation, observing John Major’s re-election, the IRA’s sustained bombing campaign, and numerous other rather depressing events, in Keiller’s delightfully irreverent but decidedly unnerving docu-essay. Iain.Stott

Followed by Robinson in Space (1997)

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Rock & Chips (2010)

UK

Television Film

Director: Dewi Humphreys

Writer: John Sullivan

Cinematographer: John Sorapure

Cast: Nicholas Lyndhurst, Kellie Bright, Phil Daniels, Shaun Dingwall, James Buckley, Stephen Lloyd, Lewis Osborne, Ashley Gerlach, Lee Long, Jonathan Readwin, Paul Putner, Emma Cooke, Robert Daws, Roger Griffiths, Jodie Mooney, Katie Griffiths

Rock & Chips (2010)

John Sullivan’s gently humorous, surprisingly touching, and reassuringly familiar prequel to his long running sitcom Only Fools and Horses presents – with a wonderful performance from Bright and a gorgeous soundtrack – a bitter-sweet portrait of the Trotter clan in early ‘60s Peckham, concentrating on Joan Trotter’s illicit but beautiful and all too fleeting romance with Fredrick ‘Freddie the Frog’ Robdal.

Five Gold Rings (2010)

With his schooldays behind him, Del, imported American records and fake diamond rings in hand, sets out on a life of dodgy-dealing and bird-pulling, whilst his beloved mother, Joan, as put-upon as ever, struggles to resist the advances of a recently bailed Freddie the Frog, in this entertaining though less affecting second outing for Sullivan’s ‘60s-set Only Fools and Horses prequel. Iain.Stott

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Garage (2007)

Highly Recommended

Ireland/UK

Feature Film

Director: Leonard Abrahamson

Writer: Mark O'Halloran

Cinematographer: Peter Robertson

Composer: Stephen Rennicks

Cast: Pat Shortt, Conor Ryan, Anne-Marie Duff, Tommy Fitzgerald, John Keogh, Andrew Bennett, Tom Hickey, Denis Conway, George Costigan

A sweet and agreeable if rather slow and terribly lonely middle-aged man, who has spent his entire life in the same small western Irish town, and most of it working at the same small, independent petrol station, forms an unlikely friendship with a confused 15-year-old boy, who has recently started working at the garage on weekends, in Abrahamson’s subtly written, expressively shot, and affectingly acted character study. Iain.Stott

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Field (2001)

Recommended

UK

Short Film

Writer/Director: Duane Hopkins

Cinematographer: Lol Crawley

Cast: Kevin Firkins, Tim Dyer, James Peacey, Jim Gladwin, Paul Billing, The Staff and Pupils of Stour Valley Community School

Three boys – with a bottle of Coke, a bottle of booze, an aerosol, a lighter, and a BMX – spend a delinquential afternoon/evening in a farmer’s field, causing untold havoc, in Duane Hopkins’s enigmatic, understated, and poetically beautiful debut short. Iain.Stott

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Love Me or Leave Me Alone (2003)

Recommended

UK

Short Film

Writer/Director: Duane Hopkins

Cinematographer: Lol Crawley

Cast: Jay Firkins, Zoe Rietti

In Duane Hopkins’s poetic, beautifully photographed, and enigmatically moving short film, a young teenage couple argue strongly; she walks off determinedly; he sits and sulks for a while before realising his mistake; he searches for her, finds her, and pesters her until she relents; they have sex; he says I love you; she replies, “I’ll see you at school on Monday” – and we are left wanting for more. Iain.Stott

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Better Things (2008)

Recommended

UK/Germany

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Duane Hopkins

Cinematographer: Lol Crawley

Composer: Dan Berridge

Cast: Liam McIlfatrick, Che Corr, Tara Ballard, Freddie Cunliffe, Rachel McIntyre, Patricia Loveland, Betty Bench, Frank Bench, Megan Palmer, Kurt Taylor, Mike Randle, Michael Socha, Katie Samuels, Kerry Rowe

Although some of the performances are a tad wooden, and the dialogue occasionally feels a little awkward, Duane Hopkins’s feature debut – following on from a pair of excellent shorts – is an often ethereally beautiful concoction (one sequence in particular, in which a grieving heroin addict fantasises about embracing his dead girlfriend whilst his drug of choice makes its way through his veins, is amongst the most achingly beautiful sequences I’ve ever seen), but at other times, this portrait of disaffected, lovelorn, drug-addled youth is merely wrist-slittingly depressing. Iain.Stott

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In the Loop (2009)

Recommended

UK/Cayman Islands

Feature Film

Director: Armando Iannucci

Writers: Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Iannucci, Tony Roche, Ian Martin

Cinematographer: Jamie Cairney

Composer: Adem Ilhan

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Anna Chlumsky, Enzo Cilenti, Paul Higgins, Mimi Kennedy, Steve Coogan

Armando Iannucci’s trouser-soilingly funny and worryingly credible feeling spin off from his BBC sitcom, The Thick of It, presents the political machinations of a bunch of British and American politicians, spin-doctors, and aids in the build up to a morally dubious middle-eastern conflict, a war that painfully and hilariously mirrors the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iain.Stott

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Nil by Mouth (1997)

Highly Recommended

UK/France

Feature Film

Writer/Director: Gary Oldman

Cinematographer: Ron Fortunato

Composer: Eric Clapton

Cast: Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles, Laila Morse, Edna Doré, Chrissie Cotterill, Jon Morrison, Jamie Foreman, Steve Sweeney

Ray Winstone is extraordinary as a bullying yet charismatic small time criminal, who spends much of his time drinking heavily and taking out his frustrations on his long-suffering wife’s face, in Gary Oldman’s painfully visceral, emotionally devastating, and absolutely convincing portrait of booze soaked, blood stained lives. Iain.Stott

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Syndromes and a Century (2006)

Essential Viewing

Thailand/France/Austria/UK

Feature Film

Original Title: แสงศตวรรษ

Writer/Director: Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Cinematographer: Sayombhu Mukdeeprom

Cast: Nantarat Sawaddikul, Jaruchai Iamaram, Nu Nimsomboon, Sophon Pukanok, Jenjira Pongpas, Arkanae Cherkam, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Sin Kaewpakpin

Weerasethakul’s spellbindingly compelling, gently humorous, vaguely unsettling, and joyously human film, one of seven pieces commissioned for the New Crowned Hope Festival (part of Vienna’s celebration of Mozart’s 250th birthday), pays tribute to the film-maker’s parents, both of whom were doctors, presenting, plotlessly in two mirrored parts, Thai hospital life (the first part in a small rural hospital, the second in a large urban one). Iain.Stott

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Mrs Brown (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

UK/Ireland/USA

Feature Film

Director: John Madden

Writer: Jeremy Brock

Cinematographer: Richard Greatrex

Composer: Stephen Warbeck

Cast: Judi Dench, Billy Connolly, Geoffrey Palmer, Antony Sher, Gerard Butler, Richard Pasco, David Westhead

Three years into her period of mourning, Queen Victoria sends for John Brown, a no-nonsense Scotsman who was a favourite servant of her late husband; gradually, an unlikely friendship develops, much to the chagrin of just about everyone else, in Madden’s beautifully acted and quietly moving if slightly cold and disjointed film. Iain.Stott

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Paintbrush (2008)

Recommended

UK

Short Film

Director: Alex Barrett

Writers: Alex Barrett, Rahim Moledina

Narrator: Sarah Louise Young

Cast: Alex Barrett, Joe Swanberg, Rachel Bright, Charlotte Coy, Sanj Surati, Vanessa Govinden, Peter Harmer, Jessica Hymas, Alex Adams, Lachlan McCall

Made-up entirely of still photographs with a deliciously cold voiceover from Young, Barrett’s very funny, spot-on satirical jab at online social networking presents a portrait of ten users of the fictional website, Paintbrush, highlighting the tenuous reasons behind their friendships, and poking at the truth behind their public personas. Iain.Stott

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Ma Vie en Rose (1997)

Recommended

France/Belgium/UK

Feature Film

Original Title: Ma vie en rose

Director: Alain Berliner

Writers: Alain Berliner, Chris Vander Stappen

Cinematographer: Yves Cape

Composers: Dominique Dalcan, Zazie

Cast: Georges Du Fresne, Michèle Laroque, Jean-Philippe Écoffey, Hélène Vincent, Daniel Hanssens, Laurence Bibot, Jean-François Gallotte, Caroline Baehr, Julien Rivière, Marie Bunel

When their youngest son, who has a fascination for women’s clothing, makeup, and dolls, declares that he will marry the boy next door when he becomes a girl, a married suburban couple struggle against their friends’, their neighbours’, and their own prejudices, in Berliner’s entertaining if slightly too neatly concluded film, which boasts a remarkable and remarkably restrained central performance. Iain.Stott

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The End (2008)

Recommended

USA/Germany

Feature Documentary

Director/Cinematographer: Nicola Collins

Composer: Nick Page

Featuring: Les Falco, Victor Dark, Mickey Goldtooth, Danny Woollard, Roy Shaw, Jimmy Tibbs, Mickey Ganella, Matt Attrell, Bobby Reading, Mickey Taheny, Alan Mortlock

Nicola and Teena Collins’s fascinating, nauseating, and neither glamorising nor judgmental monochrome documentary presents to us a collection of ageing, greying eastend gangsters, villains, and rascals (including their father, Les Falco, as well as numerous of his friends and colleagues), in a series of interviews, allowing them to relate to us (mostly unapologetically) their lives of crime. Iain.Stott

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Twin Town (1997)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Director: Kevin Allen

Writers: Kevin Allen, Paul Durden

Cinematographer: John Mathieson

Composer: Mark Thomas

Cast: Rhys Ifans, Llyr Ifans, Dougray Scott, Dorien Thomas, Rachel Scorgie, William Thomas, Brian Hibbard, Huw Ceredig, Di Botcher, Jenny Evans, Sue Roderick, Morgan Hopkins

When their father falls off a roof and breaks his leg whilst doing a cash-in-hand roofing job, the Lewis twins go to local bigwig Bryn Cartwright in search of compensation; when none is forthcoming, they set out to gain vengeance, which leads only to a series of escalating, tit-for-tat violent confrontations, culminating in a decidedly unpleasant burial at sea, in this foul-mouthedly and blackly humorous yet rather sour little film. Iain.Stott

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Riot at the Rite (2005)

Recommended

UK

Television Film

Director: Andy Wilson

Writer: Kevin Elyot

Cinematographer: Sue Gibson

Cast: Adam Garcia, Alex Jennings, Aidan McArdle, Rachael Stirling, Emma Pierson, Griff Rhys Jones, Jonathan Aris, Richard Hope

This sumptuous, compelling, and lovingly made BBC film depicts the build-up to and preparation for the notorious first performance of the Stravinsky-Nijinsky-Roerich ballet, The Rite of Spring, a radically brilliant work, which had its Parisian audience booing, hissing, and on the verge of rioting. Iain.Stott

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A Child's Christmases in Wales (2009)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Short Television Film

Director: Christine Gernon

Writers: Mark Watson, Dylan Thomas

Cinematographer: Ray Orton

Composer: Paul Clark

Cast: Ruth Jones, Mark Lewis Jones, Steve Speirs, Paul Kaye, Michael Sheen, Oliver Bunyan, Jamie Burch, Mark Charles Williams, Rhys McLellan, Alex Beckett

A man relates to us incidents from three Christmases from his adolescence in 1980s South Wales, detailing the family squabbles, unwanted presents, and strange traditions that reoccur yearly, in this warm, witty, and lovingly made if rather lightweight BBC comedy, which just about perfectly captures the nostalgic, slightly over-the-top nature of childhood reminiscences. Iain.Stott

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Proof (2005)

Recommended

USA/UK

Feature Film

Director: John Madden

Writers: David Auburn, Rebecca Miller

Cinematographer: Alwin Küchler

Composer: Stephen Warbeck

Cast: Gwyneth Paltrow, Hope Davis, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anthony Hopkins

When her father, a once brilliant mathematician with severe mental health problems, dies, leaving her alone, Catherine, a doleful young woman, struggles with thoughts about how many of her father’s flaws and virtues she may have inherited, in this small, impeccably acted film – an adaptation of Auburn’s award winning play. Iain.Stott

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The Last American Freak Show (2008)

Not Recommended

UK

Feature Documentary

Director: Richard Butchins

Cinematographers: Richard Butchins, Naiti Gámez, Billy MacCartney

Disabled film-maker Richard Butchins’s diverting if hardly probing film documents a rather shambolic tour of the rather shambolic 999 Eyes Authentic Freakshow, detailing its numerous ups and downs, but unfortunately it barely touches on the issue of exploitation, and never really gets close to delving beneath the surfaces of its misshapen protagonists. Iain.Stott

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