Ah, the glamour of life in the Eternal City. A friend had tickets for a screening that was part of the Rome Festival of Cinema, for 10.30 on a Saturday night. Of course one didn't ask “what for?”. My aversion to horror movies being well known, it wouldn’t have been one of them. But had someone told...

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I’m late reporting on George Clooney’s Michael Clayton because it hasn’t been easy to work out what to say, beyond the banal “one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long, long time”. The script plays with time beautifully, with the flashback -- four days earlier -- spooling quietly on so that thing...

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I had read about Werner Herzog’s documentary Grizzly Man, which weaves his own footage with that of the dead bear watcher, although I never really made the effort to seek it out. But when it showed up on a DVD evening at a friend’s house, I wasn’t going to object. It is actually a beautifully made...

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Why does he wear his cap backwards, like the yoof? Other than that, Looking for Richard doesn’t pose many questions. It’s a good enough watch, and in the end you come away with a film within a film, with the very best bits of Richard III staged rather well. I liked the rapid switches between rehea...

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Cate Blachett surely has to be in the running for an Oscar, but as Actor or Actress? Her Jude Quinn (without a parka!) in I'm not there is astonishing, Bob Dylan somehow brought to life. She doesn’t impersonate Dylan, but she somehow recreates him, which is fitting as this wonderful, kaleidoscopic...

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