The follow-up to the hugely successful The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire picks up the story of Lisbeth Salander about a year and a half after the previous film ended. She has been lying low, not even communicating for several months with Millenium editor Mikael Blomqvist. But now she is ready to come home.

Mikael has been working with a freelance journalist, Dag, who, with his girlfriend, has discovered that some very influential Swedes are involved with girls who have been illegally trafficked. About to go public with names, Dag and his girlfriend are murdered and the gun bears prints belonging to none other than Lisbeth Salander.

Soon the police, as well as some very bad men are after her, forcing the tattooed woman to go to extreme measures to keep safe. Her past will not stay buried and as the search for her deepens, we learn more about it and why these bad men might be so eager to get their hands on her. Finally she must meet her past, face to face.

That’s all the plot detail I can go into without giving too much away. Rest assured though, this is a tightly woven thriller with enough action to keep it dynamic even as it examines the darker sides of the characters' psyches. Clearly a bridging story, the film is open-ended, leaving us hanging on the edge of our seats for answers that will, I hope, be forthcoming in the third instalment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

As in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Noomi Rapace is perfect as Salander. She brings to the character a steely toughness that is not hard or mean but underlined with vulnerability and sensitivity. Creating a character this nuanced and complex on screen is no easy feat, yet Rapace makes it easy, even when some of the supporting cast make their villains almost cartoonish.

trailer: www.youtube.com

web: www.millenniumtrilogymovie.com

Nominated for 10 Cesar Awards - the French Oscars - Welcome tells the story of the bond that grows between a listless, recently divorced Calais swimming instructor and a Kurdish boy who wants desperately to learn to swim. Having endured three months of clandestine travel to reach Calais from Iraq, Bial is trying to get to London to reunite with his girlfriend. Simon is about to finalize his divorce from Marion, one of the volunteers helping the refugees who flood through the port in hope of a better life in the UK. On an impulse, Simon offers Bial and his friend Zoran a bed for the night, something that is illegal.

The film deals powerfully with the grey areas of morality surrounding the treatment of refugees, but rather than being a big 'message movie', Welcome focuses on the individuals. The performances are fantastic, each character fully drawn and nuanced. While we may question Simon's choices, we can recognize where they have come from and enjoy the way his character develops from the impulse that sets him in motion.

This is a rewarding and superbly made piece of cinema. Don't miss it.

trailer: youtube.com

Britain's answer to Gran Torino stars Michael Caine, and actor whose face and voice are almost as familiar to movies-goers as those of Clint Eastwood. It is a revenge thriller that depends on an older actor to convince us that he is still capable of acts of extreme violence. If anyone can, it’s Caine.

Harry Brown lives in a London housing estate with his dying wife. The estate has been taken over by drug dealers and nobody is safe on the streets anymore. To begin with Harry seems a lonely sad geezer who spends his days with a mate, Leonard, playing chess in the pub on the estate. Leonard’s life is as miserable as Harry's. The thugs have been shoving dog poo through his mail slot. One day, when they shove burning newspaper through as well, he loses it and heads to an underpass the gang controls to confront them.

Frampton, a young police officer has to tell Harry that his friend has been killed. Harry tells the police officer that the police have no power in the area and she has to agree. Harry takes matters into his own hands, seeking revenge for Leonard’s death and trying to take back the neighbourhood for decent folk.

The film succeeds because Caine never steps out of character. Even when things turn ugly and he is forced to do things he never thought he would, he remains an old geezer. The film brings up several issues including police power, and urban crime, but the issues never bog down what is, at the heart, a darn good story.

Dramatic, powerful and completely without the CGI that most films seem dependent on these days, Harry Brown relies on good storytelling and characterization to create a compelling and riveting film.

web: www.harrybrownthemovie.co.uk

In Venice, 1763, writer Lorenzo da Ponte leads a life of sin and excess. Originally a priest, his numerous affairs lead to his exile in Vienna in 1781. He is introduced by his friend and mentor, Giacomo Casanova, to the King's preferred composer, Salieri and one Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. As a means to undermine his rival's career, Salieri tricks Mozart into hiring da Ponte as his librettist. Little does he know that da Ponte's expansive personality and exploits in Vienna will inspire Mozart's most powerful composition, Don Giovanni.

Lusciously shot and with the most gorgeous costumes seen on screen for a long time, I Don Giovanni is a spectacular film in the best sense of the word. 18th century Venice and Vienna are painstakingly recreated.

History buffs may sneer at a few historical inaccuracies, but they exist more as shorthand for the storytelling than as malicious distortions of the facts. This is a human drama with an historical setting, not an historical drama.

Spanish director Saura is known for the passion he brings to the screen, and music has long been a favourite subject for him through such films as Carmen, Salome and Tango. The actors are uniformly good and the women in particular are spectacularly good looking.

This is a stunning looking film with plenty of love, lust, jealousies and creative tensions to keep it engaging from first scene to last.

web: www.luckyred.it/iodongiovanni

Based on the highly successful novel by Steig Larssen, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a taut and twisty thriller. Mikael is a journalist who has been sentenced to three months in prison following his revealing of a financier’s dodgy tax shelters. Still at large while waiting for the date his incarceration is to begin, he is contacted by an industry tycoon, Venger, who has a forty-year-old mystery he would like solved. Impressed by Mikael's journalistic work, and his tenacity when he knows he is onto something, Venger hires him to try and get some answers.

Mikael moves to Venger's island community and begins investigating, helped with his odd quest by a Goth woman hacker, Elsbeth. Elsbeth has a criminal past of her own, and is reluctant to give away anything about her past.

I can't say much more about the plot without giving it away, so I'll stop here. Anyone who has read the book is likely to be a little disappointed by how compressed the novel has become in this screen translation, despite it being close to two and a half hours long. But for those who haven't read it, there are enough plot twists, dramatic turns and unsavoury characters to fill two regular movies. With news of a US version going into production already, make sure you don't miss the Swedish original!

web: loshombresquenoamabanalasmujeres.es

trailer: youtube trailer

Winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2009, Michael Haneke's latest film is as disquieting and frightening as any of his earlier works (Funny Games, Benny's Video) if less in your face about it. Here the setting is an idyllic pastoral village just before WWI. A series of seemingly unconnected accidents, beginning with the doctor being injured when his horse is tripped by a wire, set the villagers reeling.

The village is small and everyone knows each other. The Baron and the Pastor keep the villagers firmly under control with their rigid hierarchy, meting out brutal punishment on anyone who dares to break the iron-bound rules. As the 'accidents' continue - a barn is burned, a child is savagely beaten – a sense of dread pervades the village.

The story is narrated by the village school-teacher, something that is not a coincidence; it is the children who are contaminated by the air of malice and distrust that falls over the village as the horrors continue. The film is long and introduces a large cast of characters as it winds through its discomforting tale, each new scene a possible clue as to who might be the perpetrator of the crimes.

Haneke is known for his shocks, for the horrific images that remain seared on your brain long after you leave the cinema. In The White Ribbon, I was waiting for that moment, expecting something that would jolt me from my seat with its sheer power. I was not disappointed, but rather than the shock coming from a single moment, it was the culmination of the film that left me reeling with the dawning realization that the village was not changing so much as exposing a poison that had lurked beneath for many years.

While not exactly an explanation for the rise of the Nazis in Germany, there is certainly more than a hint here of a hypocritical society desperately in need of change. Powerful, frightening and never less than enthralling, this film has a cold precision that will leave you with a sense of wrongness that you may not be able to shake or understand until long after leaving the cinema. It did not have quite the effect The Piano Teacher had on me, but was no less shocking, albeit in a slightly different way.

trailer: www.youtube.com

web: www.thewhiteribbon.ca

Anyone who thinks Joan Rivers is nothing more than a poster-girl for plastic surgery should see this film. Filmmakers Stern and Sundberg spent a year with Rivers (her 75th) and have managed to put together a complex and multi-layered portrait of a woman who is much more than just a funny gal.

Driven is the only word you can use to describe the woman. She begins the film lamenting the white space in her diary, comparing it to those from the heyday when she was booked for 3 or 4 events a day. Unable to rest, she sets about filling those pages, taking whatever work she can get, and making her own work when she can't get it.

She is unapologetic about her lifestyle, saying she prefers to work hard and keep herself in the luxury she likes, rather than living carefully. And seeing the interior of her New York apartment, you know she's telling the truth.

She is a born entertainer, trying out new material on anyone she comes into contact with. After the opening night of her play in London, she pores over reviews with her assistant, gleaning as much meaning from each one as she can.

Frank about everything, Rivers does not shy away from discussing her own family tragedy, explaining that a TV movie she and daughter Melissa did about their lives, playing themselves was therapy.

This is a thoughtful and thought provoking portrait of a woman whose career has spanned five decades, and continues to persevere long after most women performers have gracefully faded from the spotlight.

web: ifcfilms.com

Famously anonymous yet attention seeking street artist Banksy turns his hand to cinema with this odd documentary that manages to be both about the artist, and by the artist, without ever getting close to him. Thierry Guetta is a hyperactive Frenchman in LA who is obsessed with filming everything he comes across. On a trip to France, he hangs out with his cousin, street artist Space Invader and discovers that he loves the thrill of street art. Back in LA he throws himself into meeting and filming as many street artists as he can, getting intimately involved with them and their work.

It is through these friendships that Guetta meets Banksy and the elusive artist allows Guetta to follow and film him as he does his work so long as his face is never exposed. Through Guetta's camera we see Banksy erect a blow up Guantanamo Bay prisoner at Disneyland, erect a twisted red phone booth on a London Street and get a look at the boxes of counterfeit banknotes with Lady Di’s face on them that Banksy produced.

Fascinated to see what Guetta has made out of the footage, Bansky asks to see the finished doco and is horrified at the result. He then urges Guetta to go out and make his own art and takes over the film project, following Guetta as he mounts the most insanely huge, self-indulgent and talentless art exhibition possible.

The film is hilarious and disturbing by turns, and its commentary on the art world is both cynical and painfully adroit. This film is not just for street-art aficionados, or art buffs. There are enough cons and conspiracy theories here to fill a dozen films, and Guetta is a mad guide through it all.

web: www.banksyfilm.com

This may be the most unnecessary film ever made.

A pair of American tourists are travelling through Germany when their car breaks down in the middle of a forest. They eventually find a house and ask to use the telephone. Unfortunately the house they have stumbled upon is that of Dr Heiter, a respected surgeon whose work separating conjoined twins is a thing of legend. Now retired, Heiter has gone totally bonkers and wants to do the opposite to what he spent his life doing: create a functioning human centipede.

The two hapless girls and a Japanese tourist are the test subjects and have their kneecaps surgically removed. He then joins them, by sewing the lips of one to the anus of the next.

As the psychotic Dr Heiter, Deiter Laser is perfect, his face deranged from start to finish.

web: www.humancentipede.co.uk

In the 1960s, Dieter and Irene have fled East Berlin with their three children, hopeful for a better life in the West. But nothing ever goes as smoothly as planned. Peaceful Times is a delightfully odd child's view of the problems facing the family. Irene can't let go of her Communist mindset and lives in constant terror of a Russian invasion. Meanwhile, Dad, Dieter, is loving the loose, swinging ways of the West and revels in his newfound freedom.

Faced with this fast-growing rift between their parents, the two little girls plan their divorce, knowing it will make everyone happier.

Quirky and fun, this film is a touching addition to the pantheon of films being made about the lives disrupted by The Wall.

Far more comprehensible than his later outings, David Lynch's Blue Velvet does not shy away from the director's characteristic weirdness. Opening in a generic small town setting, the film quickly delves into the darkness seething beneath the surface, even while satirizing the small-town mores.

College student, Jeffery, is home for the summer, visiting his father in hospital. He quickly re-establishes a relationship with the sheriff's daughter and with her, goes about discovering the origin of a severed ear he finds in a field.

He is quickly drawn to the home of lounge singer Dorothy, and hides in her closet while she performs depraved, masochistic sex with Frank Booth, a man who is holding her family captive. It soon becomes apparent that Dorothy likes her sex rough - real rough. She drags Jeffery into this world, embroiling him in an affair that takes him to places he probably never thought he'd go.

Dennis Hopper's career was made up of over-the-top villains, but here, he outdoes himself. Frank Booth is genuinely terrifying, a man without a single redeeming quality or anything to render him remotely human. Kyle McLachlan embodies just the right mixture of innocence and naivety to make him convincing. But the real star is Isabella Rosselini. Her role requires her to be degraded, humiliated and beaten, but she is never less than convincing. Embodying this character with all her damaged psyche and peculiar pecadillos could not have been easy, but Rosselini is so convincing we almost believe she really is this character.

It is easy to see why this is considered Lynch's masterpiece. We have a magnificent new 35mm print for you, but only for one weekend. Don’t miss it.

web: mgm.com

Scouted on the street at fourteen, model Sara Ziff grew up in front of the camera. Initially a means to rebel against her academic background, by the time she was 20, Ziff's career had proved a lucrative alternative to college. But her academic urge never left her, and she and boyfriend Ole Schell started filming behind the scenes.

The footage they shot became this film.

Candid and even-handed, Ziff's portrait of her rise through the world of modelling is one of the most enlightening portraits of that world seen to date. Life on the road, backstage parties and castings are all shown, and Ziff does not shy away from the distasteful side of her profession.

For an insider's look at one of the most ruthless industries in the world, this film is honest, confrontational and unafraid to go where no one has gone before.

web: myspace.com/picturemefilm

This amazing true story makes for an atmospheric and tense spy thriller. In the early 1980s, a disillusioned KGB agent decides that the world will be a safer place if the US knew how thoroughly the Soviets had infiltrated their security. He selects an unassuming French engineer to take this information to the West. As the inexperienced spy faces the challenges his mission throws up, his panic grows.

Few people know about this episode, but it played an important part in the downfall of the Soviet Union. Some of the Soviet spies who were compromised through this mission had been in the US for decades.

The title, Farewell, was the code name of the KGB source, and this film plays out in a serious for scenes that ratchet suspense to the highest level. In the lead roles, director Carion has chosen not actors, but directors- Emir Kusturica as the Soviet and Guillaume Canet as the Frenchman. The script, based on a book by Sergei Kostine, is clear and filled with delightful paranoid touches.

More engaging than any recent Hollywood thriller, this film may well be the most thrilling film of the year.

trailer: www.youtube.com

web: www.neoclassicsfilms.com

In the 80s, like all young Israeli men, director Samuel Moaz served in the Israeli armed forces. This visceral, confrontational film is taken directly from his experiences in much the same way as his countryman Ari Folman did in his film Waltz With Bashir. The film is as much concerned with the devastation of Israeli soldiers as it is with the destruction wrought on the other side.

Set over 24 hours in the confines of a tank, the film shows us four typical young men, terrified out of their wits. Moaz takes us inside their experience, showing us the outside world the way they see it, through the cross-hairs of the gunner's sights and through the viewfinder.

This is no heroic war movie. It is grimy and confrontational, taking us inside the real experience of war. It is not a comfortable viewing experience, but an important one. Generations of men have been expected to go through this experience. While not a fun experience, this is an essential addition to the darker echelon of war movies.

web: sonyclassics.com/lebanon

With Sea Shepherd's actions in our own waters making headlines recently, there seems no better time to screen this outstanding documentary about the organisation's founder, Paul Watson. The film takes us through Paul's activist background; his first claim to fame is having been the youngest founding member of Greenpeace. Once he realized that Greenpeace were primarily about raising funds and awareness and less about actually protecting the ocean, he left them to form his own organization to do more.

Now he is best known as the vigilante environmentalist who arrests illegal fishermen and shark-finners (see Sharkwater which we screened in 2008 for his scene stealing turn). This documentary covers several of Paul's most recent and noteworthy accomplishments including the time Paul saw Japanese fishermen fishing illegally. He rammed their boat after documenting their criminal act. The Japanese vessel filed a complaint against him. Paul admitted guilt and provided his videotape of the infarction as evidence to the courts. The fishermen never turned up to court and ended up dropping all charges, claming the event never happened.

A more disturbing section of the film deals with the Canadian culling of baby fur seals. Not only is the slaughter of these beautiful creatures horrific to watch, but the spewing invective coming from the cullers at the Sea Shepherd crew is full of blind, misguided hatred.

In the face of such a glowing portrayal, it would be easy to imagine that director Ron Colby kept something off camera, some darker side of Watson that he doesn’t wish to show. But Paul is an open book, admitting openly to damaging vessels whose occupants are performing illegal acts. But he also proudly claims never to have killed or injured anyone in the process. He has complete knowledge of maritime law, and is enforcing it in places where no national government is doing so.

Charismatic and committed, Paul Watson is a vigilante, but not in the classic sense of the word. The cause he champions is an important one, and he and his organization are clearly taking on a role that nobody else is willing to. This film will, I'm sure, bring more people together to support him.

web: www.pirateforthesea.com

Winner of two awards at Sundance this year, Winter’s Bone is, quite possibly, the best film of 2010. The deceptively simple story of a young girl searching for her deadbeat father in the unforgiving Ozark mountains is a masterpiece of characterization. Seventeen year old Ree is raising her younger brother and sister and taking care of her mentally absent mother. Their father, well know meth-producer, is gone.

When the sheriff shows up and tells Ree her Dad has put up the house as bond, and he must show up for a court date or lose it, Ree determines to find him. She treks the surrounding area, speaking to anyone and everyone who might have a clue as to her Dad's whereabouts. Everyone seems to know him, but no one is willing to say anything. As her journey continues, Ree becomes increasingly certain that her father is dead, but without a body, she can’t prove it, and therefore will still lose the house.

The landscape she travels through is bleak, filled with rusted, old, broken and abandoned objects. That she can maintain the level of optimism she does, is startling, and she passes that good cheer onto her siblings, both of whom play happily, unaware that they are lacking for anything.

This is a film that exists only because of the strength of the characters. Apart from Ree and her siblings, almost everyone she comes across has some agenda, and most include drugs in some way shape or form. Her uncle Teardrop is a void; her neighbour wants to take her brother away to help with the heavy farm work; the family patriach is terrified she might reveal something about their practices to the law. But through it all, Ree maintains a steely strength and an unflagging belief in human nature.

Beautiful, tragic and horrifying, Winter's Bone is a brilliant piece of film making and one you will not want to miss.

web: www.wintersbonemovie.com

An outsider trying to learn about New Zealand from the films produced here could easily be forgiven if they came to the conclusion that life is a constant trial for most of us. A black streak a mile wide seems to cut across almost every film produced here, and After the Waterfall does not veer from type. Anthony Starr plays John, a park ranger with a gorgeous wife and beautiful daughter. The film opens with the family and their friends celebrating his finishing the renovations on their remote but gorgeous house. Even as the party goes on, there are ripples of dissatisfaction underneath the seemingly joyous surface.

On a routine trip into the national park, John’s daughter vanishes without a trace. As the search drags out over days and weeks without uncovering any clues, Ana and John’s relationship grows strained. Whether intentional or not, John is injured, destroying the house at the same time. While he is recovering in hospital, Ana seeks solace in the arms of his best friend.

Cut to three years later. John is living with his increasingly senile father and driving a taxi for a living. He has not seen Ana for some time and is shocked when he discovers she is pregnant to the man she left him for, the detective in charge of finding his daughter.

It sounds like a tale of woe, and yes, it is. But essentially it is a character piece, examining how much bad stuff one man can take before he crumbles beneath its weight. Anthony Starr does a fine job here, embodying the unfortunate John fully. His journey is a dark one, yet never feels to heavy to bear.

After the Waterfall is a beautifully shot, flawlessly acted piece.

interview: youtube.com