<i>TAC — Taking Haart</i> could be seen as propaganda, or part of the TAC’s campaign to win hearts and minds. But it’s good propoganda.
We have yet to hit upon a formula that marries the job of mirroring "the nation" and the business of making money.
<i>Conan the Barbarian</i> is not all that barbaric, despite all the limb-severing and so forth.
Two movies this week deal with the way the past can haunt the present, and both in the context of countries with a history of political violence.
Leading Africa scholar Stephen Chan speaks on election monitoring and martial arts.
<em>The Tree of Life </em>seems to linger lovingly over itself, especially its own awed pondering.
The Out in Africa film festival is now staggered throughout the year, and <i>Leave It on the Floor</i> is the festival offering currently on show.
Oliver Hermanus’s film <i>Skoonheid</i> is raking in the prizes, whether in Cannes or, last weekend, at the Durban International Film Festival.
The DIFF has gone from a smallish university-based festival to something that seems to bestride Durban like a colossus.
What an odd movie <i>The Beaver</i> is. Not just that title, in which most Americans would hear the echo of porno-slang, but also its very idea.
Eric Hobsbawm retraces the development of communist theory.
<i>Win Win</i> proves that a quirky approach does not necessarily save a film from irritating banality.
Two new books examine the consequences of battles, both physical and ideological.
<i>Green Lantern</i> features a host of old clichés, has a weak story, and doesn’t look terribly good either.
This month sees the publication of a selection of Shaun de Waal’s movie reviews.. Here he writes about the business of film criticism.
If the technology in <i>Source Code</i> is anything to go by, you, too, could be possessed by Jake Gyllenhaal in the near future.
<em>The Adjustment Bureau</em>, the new Matt Damon vehicle, is all <em>deus ex machina </em>and not much else.
<i>X-Men: First Class</i> has enough action to keep the fight fans happy, and sufficient use of special effects to beguile the sensation-seeking eye.
<b>Shaun de Waal</b> wonders if he would be able to last through the whole <i>Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides</i>.
One is always amused by the froth of commentary, that breaks out all over the internet whenever a new superhero movie hoves into view.
Science, which usually claims to be morally neutral, could help to compute our moral instincts
Films like this put <b>Shaun de Waal</b> in a state of mind guaranteed only to generate maudlin laments for the decline of Western civilisation.
<b>Shaun de Waal</b> says one does not have to see the opening of <i>Water for Elephants</i> to predict the end.
You need a bit of patience to get on with <i>Somewhere</i>, Sofia Coppola’s latest movie. Or, if not patience, then a relatively relaxed frame of mind
<b>Shaun de Waal</b> says that it is a pleasure to be able to announce that <i>The Eagle</i> is a rather good Roman flick.
Sloth, greed and fear are the drivers of human progress. But Ian Harris’s narrative history raises important questions about what follows.
Traditionally, at the Out in Africa gay and lesbian film festival, there isn’t much crossover between the lesbian movies and the flicks for gay men.
Competing metaphors for literary production are like competing discourses. For a healthy industry, we need more of them.
A few years ago <b>Shaun de Waal</b> tried to read the bestseller <i>Freakonomics</i>. He didn’t get very far though.
African film is strung between harsh reality and freeing fantasy. This is evident at the Pan-African film festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Is it a "spoiler" to reveal that a movie has a happy ending? That’s, after an hour and a half of watching suffering and trauma, it all turns out okay.
The Coen brothers’ version of <i>True Grit</i> is going as a return to the novel by Charles Portis rather than a remake.