After an outstanding festival journey, a Tribeca World Documentary Award, and praise from Alec Baldwin, music video director Alma Har'el's debut feature Bombay Beach finally reaches cinema screens across the country. The documentary tells the lyrical story of California's forgotten residents, the of low-income citizens of Salton Sea. Music from Beirut's Zach Condon intermingle with ethereal dance sequences and choreographed scenes scattered amongst real-life events. At once carefully composed and fly-on-the-wall, Har'el's distinctive approach is that of a hybrid documentary, as she plays with the desert light to draw us in to the inner-workings of the locals' dark pasts and family lives. The story tells itself, making plenty of room an artistic flair and injection of sound that elevate the film from a simple documentary to an artistic exploration. Given the colourful flourishes and strains of Beirut, it's so engrossing you could watch Har'el film a toilet flush if it looked and sounded this pleasant.

Watch an exclusive clip from the film:



Bombay Beach is released in UK cinemas on 3 February 2012. Find a list of UK screenings on the official website, and more info on and .


The film is also available to buy on DVD in the USA, .

The Oscar Nominations were announced on Monday, among them Alexander Payne's Golden Globe-winner The Descendants. I'll be reviewing The Descendants on air, followed by a discussion of the Academy Award nominees on the BBC Movie Café alongside and - as is now our regular custom - Mr Paul Gallagher.

You can listen live from 1.15pm on BBC Radio Scotland or online. If you miss it, it'll be free to stream later in the day.

BBC Movie Café is now also available to download as a podcast, so no excuses!

The whole point of editing well is to have the reader exclaim not, "What a wonderfully edited book!" but, rather, "What a wonderful writer!"

— Michael Kandel

For some reason, my first book of the year always ends up being a relatively new Young Adult novel that I've inexplicably overlooked. 2012 is no exception.

As writing a synopsis that doesn't sound trite seems impossible, here's the official one:

Anna was looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she's less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris—until she meets Étienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Étienne has it all... including a serious girlfriend.

Oohh, tricky!

Penned by first-time novelist Stephanie Perkins, Anna and the French Kiss is charming enough but fairly standard YA fare. Stock characters, predictably complicated private lives and love triangles are nothing new, but Perkins injects humour and charm into a concept which could've been dangerously close to encroaching upon 's trademarks.

A fun set of characters and light dialogue keeps things moving at an amicable pace, highlighted by high school hijinks and a little sight-seeing. The relationship between Anna and Etienne is excellently drawn without feeling drawn-out. However, some character traits feel like final draft additions. Anna's allegedly all-consuming love of film is spotty through out, and her and clean freak tendencies often a convenient excuse to end a subplot. Overall, though, there's enough charm and colour to keep this excellent first whack at a first novel above par.

Book #1: ★★★★★

Read More: AVisit From the Goon Squad with Book Talk (Podcast); Link Lust #1

John Michael McDonagh – forever cursed to be billed as brother to In Bruges' writer-director Michael – tries his hand at directing in this scalding debut. Starring Brendan Gleeson as foul-mouthed, small-town Garda Sergeant Gerry Boyle, Irish humour mixes with dark overtones create this wise-cracking black comedy. Don Cheadle co-stars as uptight FBI agent Wendell Everett sent to get to the bottom of a high profile drug trafficking scheme off the coast of Galway. A trio of mis-matched gangsters, including Londoner Mark Strong, run rings around the Garda in a cat-and-mouse game along winding country roads and a perishing coast.

Like Gleeson, it's a little flabby around the middle but its rough-and-ready approach creates a medley of ridiculousness that somehow hits the right notes. Despite some over-stretching, its dialogue pays off. High-brow references and small-town idiosyncrasies clash in rib-tickling fashion, leaving us to ponder whether The Guard's subjects are really mother-effing dumb, or really mother-effing smart.

The Guard is released on DVD in the UK on .


Read more: Gary Tank Commander; Silent Running Blu-Ray Review.

There's a distinct Goon theme going on here this week...

I've teamed up with the Scottish Book Trust to take part in their monthly Book Talk podcast.

Each month host Paul Gallagher invites 2 people along to discuss a new book. I was lucky enough to be invited along to record January's edition, which features myself and the insightful  discussing Jennifer Egan's A Visit From the Goon Squad alongside Paul.

You can listen to the podcast here, download it from iTunes , and keep up with Book Talk at http://scottishbooktrust.com/booktalk.

Book Talk is also running a competition to win the 3 books which feature in the January, February and March podcasts: A Visit From the Goon Squad, The Death of Lomond Friel, and Boxer Beetle. Click over here to enter. Good luck!

A Visit From the Goon Squad is out now. You can buy it over .

Read more: Goon Review.

Superbad co-writer Evan Goldberg and Jay Baruchel team up for a dumb comedy on ice - and that's exactly what you can expect. Seann William Scott stars as loveable meathead Doug who, with a low-region IQ and fists of fury, is everyone's best friend -- until you cross his friends. After an altercation at a local hockey game, he's picked up by the team manager to be an 'enforcer': not a hockey player, but a fighter.

Jay Baruchel keeps proceedings light and the tone extraordinarily low with his effervescent Irish Yank, whose twin loves of hockey and crude sex jokes come together on his amateur TV show Hot Ice. Why an intelligent comedy actor would write himself such a part is baffling and, as can be expected, his string of effusive expletives fail to garner laughs. Only one character gets a shorter shrift with Alison Pill as Doug's love interest. She's given little to work with, bemoaning her lack of self-respect and slowly falling for Doug's innocent sweetness.

Although Goon clocks in at a lean 90 minutes, it doesn't endear itself til somewhere in the second act, while the third falls apart altogether, shedding sub-plots as it reaches its bloody conclusion. Uncomfortably crass and violent at turns, Goon hits the right notes just frequently enough for a one-time watch.

Goon is released in UK cinemas tomorrow, Friday 6 January.

Read more: Link Lust #1.

The other day my friends and I had a conversation about how people present themselves on the internet. My man observed that, "It's almost like taste is the new talent. People are revered for putting together images or even links in ways we find compelling."

It's true, and it's something I've always been envious about -- more than I've ever actually tried it.

As a junkie of words and images (or, as I'm loathe to call it, but secretly hope to be one day considered by my peers, a "culture vulture"), gathering stories, harvesting links, and secretly hoarding away unread tabs like nuts for the winter is part of my routine. I've decided to share it.

• Quotable Queen Miss Piggy and her Guide to Life, and other life lessons via The Paris Review Blog's Emma Straub.
  
  
• Ellipsis podcast from former Rocketboomer Ella Morton - particularly this episode with Alice for the iPad designer Chris Stevens - is compelling listening for creatives.
  
  
• and Kindle Singles have captured my curiosity. Any recommendations?
  
  
• I've always battle the New Year blues by reading the archives of those who inspire me. Rachel Hills' and Susan Orlean's Free Range are good places to start.
  
• If you're a fan (which, by the way, you ought to be); Hank has a new channel called . Perfect for SISNs (secret internet science nerds) and science n00bs.
  
  
• 2011: The Cinescape
  

• Rewind by Levi Beamish -- like Eternal Sunshine in miniature
  

That's right. It's back. Again.

Deriving its name from the book that gave Apocalypse Now its story, Hearts of Darkness is perhaps the world's best-known "The Making of..." documentary. Narrated by Francis Ford Coppola's wife, Eleanor, it's the source for much of the lore about the interminable production of the flamboyant director's Vietnam War Film to end all Vietnam War Films. Hearts of Darkness follows the 238 day, $20 million shoot, faithfully recording its legendary mishaps: from replacing its original lead (Harvey Keitel) two weeks in, through sets destroyed by monsoon rains and helicopters borrowed from the Filipino army recalled to fight rebels in the middle of filming; to the nightly, frenzied script re-writes. All these fed a media storm back home, so that it was probably no wonder Kramer vs Kramer won the Oscar for Best Picture – everyone must have been sick of hearing about the Apocalypse out East. All said, this 90 minutes of self-indulgence makes it a cinephile favourite.

Hearts of Darkness is available to buy on DVD from . (It's also part of the released back in May.)


Read more: Apocalypse Now Blu-Ray Review.

Oh, hello. How are you?

I know the walls of Uncultured Critic have been a little bare this festive season. Things got a little crazy between graduating from my MLitt (in Film Journalism, no less); getting married and, well, the holiday movie slow-down.

So here's an update...
My Top 10 of the Year ambivalence shows no signs of stopping, but some of the films I particularly enjoyed this year include Drive, Source Code, Another Earth, and Bridesmaids.

After setting myself the 52 Book Challenge (up from 50 in previous years), I failed spectacularly but managed a respectable 42. Of which my favourites were by Jeffrey Eugenides, by David Levithan, and by Suzanne Collins. For Christmas I received F. Scott Fitzgerald collection and Susan Orlean's - both of which I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing.

If you're interested in catching up on my work outside of Uncultured Critic...
Three books I contributed to as part of the World Film Locations series are now available to purchase: , , and . I'm currently editing the Glasgow volume, which will be in print by the end of the year!

The BBC Movie Café is now available to download as a podcast -- and I urge you to do so. I'll be back on later this month with more reviews.

The Skinny got a lovely redesign this year - most of my reviews are reposted here, but there's loads more from my colleagues over there, too.

The Big Picture Magazine is also on the verge of a rebirth, but until then you can download the latest issue here, which includes an essay I wrote about the cinema of John Hughes.

How about you?
How have you enjoyed your year in film, books, and beyond? Is there anything you'd like to see on Uncultured Critic in the New Year? Give me a shout in the comments, on , or .

But before you go...
Check out the best of Cinema 2011:




Read more: Rich Hall's Continental Drifters; Inside the New York Times with Andrew Rossi