STAR-STUDDED SLATE OF COMPOSERS FOR THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

James Horner scored Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man, and obviously didn't do an amazing enough job, as he's been replaced by Hans Zimmer for the sequel. And Zimmer is recruiting all his popular music buddies to collaborate with him on the score for what Sony is positioning as next summer's biggest blockbuster. Michael Einziger from Incubus (Zimmer's collaborator on The Lone Ranger), Johnny Marr from The Smiths (Inception), Dave Stewart from Eurythmics (Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted) and Pharrell Williams (Despicable Me and its sequel) will all contribute to the score. Cor!

IMAGES FROM VINTERBERG'S FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Had forgotten about this, but these ravishing stills will linger long in my memory, I'm sure. Thomas Vinterberg directs David Nicholls' adaptation of Thomas Hardy's celebrated novel. The cinematographer is Vinterberg's collaborator on The Hunt, Charlotte Bruus Christensen, and she's confirming in these images that the talent we noticed in her framing in that film was no fluke. Alas, as good as I expect this to be, Tom Sturridge and Carey Mulligan sure ain't no Terence Stamp and Julie Christie, but then who ever could be?

THREE-HANKY THURSDAY - DANCER IN THE DARK

This is what happens when you watch Dancer in the Dark.

Lars von Trier gives it right to you. You don't have to take it. He's a master manipulator, which is kind of to say he's a master filmmaker. Dancer in the Dark is an incredible film with an incredible performance by Bjork, and its concluding scene is incredibly moving. You don't know gut-wrenching cinema until you know Dancer in the Dark.

ROBERT ZEMECKIS WILL MAKE THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE

Kate DiCamillo wrote the novel The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane about a china rabbit on a journey. I suppose the rabbit is called Edward Tulane. Robert Zemeckis, who was also recently attached to direct a live action adaptation of Marwencol will serve as director on the adaptation for New Line.

TWO NEW LABOUR DAY TRAILERS

Above, the theatrical trailer for Jason Reitman's adaptation of Joyce Maynard's novel, starring Josh Brolin and Kate Winslet in a role that has brought calls for her to receive a seventh Oscar nomination. I like it. Also, here's a link for the online trailer for the film, which is a lot less mushy and girly, and a lot worse. A limited US release on Christmas Day with a planned nationwide expansion on the 31st of January, and a UK release on the 7th of February, so you bet they're aiming for Oscars with this!

REVIEW - THOR: THE DARK WORLD

Some believe that, before the universe, there was nothing. They're wrong. There was darkness, and it is from this darkness that Thor: The Dark World descends upon us, in all its ignominious wretchedness. Hollywood, you can continue making films like this, blockbusters which preach only to a congregation preconditioned to consume such bespoke produce, and you can prove the pessimists right, those who believe that the end is nigh for the industry, and that darkness will snatch it, swallow it and shit it back out. Or you can respond to trends which suggest that audiences crave something a little different, a little more challenging, a little more original. As if to respond directly to the mass nerdgasm stimulated by The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World is tailored specifically for the comic book crowd, and from there on in it's autopilot all the way. One senses that the screenwriters believe that films like this actually need brutishly portentous dialogue, it's applied so liberally. And for such a visual-centric film, the outrageous lack of creativity in the design - of the set, of the special effects, of the creature makeup, of the costumes - could provoke outright incredulity. Director Alan Taylor gleams up this hollow, studio backlot-worthy spectacle in the hope that it might distract from the immense lack of intelligence or insight in the script, and its thorough betrayal of humanity and deity alike in depicting all living entities as crude devices for engendering mild, momentary emotional reactions in the viewer, which is an almost entirely fruitless exploit. Taylor's work here is a vivid affirmation of the inferiority of television drama in comparison to the cinema, and the custom of innovation upon which it is founded, and which this film disgracefully derides. That's the long answer. The short one? Thor: The Dark World is the naffest film you'll see in 5,000 years.

POSTERS FOR THE ARMSTRONG LIE, THE INVISIBLE WOMAN, THE PAST

I'm looking forward to seeing Alex Gibney's The Armstrong Lie, even if it's a story many of us are already pretty familiar with. And Ralph Fiennes' The Invisible Woman has attracted strong reviews in its festival screenings over the past couple of months or so. I saw The Past at LFF, and though it wasn't one of my favourite films at the fest, it's still good and I'm sure it'll have a lot of fans when it opens theatrically in more territories. All three possess awards potential; in the case of The Invisible Woman, maybe more than it may currently seem.

WHAT'S ON WEDNESDAY - NOV 1-3

I went to the cinema today, and I'll be going again this weekend! But what to see? A few options:

PHILOMENA

I know I'll be seeing Stephen Frears' acclaimed and Oscar-tipped Philomena on Saturday. It was a runner-up for the People's Choice Award at TIFF, won the Queer Lion at Venice, and has drawn praise for Judi Dench's lead performance and the screenplay, co-written by Dench's co-star Steve Coogan. It's a true story of an Irish woman whose child was robbed of her as she worked in a mid-century laundry, and her journey to find him, alongside a recently fired employer. It opens in the UK on Friday and on the 27th of November in the US.

DALLAS BUYERS CLUB

Another film looking forward to potential Oscar nominations in the new year may be Jean-Marc Vallee's Dallas Buyers Club, another true story. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto have drawn raves for their performances as unlikely partners in the process of illegally importing cheap medicine to the US at the height of the AIDS crisis. You can catch it Stateside from Friday; us Brits will have to wait until the 7th of February, alas!

LAST VEGAS

Nah, I couldn't care what the critics are gonna say. The trailer for Last Vegas actually made me laugh. It's gonna get trashed, sure, and it's probably gonna be awful, sure, but if a trailer makes me laugh, I'll be there. Another long wait for British audiences, all the way until the 3rd of January, but it opens in the US on Friday. Will you seek it out?

DANIEL RADCLIFFE WILL BE SEB COE IN GOLD

For international readers unfamiliar with Seb Coe, he's the British four-time Olympic gold medallist in middle distance running who turned Member of Parliament and then Lord Coe. He chaired the Operating Committee for last year's London Olympics, so yeh, he's kind of a big deal. Daniel Radcliffe will portray him in Gold, to be directed by Radcliffe's colleague on The Woman in Black, James Watkins. The script has been written by Slumdog Millionaire's Oscar-winning scribe Simon Beaufoy and How to Train Your Dragon's Will Davies from Pat Butcher's book The Perfect Distance, focusing on the run-up to the 1980 Moscow Olympics and Coe's rivalry with fellow competitor Steve Ovett. It all sounds a bit Chariots of Fire to me, just less inspiring. I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing. I do know, though, that the fact that it all sounds a bit Chariots of Fire is definitely a bad thing.

DENNIS LEHANE TO ADAPT A PROPHET FOR AMERICAN REMAKE

I'm not against remakes, since they're pretty much just the same as adaptations from other media, and anyway most original screenplays in film are derived from some cultural influence or another. Dennis Lehane hasn't written a film screenplay yet, though his novels have produced (and will continue to) a number of popular screen adaptations. Jacques Audiard's 2009 film A Prophet was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and won the Grand Prix du Jury at that year's Cannes Film Festival. Lehane will adapt that screenplay for the American remake, to be made at Sony.

INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED

The nominations for the 2013 International Documentary Association awards have been announced, and I'm pleased to note that my favourite doc of the year, The Act of Killing, is on the list for Best Feature, alongside four other high profile, acclaimed documentary features. Winners will be announced in a ceremony on the 6th of December, as if I won't already have enough awards reporting to do then. Encouragingly, three of the films nominated for Best Feature were directed by women, and another one was co-directed by at least one woman. Alex Gibney, nominated for We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, will receive the Career Achievement Award, Geralyn Dreyfous the Amicus Award, Laura Poitras the Courage Under Fire Award and Zachary Heinzerling the Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award.

Best Feature

The Act of Killing (Torstein Grude, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Joshua Oppenheimer, Andre Singer, Signe Byrge Sorensen, Joram ten Brink and Bjarte Morner Tveit)
Blackfish (Judy Bart, Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Eli Despres, Erica Kahn and Manuel V. Oteyza)
Let the Fire Burn (Andrew Herwitz and Jason Osder)
Stories We Tell (Anita Lee and Sarah Polley)
The Square (Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim)

Best Short
The Education of Muhammad Hussein (Sara Bernstein, Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady, Sheila Nevins and Sadia Shepard)
The Flogsta Roar (Asa Blanck and Johan Palmgren)
Nine to Ninety (Alicia Dwyer, Sally Jo Fifer and Juli Vizza)
Slomo (Josh Izenberg and Amanda Micheli)
Vultures of Tibet (Russell O. Bush, Gary Newsom and Elisabeth Oakham)

ABCNews Videosource Award
All the President's Men Revisited (Chana Gazit, Andy Lack, Laura Michalchyshyn, Patrick Prentice, Robert Redford and Peter Schnall)
Free Angela and All Political Prisoners (Carole Lambert, Shola Lynch, Carine Ruszniewski and Sidra Smith)
Let the Fire Burn (Andrew Herwitz and Jason Osder)
The Trials of Muhammad Ali (Leon Gast, Justine Nagan, Rachel Pikelny, Gordon Quinn, Bill Siegel and Kat White)
We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (Alex Gibney and Mark Shmuger)

Humanitas Award
Anton's Right Here (Lyubov Arkus, Evgeniya Blaze, Aleksandra Golutova, Sergey Selyanov and Konstantin Shavlovsky)
Blood Brother (Leigh Blake, John Carlin, Kathy Dziubek, Phihenas Hodges, Steve Hoover, Michael Killen, Jim Kreitzburg, Tyson VanSkiver and Danny Yourd)
Let the Fire Burn (Andrew Herwitz and Jason Osder)
The Square (Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim)

Pare Lorentz Award
A Place at the Table (Julie Goldman, Ryan Harrington, Kirsti Jacobson and Lori Silverbush)

David L. Wolper Student Documentary Award
Between Land and Sea (Sarah Berkovich and J. Christian Jensen)
My Sister Sarah (Elizabeth Chatelain)
Ome: Tales from a Vanishing Homeland (Raul O. Paz Pastrana and Emily Parkey)
Sodiq (Adeyemi Michael)
Why We Race (Andrew Evers, Ben Fischinger, Kiley Vorndran and Ryan Westra)

REVIEW - LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

There's a monster at the heart of Like Father, Like Son, hiding in plain sight, and the movie is never much more involved with the lives of those around him than it is with his. The story is about his maturation from said monster into a softer, more sympathetic character, about the learning process he undergoes - it'd be more palatable if it did not imply that the suffering of others can be nullified by the level of success he attains on this emotional journey. Koreeda Hirokazu again observes a Japanese society he is so sublimely attuned to, and his passive approach to doing so provides beautiful tribute to the simplicity that is at this society's core, whether in tradition or technology. His lyrical films are about family, growth, class, gender, hopes and dreams and memories - things which concern the entire human race, whether Japanese or not, whether affected by these circumstances or not. To the point that one accepts Like Father, Like Son as such, it is a delicately, perfectly constructed gem of a film; in what initially seems to be a bold obsession with its central figure, who serves as the villain if you reduce it to fundamentals (which Koreeda never does), it is also a challenging film. But as our villain experiences this growth, and seeks not absolution but simply blind, deaf and dumb assent of the progress he has made, the impact of the errors he has committed leaves a sour taste in the mouth that nothing can wash away. But Koreeda yet again has crafted a film of surprising emotive quality, with a penultimate scene that had me on tenterhooks with the potential promise of a happy ending. I dare not reveal if that promise was upheld.

CLARKSON, COTILLARD, SORRENTINO ROUND OUT SCORSESE'S MARRAKECH JURY

An already star-studded jury has added three more famous names. The 13th Marrakech Film Festival jury is to be presided over by none other than Martin Scorsese, and it has been announced that Patricia Clarkson, Marion Cotillard an Paolo Sorrentino are to join him. They fill out a jury list that already included Fatih Akin, Amat Escalante, Golshifteh Farahani, Anurag Kashyap, Narjiss Nejjar and Park Chan Wook. The festival will take place between the 29th of November and the 7th of December, and its film lineup will be unveiled next week.

NEW POSTER AND TRAILER FOR THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

A pretty cool poster for what's probably gonna be a pretty cool film. The trailer magically appears chez Variety if you click the poster! Now that it's been trimmed from 180 minutes to 165 (cos 15 minutes makes sooo much difference when you're sitting in the cinema for 165 of them), the film will be release in the US on Christmas Day, not on the 15th of November, as the poster above would suggest. A UK release is still officially scheduled for the 17th of January.

CLIPS FROM DISNEY'S FROZEN

I'm totally not clicking with Disney's new animated film, Frozen, despite loving its last one, Tangled, which this resembles in rather a lot of ways. Maybe that's exactly why. A 27th of November US release, followed by a 6th of December UK release. Alongside these YouTube clips, there's a Digital Spy exclusive right here.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST FIRST TRAILER

Now that all the other superhero franchises are becoming team-up affairs, the X-Men crowd are probably getting a bit miffed that they got there first, and now their brand is fading. Fox are rly trying hard with this, harder than with The Wolverine, as the May 2014 release suggests, but I'm totally not feeling this trailer.

OCT 25-27 BOX OFFICE REPORT: GOOD GRANDPA

Several weeks back, I made the optimistic, and tentative, prediction that Gravity would hold the top spot at the US box office for three straight weekends, but that it wouldn't be able to withstand Bad Grandpa and The Counsellor on the 25th of October. Alas, it well withstood The Counsellor (4), which bombed, as expected, with $7.8 million. But Bad Grandpa (1) was too much for Gravity (2) in its fourth frame, with $32.1 million to its $20.1 million, respectively. Gravity's 32.9% drop weekend-on-weekend was its steepest yet, but nevertheless an excellent hold for a sci-fi film, which is on the brink of crossing $200 million. Expansions for 12 Years a Slave (8) and All Is Lost (18) saw both ascend into the Top 20, with 12 Years a Slave in particular doing very well with $17,352 per-theatre in 123 screens.

TURKEY TUESDAY - MAN BITES DOG

Nobody likes a turkey (I don't even like one at Christmas), and I've got a huge one for y'all today. Man Bites Dog is the acclaimed (I often think ironically) indie Belgian film from 1992 that launched the career of Benoit Poelvoorde, on the basis that he's the only thing in the film that isn't unbearably amateurish. It's obviously improvised and extremely cheap - cheap and nasty, as they say. Not that I can't get behind provocative cinema, but Man Bites Dog is provocative with no purpose. It's idiotic. Please don't waste your time with this dreck.

NOOMI RAPACE CAST IN SEVEN ROLES FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO MONDAY?

After impressing with Dead Snow, then disappointing with Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, Tommy Wirkola's next directorial project will be What Happened to Monday?, a sci-fi drama about seven sisters living in secret in a future society regulated by a one-child policy. Noomi Rapace will play all seven of the lead roles, with the script having been rewritten for Rapace after it was initially intended to feature seven brothers.

REVIEW - YOUNG DETECTIVE DEE: RISE OF THE SEA DRAGON

I can't find it in myself to be a grouch when watching a Tsui Hark film. The colour, the action, the effervescence of it, and Tsui's crystal clear adoration for what he does are all so winning. This is supremely kinetic filmmaking, as Tsui finds all manner of means of manipulation, trickery to enhance the effects he creates. With a fantastical narrative, he employs a fantastical style of direction, pulling the film one way and then another, from shot to shot, fashioning a wild film unrivalled in its brio in the canon of any other director. It's mad as hell, and if utterly devoid of cohesion, it is the sheer energy and brilliance of each and every moment that coheres these elements into a whole. Be it the majestic Tang dynasty architecture or the fleeting glimpse of the razor blade of some curious weapon caught in slow motion, Tsui's love for the visual (and aural) composition of his shots is not just palpable, it's infectious. Plunged into the action, confronted instantly by plot and by movement, two hours seems like a hefty haul for such a fast-paced film as this, but constant innovation and a light tone keep it buoyant, and make all this content easily digestible. Tsui is much better off when he doesn't relinquish to temptations to modernise his style - this feels crass and uncharacteristic. Nobody else makes films like this, at least not nearly as successfully, and were I him, I'd hone that niche incessantly. Note how he utilises every detail of the physical space of each scene, turning the set design into props for advancing the action - any other time, I'd call this economical, were it not for the volume of stuff he makes such clever use of. Huge swathes of the narrative come apart upon slightest inspection, though that's all part of having one's cake and eating it, and there's no greater joy than that!

CASTING NEWS: EMILE HIRSCH AND SIGOURNEY WEAVER

Having previously announced that Hugh Jackman would be joining Sharlto Copley (and Dev Patel) in Neill Blomkamp's Chappie, I can now confirm the casting of Sigourney Weaver, quite the sci-fi icon! That's not all the casting news tonight, though, as Emile Hirsch has been picked to portray John Belushi in a new biopic from the writer of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, Steve Conrad.

POSTERS FOR THE MONUMENTS MEN, SEDUCED AND ABANDONED

The Monuments Men may have been pushed to 2014 in fear of this year's strong slate of Oscar potential, but we're talking early 2014 here, and so the marketing continues. This is basically the same poster as the last one, only with Cate Blanchett. Below is the British poster for James Toback's documentary Seduced and Abandoned, out on the 8th of November in the UK.

PGA VISIONARY AWARD GOES TO CHRIS MELEDANDRI

Ew yawn. The PGA Visionary Award does not recognise visionary talents, it recognises producers for their 'unique or uplifting contributions to our culture through inspiring storytelling or performance'. I wouldn't dare suggest that Despicable Me's Chris Meledandri is this year's recipient of the award because he's one of the forces behind one of the year's most profitable films. The PGA awards will take place on the 25th of January 2014.

MOON MONDAY

It's Monday, Monday, gotta get down on Monday.

SIDEWAYS SCENE

Ingmar 'Filth' Bergman

LEGAL LINE

I object!

STERILE SOUNDTRACK

Cinc minutes, actually.

HOLIDAY HOTTIE

And he's got a big knob. Just saying.

LEFTOVER LINK

What's this guy got to do with shit? Click and see!

REVIEW - DIRTY WARS

Jeremy Scahill professes to try to understand every side to every story he investigates. If you're wondering what the other sides to the stories he walks us through in Dirty Wars are, they're the ones we already know. They're the half-truths we've already been told. In some cases, we haven't even been told shit, and this is where Rick Rowley's slightly sanctimonious documentary comes a cropper. Scahill is so certain that he's right, and heck, perhaps he is. But just as his work encourages us to question not only all that our governments tell us but why they tell us they're even telling us, should we not also question all that he tells us? The US government refutes his allegations and ignores his requests, and they challenge the points he here makes. But the loop is not closed by justifying the existence of theory B with its opposition to theory A. Couldn't there be a theory C? Frustratingly, Scahill is obviously an authoritative voice on these matters, so his intention to condense his findings into filler between generous doses of soundbite-heavy, overdramatic narration smacks of preening. And the more Rowley fawns over his face in close-up, or frames him pensively strolling down a generic Middle-Eastern bazaar, the less digestible Dirty Wars becomes. And what a shame! Because though we may have heard these sentiments expressed before in countless documentaries, the point is put across pretty succinctly over these 87 minutes, and it's encouraging to note the film take such angry, direct but not spiteful shots at high-ranking figures and institutions, particularly Barack Obama, thus implying an absence of political agenda, instead a humanitarian agenda. At the least, Scahill is superb at distilling war to its most fundamental, devastating details.

HIDDEN TREASURES - HUMANITY, MUSIC BOX, THE VANISHING

It'd be a crime to miss these three films! That's relevant because they're all about crimes! What happened, who did it, who's innocent, who's guilty, who's next, who cares? I care!

HUMANITY (1999) - BRUNO DUMONT

Bruno Dumont's 1999 masterpiece is a punishing, harrowing watch, but also an extremely intelligent one, if distressingly so. Superb performances from Emmanuel Schotte and Severine Caneele and stark cinematography from Yves Cape complete one of cinema's most unforgiving visions of the human race.

MUSIC BOX (1989) - COSTA-GAVRAS

Since 1989, audiences had somewhat tired of Costa-Gavras' politicising, and his career has seriously sunk since then. But Music Box is an excellent courtroom thriller, and highly underrated. Jessica Lange's Oscar nominated lead performance is easily among her very best.

THE VANISHING (1988) - GEORGE SLUIZER

Hidden from few, sure, but George Sluizer's original Dutch version of The Vanishing ought to be known by all. A film that trusts its storyline to unfold in due time, and its audience to engage with it as its characters do, to one of film's most unforgettable endings.

REVIEW - ENDER'S GAME

You might have read a lot about the politics of Orson Scott Card, the writer of the novel on which Ender's Game is based. You might not have read so much about the politics of the film. And I, bizarrely, find myself sympathising with Card right now. Gavin Hood has taken an intelligent, thoughtful story and crafted out of it a lumbering, confused wannabe blockbuster, whose reach extends far beyond its grasp. Hood hurls things into his screenplay, as if expecting you to perceive their significance within the film from its position as a big-league sci-fi fantasy. Harrison Ford dangles from the edges of a few scenes, evidently of supposed importance but rarely of any practical importance. The dialogue is rudimentary at best. As director, Hood displays an eagerness for creating drama and grand spectacle through innovative use of space, but he's clumsy at this, and inconsistent with some of the set's most crucial architectural geography. Alas, not a lot of it is architectural, as this is a film fixated on the concept of the virtual as actual, of fantasy as reality, and violent, dispassionate fantasy. It advocates this such dangerous detachment from one's actions, and irresponsibility in committing them, or at least for a time. Because I don't think that's the point. A vital twist unveils the film's true morality, yet this runs contrary to the philosophies it has pushed throughout. Hood changes heart, championing one side of the argument and then the other; I have not read the novel, but this strikes me as a gross misreading of it, as I cannot imagine the book becoming such a success were its politics so muddled. In how it represents a refreshing about-face, though, the twist is actually deeply satisfying, and the film from here on is markedly stronger, though brief. But a sour taste remains from the promotion of the erosion of individual liberty, the crass casting of females and non-caucasians in minor roles only, and the ludicrous assumption not only that, mere decades from now, everyone on earth will speak english, but that every planet in the universe will observe earth time.

SONGS ON SATURDAY (CLOSE ENOUGH) - THE JUNGLE BOOK

These will be some of the most familiar Songs on Saturday (or whatever day of the week I care to post this feature) I've done, but also one of the best. The Jungle Book is one of Disney's best animated films, and that's due in no small part to that soundtrack. So you won't hear much new this week. And what? Ain't it a treat to listen to these? That's real jungle harmony!

OBIT - ANTONIA BIRD

One of the UK's foremost female film and TV directors, Antonia Bird, died Thursday at age 54. A successful career in British TV through the 80s and early 90s saw her move into film, and her debut, 1994's Priest, was a major success at festivals around the world, with awards including the Teddy for Best Feature Film at the Berlin Film Festival, and the Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award. Following a rough experience taking over from Milcho Manchevski on 1999's Ravenous, she moved back into TV directing, where she drew yet more acclaim, particularly for her drama series The Village from 2012. The AMPAS member died following a struggle with anaplastic thyroid cancer. She leaves behind her first film in over fourteen years, Cross My Mind, which is due to be released next year.

OBIT - HAL NEEDHAM

At age 82, Hollywood's most famous stuntman Hal Needham passed away yesterday. Such was this stunt artist's fame through the 60s and 70s that he was able to turn director, for films such as Smokey and the Bandit and The Cannonball Run. He frequently doubled for Burt Reynolds, with whom he became close friends. His final stunt credit was for Michael Cimino's 1996 The Sunchaser. One of his most successful enterprises in the film industry was in camera innovations, and he received a Scientific and Engineering Award in 1987 from AMPAS, alongside a Governors Award last year. He was married twice. Recently, Needham was diagnosed with cancer.

REVIEW - WE ARE WHAT WE ARE

The best, and scariest, horror films get under our skin not by exposing the horrors we face from the world we inhabit, but the horrors we face from the minds that inhabit us. We Are What We Are chillingly imagines a distorted human nature, but a reasonably, realistically, recently distorted one, which it implies we might all be vulnerable to. We can't run away from the monsters within, and instinct for self-preservation and fear of change make it apparently impossible for Iris and Rose to run away from theirs, even as they devour the monsters who threaten them from without. The less that Jim Mickle identifies his material as straightforward horror film fare, the stronger his film is: its narrative conceit is so simply horrifying that it needs no embellishment, and the closer Mickle hews to psychological drama, the better. Blunt violence and hoary sound effects cheapen the film, and dilute the power of the points it wants to make, though Mickle handles every minor movement with delicacy and conviction, establishing a gratifyingly grounded world for these characters, and eliciting tremendous performances from his cast. The film will likely have greater impact if you're unaware of its nature beforehand, as early scenes rely partly on a potent sense of mystery and tension, which is swiftly mitigated by foreknowledge of its secrets, which are few but forceful. Later ones, however, in the final 20 minutes, are marred by deference to crass convention, and Mickle's style here can't save the film from unravelling somewhat, and rendering its gradual, gripping build-up a little redundant; a last-minute lurch into bolder territory is more like it, and though it's not quite the conclusion the film has demanded, it's actually much more satisfying. Technical credits are polished and atmospheric, but not groundbreaking. I'd be totally up for an entire spin-off movie featuring Michael Parks' character, but I don't think that's at all probable...

SAOIRSE RONAN AND JOHN CROWLEY FOR BROOKLYN

Colm Toibin's novel Brooklyn is about an Irish woman who emigrates to the US in the 1950s having failing to find a living in her homeland. John Crowley, whose Closed Circuit recently attracted a middling response from critics (and far worse from American audiences) will direct Nick Hornby's adaptation, and Saoirse Ronan will star in the lead role. Rooney Mara was once attached in the role, though that was some time ago. It'll film next year.

FIRST TRAILER FOR JAMES GRAY'S THE IMMIGRANT

The trailer may be a bit lame, but The Immigrant brought Cannes perennial James Gray the best reviews of his career at the festival back in May. In particular, Marion Cotillard received rave responses from critics, as she always does, since she's one of cinema's finest actors. It's being rolled out across areas in mainland Europe through the end of the year, but a US release has not yet been confirmed (nor has a UK release). It may hold off until late next year for awards consideration, but it's rare that even non-English-language films would wait so long after a Cannes competition premiere for American release, let alone English-language ones.

SANTA BARBARA FEST TO HONOUR FOREST WHITAKER

Forest Whitaker, a potential Oscar nominee this year for Lee Daniels' The Butler, will receive the Kirk Douglas Award for Excellence at the 2013 Santa Barbara Film Fest on Sunday, the 15th of December. They're definitely doing this for his contribution to cinema, not for the publicity that an A-list Oscar-winning lead of one of the year's most popular films will bring to the festival.