Deborah Ross

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 12A, Nationwide After a 19-year break, Indiana Jones, the world’s greatest adventurer and probably the world’s worst ever archaeologist — listen, even I know you can’t go around ripping open ancient mummies whenever you so fancy — is back. He is back because he has to

Caramel PG, Key cities Caramel is a lovely and engaging film and just what we all need right now. You may well ask: how do I know what you need? Have I canvassed your friends? Your family? Of course. And what they all say is: yes, this is just the sort of film you need

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? 12A, Nationwide OK, we’re busy people, so straight to the point on this one, and yet I’m already struggling, because there isn’t any point to get straight to. This is a pointless film. It is sans point, has zilch point, scores nul points in the point department.

Iron Man 12A, Nationwide Iron Man is a Hollywood superhero blockbuster and probably the first of a franchise, even though it already feels like the 64th. These movies are always, in their way, whopping piles of junk, but they can be hugely enjoyable whopping piles of junk. The first Superman with Christopher Reeve, Tim Burton’s

Persepolis 12A, London and key cities Persepolis, an animated feature about coming of age in Iran, is kind of interesting and is kind of original but its telling moments are told so often it’s like going out to dinner and being served the same course over and over. You’ll look at it coming and think,

Leatherheads PG, Nationwide Leatherheads is George Clooney’s third outing as a director and the first in which he plays a starring role, and it must have looked good on paper, just as anything with George Clooney’s name attached to it probably looks good on paper. A musical based on the plumbing-supplies aisle in B&Q would

Son of Rambow 12A, nationwide Son of Rambow is the tale of two young boys — one from a strict religious background; the other a troubled troublemaker — who come together to shoot a backyard version of Rambo: First Blood to enter it into the BBC’s Screen Test competition. It is a British film, set

Beaufort 15, Key Cities Beaufort is the Israeli war film that won the Silver Bear at Berlin and was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film and it is very, very dull. After I had seen it I sent a friend to see it who is much more war-literate than I am and

Lars and the Real Girl 12A, Nationwide Lars and the Real Girl is a comedy which tells the story of an introverted, emotionally backward loner (Ryan Gosling, in bad knitwear and anorak) who believes a sex doll is real and introduces her to the local community as his girlfriend. It all sounds gorgeous, as if

The Other Boleyn Girl 12A, Nationwide The Other Boleyn Girl, based on the bestselling historical romance by Philippa Gregory, stars Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn and Scarlett Johansson as the other girl, her ‘plainer’ sister Mary, which, considering Scarlett Johansson has just been voted the most beautiful woman in the world, must be a lesson

Margot at the Wedding Nationwide, 15 Margot at the Wedding is one of those unsettling and bothersome films which will bother and unsettle you during, afterwards and possibly for much of the next day, like a flea in the ear. If this is your sort of film, then you will like it and if you

The Bucket List 12A, Nationwide As Rob Reiner should know better and Jack Nicholson should know better and Morgan Freeman should know better, what you have here is a film which has to make you ask: how come they didn’t? You’d think one, at least, would say somewhere along the line: ‘Thanks, but if it’s

There Will Be Blood 15, nationwide Juno 12A, nationwide There Will Be Blood (oh, yes) stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a late-19th-century American oilman whose own view could not be plainer: find oil, beat off the competition, buy the land, drill it, get rich. And that’s about it, not that it matters. It’s the

Cloverfield 15, Nationwide Cloverfield is tiresome, dumb and horrid, and just in case you didn’t get that I’ll say it again: this film is tiresome, dumb and horrid. Don’t go. Do anything but go. Don’t be swayed, as I was, by the fact that on its opening day in America it grossed $16 million, grossed

After the cheerlessness and brutality of No Country for Old Men, I’m not sure a film about a serial killer is just what you want. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street 18, nationwide After the cheerlessness and brutality of No Country for Old Men, I’m not sure a film about a serial killer

No Country for Old Men 15, Nationwide No Country for Old Men, adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen from Cormac McCarthy’s novel, is not for the squeamish or easily spooked, or at least should not be for the squeamish and easily spooked. I am both — in spades — yet found it almost ecstatically absorbing.

Charlie Wilson’s War 15, Nationwide Mike Nichols’s latest film is a mixed bag and a stuffed bag and, incredibly, none the worse for either. In its rat-a-tat, rapid-fire 95 minutes you get bombings, mines, refugee camps, casualties, hot tubs, Playboy cover girls, arms dealers, cocaine, scandal, Tom Hanks’s naked butt (surprisingly delicious; peachy), CIA agents,