In this week's edition, the Coen brothers chat about bringing their childhood into their new masterpiece A Serious Man, while newcomer Daniel Barber reveals what it was like to direct Michael Caine in revenge thriller Harry Brown. Plus, reviews of Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Roland Emmerich's disaster movie 2012.
Joel and Ethan Coen's new film, the suburban comedy A Serious Man, moves away from the menace of No Country for Old Man and Fargo to examine one ordinary, middle-class, middle-American Jewish man's quest to understand why his life has started unravelling. They tell Jason Solomons why it took so long for them to get around to mining their own upbringing for a film.
Next up is director Daniel Barber, whose feature film debut Harry Brown centres on a retired Marine who decides to dispense some vigilante-style justice to the young thugs who killed his friend. He defends his movie's depiction of the mean streets of London, reveals how his young stars helped to make the film authentic, and why he wouldn't want to make a documentary to illuminate what's going down on the estates.
And finally, Xan Brooks joins in to review the week's key releases, from the "perfect film" that is Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, to Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock ("light, airy but a little insipid"), to Roland Emmerich's big, dumb but brilliant disaster blockbuster 2012.
