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Splice (15)

(Vincenzo Natali, 2009, Us) Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chanéac. 104 mins

In case anyone thought mucking around with animal genes then raising the resultant mutant as your own child was a good idea, here's a strong warning. Scientists Brody and Polley initially enthuse over their secret breakthrough/lovechild, but several "do you really think we should be doing this?" moments later, they're living out every parent's worst nightmare: that your child grows wings and a venomous tail and turns on you. It's not up to Cronenberg standards, but it's smarter, less predictable and much funnier than it sounds.

Toy Story 3 (U)

(Lee Unkrich, 2010, Us) Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack. 109 mins

Plaything perils at the daycare centre become a lesson in mortality, comradeship, prison-breaking and waste management in this near-perfect sequel. As usual, it's packed with thrills and gags, but as with Pixar's Up, there are moments when grown-ups...

An unusual, semi-autobiographical film by English director Andrew Kotting. By Peter Bradshaw

Here is a strange film whose strangeness is disguised – though only at first, and not for long – by the mannerisms of documentary realism. It is avowedly based on director Andrew Kotting's own childhood, and as with all autobiographical works, some of the incidental interest lies in wondering which parts come directly from real life, and which are wish-fulfilment inventions, intended to correct the past and alleviate its pain. Jean-Luc Bideau plays Ivul, an elderly, and somewhat cantankerous Franco-Russian patriarch who owns a handsome manor house in France with extensive woodland – but who was evidently even richer back in his native Russia. His younger wife Marie (Aurélia Petit) has provided him with four children: Alex (Jacob Auzanneau) and Freya (Adélaïde Leroux) are in their late teens, Capucine (Capucine Aubriot) and Manon (Manon Aubriot) are hardly more than toddlers.

This is a competition for Séraphine directed by Martin Provost and starring Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur, Anne Bennent, Geneviève Mnich, Nico Rogner, Adélaïde Leroux, Serge Larivière and Françoise Lebrun. 1912, in a little town North of Paris. Séraphine Louis, works as a maid for Madame Duphot, who rents an apartment to a German art critic and dealer, Wilhelm Uhde, an enthusiastic advocate of modern and “primitive” artists. In her spare time, Séraphine paints with everything that comes to hand (wine, mud, fruits & flowers mixture).

Chicago – Her eyes are always looking forward, as if they possess the ability to peer into the parallel dimension next door. She feels most alive in the presence of nature, and feels great joy in recreating images of god’s creation. Her closest acquaintances seem to be of an otherworldly essence, and she acknowledges them every time her twinkly gaze is directed toward the sky.

There’s a great mystery about what goes on in the mind of Séraphine Louis, a middle-aged cleaning lady who harbors a primal compulsion to create art. She takes raw material from her natural surroundings (such as blood and clay), combines them with paint, and produces images of striking power. There’s an intensity about her imagery that frightens her, as mundane objects like fruit and flowers take on an unsettling life of their own. Her work would eventually be categorized as “naïve” because of its simplicity,...

• It was the last film to join the Critic's Week sidebar and dubbed as a "Special Screening". It was a packed house at the Espace Miramar theater, where an entire film crew was on hand (minus lead actress Isabelle Huppert) for Ursula Meier's Home. While the premise was enough to make me actually present myself at the screening, the story of a family of five living in front of a defunct and then fully operational highway is so ill-conceived, tediously long - that I wanted to leave after the first 15 minutes. I stayed until the end. [Note: Full review coming soon]. (From Left to R: Ursula Meier, Olivier Gourmet, Adélaïde Leroux, Madeleine Budd and Kacey Mottet Klein) Adélaïde Leroux Madeleine Budd and Kacey Mottet Klein  ...

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