Time travel stories can present all sorts of wonderfully mind-bending possibilities for the creative storyteller, but an awful lot of logical pitfalls. If Marty McFly accidentally keeps his parents from getting together and nullifies his existence, then he couldn't have hopped into that DeLorean and keep them apart, reinstating his existence, and around and around the wheel of folded time causality spins. Most filmmakers tend to try to skip over these inherent paradoxes in order to have their stories make some semblance of sense. But new quantum mechanics-influenced models of time travel posit that there are universal laws at work that prevent any such tinkering in time to occur. You can go back for a look-see, but you'll be prevented from engaging in any action that will alter a future that is established with certainty. more ›

How nice is too nice? How sunny too sunny? Just how much Technicolor optimism can one working class corner of London bear before thoroughly breaking down the purveyor of this bubbly outlook with the grim scowl of reality? These are the questions posed in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. And Leigh knows a thing or two about those grim realities. He's spent much of his career exploring just how they rip us apart. more ›