So, welcome to Jack’s new film column, hoping to point you all in the direction of a few cinematic nuggets of pleasure that could otherwise sneak by unnoticed. The idea is to give a bit of a shout out to those films that may not have the million dollar marketing budgets. We’re no elitists here at Who’s Jack though, so if a film is worth getting excited about and does happen to have a budget that could end the recession we’ll probably rave about that too.

Personally, I’ve been excited about The Expendables for months now (think every action star of the eighties in one ridiculous film!) but you’ll have to wait until August for that beast…

What you won’t have to wait until August for is No One Knows About Persian Cats, an Iranian film that was awarded a special jury prize at Cannes last year. Shot in a documentary style, it focuses on two young musicians, Negar and Ashkan who are a prominent band on the underground indie scene in Iran. A scene that has to be underground, because the president Mahmud Ahmadinejad, made western-influenced rock music illegal early in his reign. Still, just as booze flourished in the ‘speakeasy’ bars of the American 1920’s during prohibition, this film aims to prove that Iran’s music can hold its own regardless of the restrictions imposed on it. Based on the Stieg Larsson novel of the same name, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a Swedish crime thriller, that centres around the unlikely partnership of a young female computer hacker and a middle aged journalist-turned-detective. Surprisingly for a book trilogy that has sold so well all over the world, Hollywood has not managed to get its sticky paws on this one and so this is very much a Swedish produced film.

Read the rest of our ones to watch here