Film Reviews
The Kid with a Bike
Saturday, March 24th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,While it has been a bumper season for terriers, with star appearances in no fewer than three major films, 2011-12 has also been a boom time for disturbed children. First there was the terrifying protagonist of We Need to Talk about Kevin, then hypersensitive Oscar in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Get ready to meet […]
Headhunters
Saturday, March 17th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,To what extremes would you go to preserve life and limb? Roger Brown, the protagonist of Headhunters goes about as far as can be imagined in escaping a would-be assassin. There are many moments in this film when most of us would settle for a bullet and the big sleep. Roger, played by Norwegian actor, […]
Coriolanus
Saturday, March 17th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing, Uncategorized,King Lear has some grim moments, but I’ve always thought of Coriolanus as the bleakest of Shakespeare’s plays. Ralph Fiennes has confirmed that impression with a film adaptation which adds ultra-violence to the singularly depressing view of human nature found in this story. Not only does Fiennes play the role of Coriolanus, the Roman general […]
French Film Festival
Saturday, March 10th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Last year 130,000 people attended the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, making it by far the most popular of all the international film events held annually in this country. To be fair, it is also the biggest. This year’s program features no fewer than 45 features, plus the usual round of celebrity visits and other […]
Gone
Saturday, March 3rd, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Always beware of the film that sells itself on the appearance of some fabulous lead actor you have never previously encountered. So when one reads the proud announcements that Gone features no-one less than Amanda Seyfried (!), there is the slight, lingering question: “Who is Amanda Seyfried?” Previous to this film, Amanda’s big break was […]
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
Saturday, February 25th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close benefited from a great title and arresting cover design, but as a piece of writing it was as calculated as an XL spreadsheet. The device of telling the story through multiple voices owed a debt to Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. The graphics and typographical […]
My Week with Marilyn
Saturday, February 25th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Before watching My Week with Marilyn I wasn’t aware that Colin Clark, the 23-year-old film flunkey whose memoir provides the basis of the story, was the son of Sir Kenneth Clark. Not only was Sir Kenneth a renowned art historian and cultural bureaucrat, he was the man who gave us Civilisation (1969) – the orginal […]
The Artist
Saturday, February 18th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Never have I felt more in tune with Bill Collins’s encomiums on the golden days of Hollywood than after seeing The Artist. In the week leading up to the Oscars one could say it’s been a pretty good year, but if there is one film that reminds us of just of why we go to […]
J. Edgar
Saturday, February 11th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,Spare a thought for Leonardo DiCaprio. He gives a stellar performance as J. Edgar Hoover in Clint Eastwood’s bio pic of the infamous FBI chief, and doesn’t even score a best actor nomination at the Oscars. The problem, quite simply, is that Hoover – stitched-up, paranoid, obsessive and megalomaniac – is not what might be […]
Hugo
Saturday, February 4th, 2012 Film Reviews, Other Writing,There is a lot to like about Hugo, Martin Scorsese’s homage to Georges Méliès and the early days of cinema. If only I hadn’t seen The Artist before writing this piece, I might have liked it even more, because Michel Hazanavicius, a relatively unknown director until now, has the magic touch that Scorsese admires but […]