Tag: biography
King Richard
Friday, February 25th, 2022 Film Reviews,Watching this bio pic about Richard Williams, who raised his daughters, Venus and Serena, to be tennis champions, I thought back to last year’s Netflix documentary on Naomi Osaka. That strange, vague, disconnected young woman might have benefited from a parent as dogged as Williams, although one suspects Venus and Serena succeeded almost as a […]
Belfast
Friday, February 18th, 2022 Film Reviews,Among the great mysteries of contemporary cinema: how, in the space of one year, can a director make something as good as Belfast, and follow up with the ridiculous Death on the Nile? I don’t think one can lay the blame on an overbearing studio, or suggest that the best of Kenneth Branagh’s movies may […]
Jutta Feddersen 1931 – 2021
Thursday, February 10th, 2022 Blog,Jutta Feddersen, who has died peacefully at the age of 90, belonged to a generation whose lives were permanently shaped and scarred by the Second World War. Born in 1931, in a German town called Briesen that is now part of Poland, Jutta Schley enjoyed an idyllic rural childhood. One of five children, she was […]
Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto
Thursday, February 10th, 2022 Art Column,“I am not a heroine,” Gabrielle Chanel told one of her biographers. “But I have chosen the person I wanted to be and am. Too bad if I am disliked and unpleasant.” Like most things this famous couturiere said, this statement requires unpacking. Madame Chanel could be extremely unpleasant, but also wildly generous. She was […]
Spencer
Friday, January 28th, 2022 Film Reviews,When a movie begins with the words “based on a true story”, it’s usually a coded warning that what you are about to see is fantasy. The disclaimer bestows an appealing suggestion of reality while allowing the filmmakers to let their imaginations run wild. So when Pablo Larraín begins his bio-pic about Princess Diana with […]
The House of Gucci
Friday, January 14th, 2022 Film Reviews,Shakespeare allegedly set tragedies and comedies in Italy because the stereotype of the excitable Italian was engraven on the Elizabethan mind. One finds the same view at the end of the 18th century in the memoirs of playwright, Vittorio Alfieri, who, caught in an adulterous affair with an English woman, was astonished by the calm, […]
The Beatles: Get Back
Friday, December 17th, 2021 Film Reviews,After an hour of this lengthy three-part documentary about the Beatles, I was wondering if it was going to be nothing more than an extended jam session – gripping stuff for diehard fans, but a long haul for the rest of us. When Peter Jackson got his hands on this never-before-seen footage, he must have […]
Nitram
Friday, October 8th, 2021 Film Reviews,Justin Kurzel may have a taste for dark, unhappy subjects, but he is a cut above most contemporary Australian directors. His first feature, Snowtown (2011), told the true story of serial killer, John Bunting, and those he drew into his orbit. It was a brutal but amazingly sophisticated debut. Ten years on, Kurzel and scriptwriter, […]
Schumacher
Thursday, September 23rd, 2021 Film Reviews,Formula One must be the most dangerous of spectator sports. Cars reach speeds in excess of 300 kph, requiring drivers with lightning fast reflexes, steely nerves, an intuitive feel for the track – and luck. If something goes wrong with your steering column when rounding a bend at 180 kph, no amount of skill will […]
Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali
Friday, September 17th, 2021 Film Reviews,“Destiny can take your best friend as an instrument to cause you harm and your worst enemy to do you good,” says Muhammad Ali a few minutes into this absorbing Netflix documentary. He is referring to black activist, Malcolm X, who had fallen out with Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a […]