Tag: comedy
The Great
Thursday, May 28th, 2020 Film Reviews,With films based on actual people it’s always tempting to take a peek at the historical record. Fictional characters will invariably be created and genuine ones omitted, myths will be treated as facts. No-one can resist adding a dash – or a bucketload – of romance to prosaic reality. In the case of The Great […]
Uplifting for Easter
Friday, April 10th, 2020 Film Reviews,Stranded at home for days and weeks on end, the inevitable question arises: “What should I watch?” This is a conundrum with the potential for major domestic unrest. In trying to come up with suitably ‘uplifting’ titles for hermits I’m having to face the brutal realisation that everyone likes totally different stuff. Tell your families […]
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Wednesday, March 18th, 2020 Film Reviews,One wonders what Charles Dickens would have made of Armando Iannucci’s adaptation of The Personal History of David Copperfield? Despite his reputation as a champion of the poor and downtrodden, the famous novelist shared all the popular racial prejudices of his time. No-one disputes that the character of Fagin in Oliver Twist, is a notorious […]
Alliance Française French Film Festival 2020
Friday, March 13th, 2020 Film Reviews,“I film, therefore I am.” If asked to guess who made this heroic declaration you might imagine it was some famous French director such as Henri-Georges Clouzot or Jean Renoir, or perhaps a more recent auteur, like Jean-Luc Godard or Agnès Varda. In fact, it was Charles Aznavour, the small, dark, weedy crooner who dominated […]
Emma
Thursday, February 20th, 2020 Film Reviews,There are many ways of reading Jane Austen (1775-1817). She may be the author who inspired every Mills & Boon romance but she is also one of the writers who feature in F.R.Leavis’s ‘Great Tradition’ of English literature along with George Eliot, Henry James, Joseph Conrad and D.H.Lawrence. What distinguishes Austen from the churners of […]
Birds of Prey
Thursday, February 13th, 2020 Film Reviews,Margot Robbie is not short of admirers nowadays but her performance in Birds of Prey (and the fantabulous emancipation of one Harley Quinn), has to be seen to be believed. I usually feel my brain turning to jelly at the prospect of every new, big-budget superhero flick, but there’s something about this particular lump of […]
A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood
Friday, January 31st, 2020 Film Reviews,“What the hell was that!?” said a colleague when we left the cinematheque after viewing A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood. As the usual routine is that we all shuffle out avoiding eye contact, jealously guarding our tiny insights, such an exclamation was – to say the least – unusual. I only wish I could […]
Jojo Rabbit
Tuesday, December 31st, 2019 Film Reviews,There’s something irresistible about a movie that flirts with a great taboo – a comedy about the Nazis. Mel Brooks did it with The Producers (1967), in which a Broadway show designed to offend and crash became a smash hit. Roberto Benigni made an attempt with Life is Beautiful (1997), although the humour was swallowed […]
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
Friday, August 16th, 2019 Film Reviews,Quentin Tarantino is the flawed genius of contemporary cinema. As a director he has such an assured touch that almost three hours of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood slip by in no time at all. The flaw lies in his love of extreme violence that leaves a nasty taste, no matter how much we […]
Parasite
Thursday, June 27th, 2019 Film Reviews,Marcel Duchamp once told a friend he had made parasitism into a fine art. Had the enigmatic artist explained his methods, he might have said: “Never complain, never argue, and don’t get greedy.” The working class family in Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite could write their own textbook on the subject, although they’d recommend a more aggressive approach. […]