Tag: drama
Atomic Blonde
Wednesday, August 9th, 2017 Film Reviews,For a snapshot of the way mainstream cinema has changed over the past 50 years try watching Guy Hamilton’s Funeral in Berlin (1966) before venturing into David Leitch’s Atomic Blonde. As a fan of those early Len Deighton espionage novels, I always thought Funeral in Berlin was a pretty shallow piece of work. The redeeming […]
A Ghost Story
Friday, July 28th, 2017 Film Reviews,For the first half of A Ghost Story I felt sure it was being haunted by the spectre of Chantal Akerman (1950-2015), the renowned Belgian avant-gardist who loved shooting in real time with minimal camera movement. After watching a static shot of Rooney Mara eating most of a pie I could definitely feel Akerman’s presence. […]
Baby Driver
Saturday, July 22nd, 2017 Film Reviews,Baby Driver is one hell of a soundtrack in search of a film. A big step up for British director, Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz), it tells the story of a youthful getaway car driver named Baby, who can’t seem to get through any part of the day without musical accompaniment. The […]
The Beguiled
Saturday, July 15th, 2017 Film Reviews,It was a novel experience last week to see Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, followed a few days later by Eleanor Coppola’s Paris Can Wait. Eleanor is the wife, and Sofia the daughter, of the more famous Francis Ford Coppola, but the entire family seems to have cinema in their DNA. In 2013, grand-daughter, Gia Coppola, […]
Lady MacBeth
Friday, July 7th, 2017 Film Reviews,Never underestimate the power of boredom. In Nikolai Leskov’s novella, Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk (1865), we hear about “that peculiarly Russian boredom, the boredom which… it is said, makes even the thought of hanging oneself seem a cheerful prospect.” In his debut feature, British director, William Oldroyd, transposes the Leskov’s Gothic tale from provincial Russia […]
A Quiet Passion
Saturday, July 1st, 2017 Film Reviews,How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one’s name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog! For Emily Dickinson (1830-86) there was a distinction in being Nobody as opposed to Somebody. Now considered one of the greatest American poets, Dickinson spent almost her entire […]
Una
Thursday, June 22nd, 2017 Film Reviews,Few subjects today inspire such blind outrage as child sexual abuse. It seems that all communities require one exemplary outlet for pent-up anger and hatred. Or is it a human need to feel morally superior to someone, anyone? Our liberal attitudes have ruled out the racial and sexual prejudices of our forebears, but one would […]
My Cousin Rachel
Wednesday, June 14th, 2017 Film Reviews,Daphne Du Maurier (1907-89) is one of those writers destined to be forever suspended between literature and pulp fiction. Her work has echoes of the great Victorian novelists but also a tinge of Gothic horror. She may not have beeen deep but she knew how to tell a fabulous, gloomy story. It’s the pulp aspect […]
Alien Covenant
Friday, May 19th, 2017 Film Reviews,Damien Hirst must feel pissed off that the release of Alien Covenant occurred after he’d already completed his massive Venice Biennale exhibition, Treasures From the Wreck of the Unbelievable. Amid bronze and marble effigies of every conceivable mythological creature, every pop culture icon from Mickey Mouse to Yo-Landi of Die Antwoord, the only character missing […]
Rules Don't Apply
Friday, May 5th, 2017 Film Reviews,Does anybody remember Howard Hughes? Rules Don’t Apply, Warren Beatty’s fictionalised portrait of the eccentric billionaire, was reputedly decades in gestation. In the meantime we’ve had The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s bio pic of Hughes’s early life, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, winning five. Thirteen years […]