Film
Blu-ray: After HoursTuesday, 31 October 2023
Not all Scorsese films are behemoths; Killers of the Flower Moon may last over three hours but After Hours, a low-budget black comedy released in 1983, packs an incredible amount into just 93 minutes.That Scorsese directed the film at all is a happy... Read more... |
Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn review - a tale of two siblingsMonday, 30 October 2023
Documentaries intended for cinema release don’t always come off, and cynics might suggest that Sheila Hayman’s Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn would work perfectly well as a BBC Radio 3 broadcast. Fortunately, Hayman’s visual flourishes and a sense of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Pandora's BoxSunday, 29 October 2023
The story has often been told of how GW Pabst cast the American starlet Louise Brooks in his Berlin-made Pandora’s Box (1929) and fashioned his version of Frank Wedekind’s “Lulu plays” around her transfixing performance as the helpless pan-sexual... Read more... |
Powell and Pressburger: Battleships and ByronSaturday, 28 October 2023
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made a glorious run of movies from The Spy in Black (1939) to The Small Back Room (1949). Yet the duo’s reputation went into steep decline in the 1950s, and they began to encounter difficulty in... Read more... |
Typist Artist Pirate King review - shine on, Audrey AmissFriday, 27 October 2023
The stories told by writer-director Carol Morley are poignant reclamation projects that demonstrate empathy for lost or troubled souls but don’t flinch from difficult truths.In the documentary The Alcohol Years (2000), Morley’s subject is her... Read more... |
20,000 Species of Bees review - a marvel of a debutFriday, 27 October 2023
Are we all getting older, or are film award-winners getting younger? Sofía Otero won the Silver Bear for best lead performance at the Berlin Film Festival this year at the age of just nine. To achieve that, it surely needs to be one of the best... Read more... |
The Killer review - David Fincher's latest cult movie?Thursday, 26 October 2023
Since its release in 1999 David Fincher’s Fight Club has become something of a cult movie with young men who recite lines from the script like mantras. "This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time". It seems likely his new... Read more... |
Cat Person review - the dynamics of dating and bad sexThursday, 26 October 2023
Margot (Emilia Jones; Coda) has made a terrible mistake. She’s landed up in bed with Robert (Nicholas Braun; cousin Greg in Succession) and realises the sex is going to be excruciatingly bad.How to tell him that she’s changed her mind? Can she leave... Read more... |
Our River... Our Sky review - another people's warWednesday, 25 October 2023
The first casualty of war is not truth, as the saying goes, but humanity – and not just in the sense of collateral damage. Media reporting turns victims into news items, along with satellite images of wrecked buildings or tanks crawling through a... Read more... |
Michael Powell interview - 'I had no idea that critics were so innocent'Tuesday, 24 October 2023
Michael Powell fell in love with his celluloid mistress in 1921 when he was 16. It’s a love affair that he’s conducted for 65 years. At 81, he’s not stopped dreaming of getting behind the camera again. At Cannes this year he hinted at plans to make... Read more... |
Martin Scorsese's 'Mean Streets' - a triumph of personal filmmakingMonday, 23 October 2023
Ask someone to pick their favourite moment from a film by Martin Scorsese, something defining.Many would cite De Niro’s memorable "you talkin’ to me?" challenge to his own leering, gun-toting reflection in Taxi Driver (1976); others, the... Read more... |
Powell and Pressburger's 'The Red Shoes' - art and nothing butSaturday, 21 October 2023
Nobody ever forgets The Red Shoes (1948) because it’s a movie that seems to change the way an audience experiences cinema. A story about a diverse group of individuals collaborating to make art, the film is itself a wonderful example of the process.... Read more... |
