Film
Inland review - a cracked mosaic of memories, impressions and lurking anxietyWednesday, 24 May 2023
Fridtjof Ryder’s debut feature made a strong impression at last year’s London Film Festival, and its cinema release ought to give the Gloucester-born director’s career a hefty shove in the right direction. Although that doesn’t mean that Inland is... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Mystery TrainTuesday, 23 May 2023
Wandering the wrecked streets of Memphis in search of blues and rock history, two teenage Japanese tourists debate who and what’s better: Elvis Presley vs. Carl Perkins, the sleek ultramodernity of their hometown Yokohoma vs. the “vintage” charms of... Read more... |
Beau is Afraid review - life's ordeals in lengthy detailSaturday, 20 May 2023
Life's journey is a challenge, and then some, for Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix), the beleaguered Odysseus/Job (you choose!) equivalent figure at the savage heart of Ari Aster's new film Beau is Afraid. But imagine surviving unimaginable... Read more... |
Moon Is the Oldest TV review - a fitting tribute to a visionary modern artistSaturday, 20 May 2023
Who created the term “electronic superhighway”? First described a system of linked communication that would become the internet? Envisioned a multichannel TV system where viewers chose for themselves what to tune into? Watch Amanda Kim’s excellent... Read more... |
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret review - Judy Blume's iconic novel hits the big screenThursday, 18 May 2023
Margaret Simon (a brilliant Abby Ryder Fortson) is 11. What she wants above all is to be “normal and regular like everyone else”. This means getting her period at the right time – “I’d die if I didn’t get it till I was 16,” she tells her mother (... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Fill 'er Up With SuperTuesday, 16 May 2023
This almost forgotten, naturalistic 1976 road movie lets four young Frenchmen off the leash in a cross-country trip from Lille to Cannes.Car salesman Klouk (Bernard Crombey) is forced by his oppressive boss to ditch a promised weekend with his wife... Read more... |
Plan 75 review - dystopian vision of euthanasia in JapanMonday, 15 May 2023
It’s not a great moment for older audiences contemplating an outing to the cinema. They could have their intelligence insulted with the feeble, sugary comedy, Book Club: The Next Chapter or they could choose Plan 75 and find... Read more... |
Blu-ray: MorgianaSunday, 14 May 2023
The titular character in Juraj Herz’s Morgiana plays a peripheral though important role, some of the film’s most striking visual flourishes (courtesy of legendary cinematographer Jaroslav Kučera) being her point-of-view shots while she scurries in... Read more... |
Book Club: The Next Chapter review - lacklustre dialogue, clichéd plotThursday, 11 May 2023
I was once invited to join a book club by a bunch of friendly, clever women. But their conversation began with whether they liked the novel’s central characters enough to imagine having dinner with them and from there, descended into swapping tips... Read more... |
Brainwashed review - the toxic impact of the 'male gaze' in filmWednesday, 10 May 2023
The phrase “male gaze” was coined by the British film theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975 and has become a standard tool for analysing a film’s gendered content. What director Nina Menkes has set out to show in Brainwashed is that the techniques that... Read more... |
The Blue Caftan review - unstitching repression in MoroccoWednesday, 10 May 2023
The eponymous garment in The Blue Caftan is a thing of beauty meticulously stitched and embroidered by Halim (Saleh Bakri), a maalem or master tailor, in one of Morocco’s oldest medinas. His craftmanship, with its focus on intricate... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Enys MenTuesday, 09 May 2023
In Mark Jenkin’s haunted Cornwall, time warps and bends. He is a child of Nic Roeg’s Seventies masterworks (Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth), whose kaleidoscopic slivering of time expressed an elliptical, sensual mind. ... Read more... |
