Film
Out of Blue review - noir and cosmology collideSaturday, 30 March 2019
At the start of Carol Morley’s noir mystery Out of Blue, detective Mike Hoolihan, bleary-eyed and slow, is carrying some burdensome weight. “This burger from last night is not sitting right,” comes the weary female investigator’s first line.... Read more... |
Interview with director Agnès Varda, who has died at 90Friday, 29 March 2019
I met Agnès Varda, who died today aged 90, just once, for the interview that’s reproduced below. It was in Paris in January 2018, shortly before the Belgian-born filmmaker was to become the oldest Oscar nominee in history, for the wonderful... Read more... |
Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story review - inside Sidebottom's headFriday, 29 March 2019
Frank Sidebottom was a petulant, man-child showbiz trouper with a papier-mâché head. He was more spontaneously subversive than memories of his heyday rampaging round Nineties kids TV may suggest. As to the rigorously hidden man behind the mask, he... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Wild Pear TreeFriday, 29 March 2019
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan has been a Cannes regular for almost two decades now, and one of the festival’s more frequent prize-winners: over his career he has come away with two Grand Prix (for 2003’s Distant and 2011’s Once Upon a Time in... Read more... |
Dumbo review - does Tim Burton’s new adaption take flight?Thursday, 28 March 2019
At its heart, Disney’s fourth-feature, Dumbo, was about the love between mother and child, and defying expectations. The 1941 animation was based on Helen Aberson and Harold Pearl’s short story and told the tale of a baby circus elephant with... Read more... |
Us review - can Jordan Peele deliver the thrills again?Wednesday, 27 March 2019
Us is Jordan Peele’s much-anticipated follow-up to his 2017 horror film, Get Out, which won the first-time writer-director an Oscar for best original screenplay. A lot has been riding on this, Peele’s sophomore film with questions being raised over... Read more... |
Minding the Gap review – profound musings on lifeFriday, 22 March 2019
Where would you go for a devastating study on the human condition? The home movies of teenage skaters would be very low down on that list. But most of those movies aren’t filmed, compiled and analysed by Bing Liu, the director of Minding the Gap.... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-Ray: La VéritéFriday, 22 March 2019
For admirers of Henri-Georges Clouzot or Brigitte Bardot, this Criterion restoration of their rarely seen 1960 collaboration is a must have. La Vérité may not be Clouzot’s greatest film, the pace is a little slow and for British viewers... Read more... |
Q&A special: The making of Local HeroThursday, 21 March 2019
Local Hero, released in 1983, has been adapted into a musical, with a book by playwright David Greig and more songs from the soundtrack's original composer Mark Knopfler. After its premiere at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh, it will arrive at the Old... Read more... |
The White Crow review - gripping depiction of the brilliance of NureyevThursday, 21 March 2019
Genius is as genius does, and Rudolf Nureyev made sure nobody was left in any doubt about the scale of either his talents or his ambitions. Based on Julie Kavanagh's biography Rudolf Nureyev: The Life, The White Crow pairs director and actor... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Bergman - A Year in a LifeTuesday, 19 March 2019
1957 was a busy year for a very busy director: Ingmar Bergman made two of his most famous films – The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, several TV dramas, and a number of major stage productions. All the while, he was suffering from painful... Read more... |
Girl review - Belgian art-house portrait of a teenage ballerinaFriday, 15 March 2019
Girl opens in a golden haze of sibling affection; a teenager is tickling a little boy one sunny morning in their bedroom. Lara is 15 and has just moved to a new flat with little brother Milo, 6 and single dad Mathias. The family have changed cities... Read more... |
