Film
DVD/Blu-ray: Miracle Mile - cult apocalyptic romanceFriday, 03 November 2017
To quote the genius sax player Dexter Gordon, "In nuclear war, all men are cremated equal" – or in this case, all adorable couples will burn as one. Anthony Edwards plays Harry, a not-so-genius trombone player who one sunny afternoon in Los... Read more... |
Ferrari: Race to Immortality review - death and glory in 1950s motor racingThursday, 02 November 2017
And so the mini-boom in motor racing movies continues, this time with a look back at the history of Ferrari and the intense on-track battles of the 1950s, a decade in which the Scuderia won four of its 15 Formula One World Drivers Championships. In... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Wages of FearTuesday, 31 October 2017
The opening shot sets the tone for what follows: a pair of duelling cockroaches attached to a string, tormented by a bored child. In 1953’s The Wages of Fear, we quickly sense that Henri-Georges Clouzot’s characters are similarly powerless. His... Read more... |
Call Me By Your Name review - a star is born in a heartbreaking gay romanceFriday, 27 October 2017
It's not every day that an actor breaks your heart playing a character who surrenders his. But that's among the numerous achievements of Timothée Chalamet's knockout performance in Call Me By Your Name. Playing a culturally savvy and... Read more... |
October, LSO, Strobel, Barbican review - Eisenstein with steel scoreFriday, 27 October 2017
Forget the ersatz experience of Sergey Eisenstein's mighty silent films accompanied by slabs of Shostakovich symphonies composed years later. This collaboration between the London Symphony Orchestra and Kino Klassika is as close as we can ever come... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Frantz Fanon - Black Face White MaskFriday, 27 October 2017
The much-respected visual artist Isaac Julien made his name as one of the first great black British filmmakers, not least with Looking for Langston (1989) and Young Soul Rebels (1991). While Steve McQueen moved from gallery art and installations to... Read more... |
Breathe review - heroic but airbrushed struggle against disabilityThursday, 26 October 2017
It’s a challenge to review this film without resorting to adjectives like “plucky” and “well-meaning”, and its mainstream comfiness made it a strangely cautious choice for the opening night of the recent London Film Festival. Breathe is not only... Read more... |
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami review - a slow study of pop’s enigmaWednesday, 25 October 2017
Who is the real Grace Jones? This is the central question that drives Sophie Fiennes’s documentary, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami. After 115 minutes, you might be less sure of the answer than when you go in. The title is Jamaican for a recording... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray review: Land of MineTuesday, 24 October 2017
Danish director Martin Zandvliet brilliantly explores a little-known episode in 1945 when more than 2,000 German POWs were forced to clear almost two million land mines that had been buried on the beaches of the west coast of Denmark in anticipation... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Vampir CuadecucSunday, 22 October 2017
Pere Portabella’s remarkable Vampir Cuadecuc is almost impossible to classify. It may have been filmed on the set of Jesús Franco's 1970 Hammer horror film El Conde Dracula – with the obviously enthusiastic participation of a cast led by... Read more... |
The Death of Stalin review - dictatorship as high farceFriday, 20 October 2017
Like Steptoe and Son with ideological denouncements, Stalin’s Politburo have known each other too long. They’re not only trapped but terrified, a situation whose dark comedy is brought to a head by Uncle Joe’s sudden, soon fatal stroke in 1953. The... Read more... |
Dina review - a poignant treatTuesday, 17 October 2017
Director Dan Sickles has known Dina her entire life. He knows her engaging personality, and he knows her tragic past. It’s the former which he and co-director Antonio Santini feel is worth celebrating in this Sundance award-winning documentary.Dina... Read more... |
