Film
DVD/Blu-ray: Minute Bodies - The Intimate World of F Percy SmithFriday, 23 June 2017
F Percy Smith was a maverick film-maker whose most important work was created in a house in suburban Southgate, North London. Born in Islington in 1880, he joined the Quekett Microscopical Club as a teenager, all the better to pursue a healthy... Read more... |
Hampstead review - Diane Keaton deserves better and so does LondonThursday, 22 June 2017
Do the makers of the essentially unnecessary Hampstead have a secret vendetta against north London and its citizenry? The thought occurred to me midway through Joel Hopkins's wannabe romcom, which places the ever-charming Diane Keaton smack dab... Read more... |
The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger review - voyages round a giantTuesday, 20 June 2017
“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.” I’ve quoted these words by John Berger many, many... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: The Bird With the Crystal PlumageTuesday, 20 June 2017
A well-known internet sales site currently offers seven previous home cinema editions of The Bird With the Crystal Plumage. Some are DVD or Blu-ray only, others are on both formats – increasing the amount of packages on offer. Only a brave company... Read more... |
Gifted review - genius in the family genesFriday, 16 June 2017
There’s quite an appealing mini-genre that concerns genius, usually involving mathematics and an outsider who struggles to cope for reasons that include social adaptation (Good Will Hunting), sexuality (The Imitation Game) and mental health (A... Read more... |
Churchill review - Winston has smallness thrust upon himFriday, 16 June 2017
He may often be voted Greatest Briton in the History of Everything, but are we approaching peak Winston? Scroll down Churchill’s IMDb entry and you’ll find that he’s been played by every Tom, Dick and Harry in all manner of cockamamie entertainments... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Rita, Sue and Bob TooFriday, 16 June 2017
Memory plays funny tricks; Alan Clarke’s Rita, Sue and Bob Too is fondly remembered as a cheeky 80s sex comedy. It’s not. There’s a fair bit of sex, and the laughs do come thick and fast, but the film leaves the bitterest of aftertastes. And, viewed... Read more... |
Destination Unknown review - Holocaust survivors go backThursday, 15 June 2017
Destination Unknown is a passion project 13 years in production, a documentary featuring moving interviews with a dozen Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution. Elderly men and women describe what happened to them and their families during the war. We... Read more... |
Whitney: Can I Be Me review - tragic account of superstar who fell to earthWednesday, 14 June 2017
The statistics of Whitney Houston’s career are flabbergasting in this post-CD era. Her 1985 debut album sold 25 million copies. “I Will Always Love You” is the best-selling single by a female artist in music biz history. Its parent album, the... Read more... |
Michelangelo: Love and Death review - how to diminish a colossusTuesday, 13 June 2017
As perhaps the greatest artist there has ever been – and as one of the most fascinating and complex personalities of his era – Michelangelo should be a thrilling subject for serious as well as dramatic cinematic documentary treatment. Michelangelo... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: One-Eyed JacksTuesday, 13 June 2017
One-Eyed Jacks, the only film Marlon Brando ever directed, is a masterpiece by any reckoning, a classic western about love and treachery, as well as a startling and boundary-breaking re-invention of the genre.The tragedy unfolds, through many twists... Read more... |
The Mummy review – please don't let them make a sequelFriday, 09 June 2017
The best bit is in the trailer. It's the scene where Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) and Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) are inside a stricken Hercules transport aircraft as it suddenly plunges vertically out of the sky, leaving its occupants in weightless... Read more... |
