Film
Lost in KarastanWednesday, 20 January 2016
Ah, the fascination of faraway countries of which we know nothing. And of dictators, always a species of interest to filmmakers, because you rarely have to make anything up – Chaplin, of course, wrote the primer on that one. How alluring when... Read more... |
DVD: The Friends of Eddie CoyleTuesday, 19 January 2016
The cheerless The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a film which the description "slow-burn" could have been coined for. Watching the story of Robert Mitchum’s low-level criminal Eddie “Fingers” Coyle unfold is a sombre experience but when the climax comes... Read more... |
The RevenantFriday, 15 January 2016
Stories have abounded about the epic bouts of punishing location shooting that went into Alejandro González Iñárittu's frontier saga. Seeing the results on screen, you'd have to say that whatever suffering the cast and crew had to endure, it was... Read more... |
Seven sides of Alan RickmanFriday, 15 January 2016
When sorrows come they come not in single spies. It is a bad week to be 69. Hard on the heels of David Bowie's death from cancer comes Alan Rickman's. He was an actor who radiated a sinful allure that first gave theatregoers the hot flushes back in... Read more... |
DVD: Ration Books and Rabbit Pies - Films from the Home FrontFriday, 15 January 2016
Up to 1942, British civilian deaths outnumbered those among front line troops. Keeping the home front on side was a serious business, especially when a large chunk of the population might have been reluctant to obey the strict rules and regulations... Read more... |
Room review - when a house is not a homeThursday, 14 January 2016
A copy of Lewis Carroll can be glimpsed amongst the otherwise grim, begrimed array of possessions made visible at the start of the extraordinary Room, and small wonder: Lenny Abrahamson's rightly lauded film is about two people who have fallen down... Read more... |
CreedWednesday, 13 January 2016
Following in the footsteps of Star Wars: The Force Awakens another popular film series which began in the 70s is passed over to a young, admiring pretender. And just as JJ Abrams succeeded there, Ryan Coogler – who announced his talent... Read more... |
DVD: The Diary of a Teenage GirlWednesday, 13 January 2016
About a dozen years ago the publishing industry cottoned on to the sex lives of women. Memoirs in which women wrote with complete candour about their sex lives appeared in sudden profusion, from Belle de Jour's blog-turned-book and The Sex Life of... Read more... |
The Hateful EightFriday, 08 January 2016
Like the seven previous movies written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, The Hateful Eight is violent, verbose, and self-regardingly funny. It’s also ingeniously structured (in Godardian chapters), as much so as Pulp Fiction. The eagle-eyed will... Read more... |
DVD: 45 YearsFriday, 08 January 2016
Andrew Haigh’s portrait of a marriage on the rocks has plenty of style, and a near-funereal pace suffused with the decay that gnaws away at long-term relationships. He has also elicited brilliant performances from Charlotte Rampling and Tom... Read more... |
A WarThursday, 07 January 2016
Tobias Lindholm is something of a specialist in exploring the fate of enclosed groups under stress, charting how the dynamics of behaviour between men develop in crisis. I say men, though the Danish director’s name may still be better known in some... Read more... |
DVD: LoveTuesday, 05 January 2016
Sex sells, except in the cinema. So although it denies viewers the sight of Karl Glusman’s erect penis swinging towards them across a giant screen in 3D, home video is Love’s natural home. Director Gaspar Noé’s attempt to “make movies out of blood,... Read more... |
