Film
Quant review - Sadie Frost's debut documentary skirts the genius of Mary QuantWednesday, 27 October 2021
As a teenager in 1967, I asked for a Mary Quant make-up box for Christmas and my parents reluctantly complied. It was so thrilling to hold that plastic white box with the black daisy in the middle and the big mirror in the lid and to be able, at... Read more... |
Blu-ray: I Never CryTuesday, 26 October 2021
In Piotr Domalewski’s I Never Cry, newcomer Zofia Stafiej excels as sullen Polish schoolgirl Ora, who resentfully travels to Dublin to collect the body of her estranged father, Krzysztof, who has been killed on the unsafe waterfront site where he’d... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The DamnedSunday, 24 October 2021
One German writer found a neat yet teasing way to sum up the difference between Luchino Visconti’s The Damned (1969), the first film in the Italian director’s “German trilogy”, and the two films that followed it.The Damned, known in Italian as La... Read more... |
Dune review - awesome display of sci-fi world-buildingWednesday, 20 October 2021
I’d venture that Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi classic is an almost perfect adaptation. It’s difficult to imagine the novel being better visualised, or its characters better cast; at the same time, the director’s own... Read more... |
Blu-ray: La Dolce VitaTuesday, 19 October 2021
One of those films weighed down by a considerable reputation, La Dolce Vita (1960) is rarely taken as seriously as it should be. From the very first sequence in which a figure of Christ sails across Rome’s skies, suspended from a helicopter, a... Read more... |
The Velvet Underground review - Todd Haynes tunnels through band historyTuesday, 12 October 2021
Todd Haynes’ documentary about the Velvet Underground has to be one of the better uses of time by a film-maker during the Covid pandemic. He spent lockdown putting the film together with a team of archivists and editors working remotely. It’s a... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Lighthouse (Mayak)Tuesday, 12 October 2021
Mariya Saakyan’s 2006 debut feature is bookended by grainy footage of what looks like a fire-ravaged diary, the distressed, crumbling scraps of paper torn and charred. The missing pages and unfinished sentences spill over into what follows, Saakyan... Read more... |
Gabriela Montero, Kings Place review - improvising to a Chaplin classic is the icing on a zesty cakeSaturday, 09 October 2021
As the Statue of Liberty appears in Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant, our improvising pianist proclaims “The Star-Spangled Banner”, only for it to slide dangerously. The passengers on the ship taking them to a new life are brutally cordoned by the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Another RoundTuesday, 05 October 2021
Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen left me dumbstruck in the cinema in 1998 with its brilliant depiction of an incestuous, viciously glamorous family imploding over a family celebration. At the time, I hoped that my Danish mother never saw what looked, to... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Maigret - The Complete SeriesSunday, 03 October 2021
This weighty box set contains all 52 episodes of the BBC’s take on George Simenon's Maigret, four seasons of which were made and broadcast between 1960 and 1963. Given how much vintage BBC material has been wiped, that this series can now be watched... Read more... |
No Time to Die review - Daniel Craig’s bold, bountiful Bond farewellWednesday, 29 September 2021
In order to preserve its impact for the millions lining up to see it, it won’t be possible to truly dissect the boldness and significance of No Time to Die until the dust has settled on the box office, and moves to find Daniel Craig’s... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Johnny GuitarTuesday, 28 September 2021
Watching this restored print of Nicholas Ray’s delirious Western reminded me of the discovery that those pristine white statues of the Ancient World had once been painted in gaudy colours. When I first saw Johnny Guitar, it was one of those movies... Read more... |
