documentary
Town of Strangers review - a whimsical foray into the meaning of homeWednesday, 08 February 2023
“They say there are only two stories,” explains director Treasa O’Brien. “A person goes on a journey and a stranger comes to town.” O’Brien was born in Dublin to a naval family that had to up sticks and move every two or three years. Her first... Read more... |
DVD: Oscar Peterson - Black + WhiteTuesday, 24 January 2023
I can’t help enjoying the continuing elevation of the jazz pianist Oscar Peterson (1925-2007) to national monument status in Canada. A park or a square here (Montreal), a boulevard there (Mississauga), a school, a concert hall, a statue, a... Read more... |
Wildcat review - damaged war veteran reborn in the Peruvian jungleFriday, 23 December 2022
The bond between humans and animals sometimes passeth all understanding. Wildcat is the story of 20-something British Army veteran Harry Turner, American ecologist Samantha Zwicker, and a young ocelot called Keanu, who becomes an almost mythic... Read more... |
Harry & Meghan, Netflix review - at home with the HarklesFriday, 09 December 2022
There’s no stopping Harry and Meghan. Logic, reason and facts can’t stand in the way of their “war on oppression and injustice” and determination to become “advocates of healing”. Even though their notorious interview with Oprah Winfrey was littered... Read more... |
Three Minutes: A Lengthening review - superb portrait of a vanished worldMonday, 05 December 2022
We hear the projector whirr as the mute 16mm film flows through the sprockets and on to the screen. For three minutes and a little longer we watch children and adults spilling out of buildings, intrigued by the novelty of a camera on their streets.... Read more... |
Neil Young: Harvest Time review - a thrillingly intimate fly-on-the-wall documentaryWednesday, 30 November 2022
“You’re filmin’ a movie or something – can you explain this?” the radio DJ turns to Neil Young, a laugh underpinning his question and setting the scene: light, jovial.“We’re just makin’ a film about…” Young pauses for a second. “I dunno, just the... Read more... |
Wilko Johnson (1947-2022): The Bard of Canvey IslandFriday, 25 November 2022
Wilko Johnson, who has died aged 75, enjoyed an astonishing afterlife while he was still alive. After Julien Temple’s Dr. Feelgood film Oil City Confidential (2009) restored his crucial former band's profile, a terminal cancer diagnosis in... Read more... |
TS Eliot: Into The Waste Land, BBC Two / Four Quartets, Starring Ralph Fiennes, BBC Four review - a great 100th birthday present to a giant of modern literatureMonday, 17 October 2022
Can you make modern poetry come to life on a TV screen? The BBC has had two stabs recently at answering this question, as part of the centennary celebrations for TS Eliot’s The Waste Land, seen by many as the greatest poem of the 20th century. One... Read more... |
Moonage Daydream review - sensory bombardment and secretsSaturday, 17 September 2022
Watching Bowie for the only time in what turned out to be his last tour in 2003, I wanted glamour and mystique, Ziggy preserved. Instead here was ordinary bloke Dave, badly dressed in faded jeans and a mismatched top. The beautifully sung, committed... Read more... |
Meeting Gorbachev review - Werner Herzog offers a swansong tributeWednesday, 31 August 2022
You react differently to Meeting Gorbachev knowing that the film’s subject was on occasions brought to its interviews from hospital by ambulance; his interlocutor, Werner Herzog, doesn’t mention that fact, of course, anywhere in the three encounters... Read more... |
My Old School review - a Glasgow schoolboy and his elaborate hoaxFriday, 19 August 2022
Back in 1995, the name Brandon Lee made the headlines. Not the Brandon Lee as in son of Bruce, who’d recently met his death on the set of The Crow, but a schoolboy who’d chosen to use the same name. A strange hoax was uncovered. Lee was, in... Read more... |
McEnroe review - documentary about the original bad boy of tennisThursday, 14 July 2022
Over the past few weeks, countless columns have been written about Nick Kyrgios, who lost in the Wimbledon final to Novak Djokovic. Who knows if the Australian will watch this illuminating documentary about the original “bad boy of tennis” to see... Read more... |
