Category: Films
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The Lost City of Z
I first heard about Percy Fawcett back in the late eighties when a friend told me about him. We’d both read Redmond O’Hanlon’s Into the Heart of Borneo detailing his trip with James Fenton, and I think that In Trouble Again, in which O’Hanlon heads into Amazonia, had just come out. Indeed extracts may have…
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Future Shock: The Story of 2000AD
The comic, 2000AD, was launched in 1977 when I was 7 years old. While I read a fair few comics when I was young, I can’t say that I was reading 2000AD from the very start. It was more about The Beano at that time, which I’d begin to buy with my pocket money on…
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High Rise
I didn’t think about it until during the film, but could there be any more appropriate location to watch High Rise than the Curzon Bloomsbury (née Renoir cinema) in the Brunswick Centre? In Ben Wheatley’s superb adaptation of JG Ballard’s novel, his production designer Mark Tildesley has created a modernist* marvel of building. The way…
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Hail Caesar!
A new Coen brothers film is always a cause for celebration. That’s particularly the case when they adopt more of a screwball tone to their films. Hail Caesar! is actually more of a group of sketches than a fully fledged film – the plot is slight. We follow the action from the perspective of Eddie…
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Trumbo
I’m fascinated about the period of the Hollywood Blacklist – that post-war period, as the Cold War was getting under-way, when virulent anti-communists including Senator Joseph McCarthy started “investigating” perceived pro-Soviet beliefs and output in Hollywood. Before I went to see Trumbo, I thought I’d watch Fellow Traveller, a 1990 film made by the BBC…
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Spotlight
Spotlight tells they story of the Boston Globe investigate journalism unit – called “Spotlight” – who investigated the long-term cover-up of child abuse by a significant number of priests within the Catholic Church in Boston beginning in 2001. The film is based very much on the Spotlight team in the newspaper itself, and details how…
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Everest
This film is now out on DVD and download, but I actually saw it in the cinema and then failed to publish my review! I’d been meaning to see Everest for a few weeks, but there’d been a rush of decent films. I had to see this film however, because it’s a dramatisation of true…
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The Hateful Eight
Like many others, I have something of a love/hate relationship with Quentin Tarantino. Actually it’s more a love/whatever relationship. I admire him enormously as a film-maker, but he does have missteps and I don’t worship the feet he walks on. I’ve not actually yet seen his previous film, Django Unchained! I say this to put…
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The Program
Right at the beginning of The Program, the BBFC certificate popped up. The film is rated 15 for “strong language, use of performing-enhancing drugs.” Quite. (And I realise, I’m not the first person to note this.) The Program is Stephen Frears’ new film about Lance Armstrong, the seven-times winner of the Tour de France, before…
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The Martian and Sicario
There seems to be a spate of pretty decent films coming all of a sudden at the moment, so after a bit of a barren period when endless super-hero films haven’t inspired me to go to the cinema, I’m suddenly going a little more. The Martian is Ridley Scott’s new film, based on the book…
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Mistress America
I think it must be a surfeit of summer super hero films, but I’ve not been to the cinema much recently. However a new Greta Gerwig film is always something to look forward to, so I decided to head out to see Mistress America. I thought it’d be nice to see it locally so I…
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Visions of the Future: Mad Max and Tomorrowland
Mad Max: Fury Road, is just demented. In a good way. George Miller returns to his 1979 character, essentially re-imagining him, this time played by Tom Hardy. The film is very high concpet. Max is chased through the desert with Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) and a group of women the crazed leader of the “War…