6 January 2014-01-06

Shane Carruth and Amy Seimetz in Upstream Color

Out in the UK This Week Upstream Colour (Metrodome, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD) Shane Carruth’s belated follow-up to his brilliant 2004 film Primer is a weird mix of body-horror and love story, the story of a woman (a rather good Amy Seimetz) infected by some parasitic worm who is hypnotised and then robbed while under the influence. Well, that’s the first bit anyway. After that she seems to be falling for some guy she’s met (played in a bit of Ben Affleck casting by Carruth himself), the whole thing told in the language not of film but of advertising – overlaps, quick cuts, montages, while a Sigur Ros-style soundtrack (a band advertisers love) bleeps … Read more

Drive Angry

Obligatory slo-mo explosion shot with an unconcerned Nicolas Cage in Drive Angry

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 7 January Nicolas Cage born, 1964 On this day in 1964, Nicolas Coppola was born. The son of a literature professor and a choreographer, Cage is the grandson of Carmine Coppola, another of whose sons is Francis Ford Coppola (which makes the director his uncle). Cage decided that trading on the family name wasn’t for him, so changed his surname to Cage, though he was happy enough to take a leg-up by taking a role in Coppola’s cult item Rumble Fish. One of the most prolific actors in Hollywood, Cage is also one of its biggest earners and alternates between what … Read more

Yankee Doodle Dandy

James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 6 January FD Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, 1941 On this day in 1941, the president of the USA, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, delivered what has become known as the Four Freedoms Speech. Addressing the US Congress in the annual State of the Union speech, Roosevelt outlined what he believed those four freedoms to be – Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. The speech was significant for several reasons. First, it sought to extend the freedoms already guaranteed by the Constitution (speech and worship) with freedoms which more problematically lined up with a more progressive, interventionist, Democrat … Read more

Simon of the Desert

Claudio Brook's Simon is tempted by Silvia Pinal's Satan in Simon of the Desert

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 5 January Feast of Simeon Stylites Today is the feast day of the Christian ascetic saint Simeon Stylites. Unless you are an adherent of the Eastern Orthodox Church, in which case his feast day is on 1 September. This son of a shepherd born in what is now Turkey became a zealous believer in the denial of the fleshly world as a teenager. In this he was not unusual – the Church had increasingly come to see the world not as a stage on the way to Paradise, but as a contradiction of it. The world was bad; heaven good (hence … Read more

No Impact Man: The Documentary

Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 4 January Thomas Edison electrocutes Topsy the elephant, 1903 On this day in 1903, the American inventor genius Thomas Edison electrocuted a live elephant to death with electricity. And filmed the whole event. The purpose was to demonstrate how dangerous electricity delivered by alternating current (AC)was. Edison was very much wedded to direct current (DC) and had been making a bundle in licensing payments from cities in the USA that were increasingly going electric, many using his system. And in the other corner we had George Westinghouse (and behind him the patents of Nikola Tesla), who reckoned that AC was the … Read more

Buena Vista Social Club

Compay Segundo on stage with the Buena Vista Social Club

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 3 January US severs diplomatic ties with Cuba, 1961 On this day in 1961, the United States formally cut diplomatic ties with Cuba. It had been building its position within the island since Cuba had gained independence from Spain and had long considered the eventual annexation of Cuba as a done deal. “The most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States,” is how Thomas Jefferson described the island which had been a part of the Spanish empire almost since the day the Americas were “discovered” by Christopher Columbus. Cuba fought two wars of independence against Spain, … Read more

The Usual Suspects

Pete Postlethwaite, Stephen Baldwin and Gabriel Byrne in The Usual Suspects

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 2 January Pete Postlethwaite dies, 2011 On this day in 2011, aged 64, the actor Pete Postlethwaite died of pancreatic cancer. It had been diagnosed in March 2009. Postlethwaite had already survived cancer once, having been diagnosed of testicular cancer in 1990, which went into remission after he had a testicle removed. An actor simultaneously of great force and nuance, Postlethwaite’s relatively uncommon name marks his family down as having originated in Postlethwaite in Cumbria, England (the name means Postle’s Farm). His relatively uncommon looks – huge bony cheekbones, honest putty nose, angry skin – were matched by his trajectory into … Read more