Latest Posts
Why did the Germans in the 1930s fall prey to the Nazi ideology? 2019’s The German Lesson (Deutschstunde) is a bracing story both about the Germans and for the Germans, who might not relish what writer Siegfried Lenz has served up, though director Christian Schwochow sugars the pill with images of austere beauty. Told in … Read more
OK, deep breath for the title alone. Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea (or Zítra vstanu a oparím se cajem in the original Czech) is also conceptually the sort of film that requires a super-oxygenation session before diving in. It’s made in the 1970s but set in the 1990s, where time travel … Read more
Margate on the south coast of England is one of many British seaside towns that’s seen better days. So has its cinema, Wonderland, here renamed by Sam Mendes and his team as the Empire, for a story set in 1980 about people who’ve seen better days, a country too, perhaps. Britain once had an empire … Read more
A journalist is given a fast-track to glory when he starts getting tomorrow’s headlines today in It Happened Tomorrow, a bright and breezy fantasy from 1944. It’s easy to imagine Cary Grant in this movie. He was first choice to be its lead, and Frank Capra was meant to direct. It’s also incredibly easy to … Read more
Meta-slasher horror, the last refuge of the scoundrel – discuss. If you can’t make a decent straight-up slasher movie, why not put a frame around it and serve it up with an ironic wink, right? Prejudices laid out on the table, The Final Girls actually turns out to be a decent meta-slasher horror movie, with … Read more
If there’s a prize for the dourest sci-fi movie ever made, surely Dead Man’s Letters would win it. Sometimes the original Russian title, Pisma Myortvogo Cheloveka is translated as Letters from a Dead Man, which is hardly any jollier. While Blade Runner or Solaris or Dark City or Threads will all have their advocates, this … Read more
Two hours 43 minutes of pure entertainment is what Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One delivers. The only real question it’s raised by the end of its breathless 200-odd minutes is how is Part Two going to top it? There’s even a plot, the usual one of something that needs tracking down, Ethan Hunt … Read more
Paris Qui Dort, Paris Asleep, The Crazy Ray, The Invisible Ray and even At 3:25, this odd French silent movie from 1925 goes by many names and was the first feature by René Clair, a film-maker who got into movies because that’s where the girls were, or so he said, and stayed there because that’s … Read more
“Fear me, if you dare!” It’s a strange catchphrase but it is Puss in Boots’s and goes some way towards explaining his appeal – dangerous and ridiculous at the same time, as befits a vainglorious furball swashbuckler who’s Zorro in miniature, a legend in his own eyes more than anyone else’s, but a legend all … Read more
Often overlooked when it comes to discussion about dystopian sci-fi of the 1970s, Colossus: The Forbin Project looks a lot more chillingly prescient now than it did back when it was released in 1970, when it was seen as a sub-Strangelove addition to the genre of jokey sci-fi. It’s the story of the computer that … Read more
Guillermo del Toro was everywhere at the beginning of 2023, promoting what increasingly became known as Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio in the Oscars window between Christmas and awards night. Tirelessly, enthusiastically, he made the case that his film should have been in contention not just for Best Animated Feature but also Best Picture. Why shouldn’t … Read more
One of the key movies of the Czech New Wave of the 1960s, Miloš Forman’s A Blonde in Love (original title: Lásky jedné plavovlásky) was also the director’s international breakout. Through a long career, individual freedom was Forman’s abiding concern. The oppressive force of totalising regimes and the stultifying power of received wisdom on individual … Read more
