Reviews
Killer Whale is a queer fish, the 26th and last episode of series two being a mix of the quite bizarre and the incredibly mundane. Things get off to an eyebrow-raising start right from the off, with Steed in the process of losing 50 quid at a boxing bout as we join the action. Mrs … Read more
Not many British films make the “Best Film Noir” lists but Brighton Rock regularly does. And unlike many a key “British” noir, this one was directed by a Brit, John Boulting rather than an American fleeing McCarthyism (Jules Dassin and Night and the City or Cy Endfield and Hell Drivers), a visiting Frenchman (Edmond Gréville’s … Read more
Gemini director Shinya Tsukamoto was about 30 when he made his most infamous film, Tetsuo, which featured a man turning into a kind of scrapyard monster, complete with gigantic revolving hydraulic penis. Ten years later in 1999, nudging 40, here he is calmed down a touch, but not that much if the opening shots of … Read more
While scrolling through a list of “100 Best Film Noirs of All Time” I was struck by Detour. Number 10 on a list that kicked off with In a Lonely Place, Out of the Past, The Big Sleep and The Third Man (so, not one of those mad lists), it stood out because I’d not … Read more
A froth of noir, romance and melodrama aerated using Rita Hayworth as a whisk, Gilda exploits the star’s status as the number-one pinup girl for American troops fighting overseas during the Second World War. It’s the Rita Hayworth movie, not just in the eyes of posterity but according to its own estimation of itself. “Starring … Read more
In one of the first scenes in About Endlessness, a waiter brings a diner a bottle of wine, opens it, sniffs the cork to check the wine is OK, then walks over to the right hand side of the diner to fill his glass. Holding the bottle near the bottom, the way a practised waiter … Read more
First-world and real-world problems collide in Human Capital, which started life as an American novel, became an Italian movie (Il capitale umano) in 2013 and then returned to the US in 2019 for this English-language version. How best to describe all three? Bonfire of the Vanities meets The Ice Storm will about do it. In … Read more
The immigrant experience. Be honest, your heart just sank a little. Possibly because you’ve seen a few movies about it and you imagine you know what you’re about to be served when you hear that Beyond Words (Pomiędzy słowami, in the original Polish) is just such a thing. The tale of a sweet and blameless … Read more
These days, we’re used to a documentarian being an integral part of their own documentary. But Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 got there decades before the likes of Nick Broomfield or Michael Moore. Here, Kazuo Hara turns his camera on himself and his relationships and charts everything he sees. As an idea of what … Read more
What did Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Malcolm X all talk about when they met to celebrate on the night of Ali’s victory over Sonny Liston in January 1964? It’s a fascinating question that One Night in Miami asks. The answer, in reality, is nothing, since the meeting never took place. But Kemp … Read more
David Dastmalchian’s wonky presence slots right in to Late Night with the Devil, a horror movie with a difference, though if I say “found footage” and The Exorcist you might wonder where exactly the difference is. A preamble explains that what we’re about to see is a lost recording of a live, late-night TV chat … Read more
An episode of The Avengers with the name of director Charles Crichton on it is usually a good sign. A claim borne out by False Witness, a permutation on a favourite of showrunner Brian Clemens – mind control – scripted by Jeremy Burnham in such a way as to keep us guessing what’s going on … Read more
