Reviews
In 1936’s Fury, Fritz Lang revisits one of the key themes of M, his 1931 paranoid classic about a child murderer on the run. The focus on mob rule had seemed prophetic in a country about to install the Nazis as its rulers, but how well would it translate to democratic America? Very well is … Read more
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s 1970 movie is considered to be one of a handful that changed the way films were watched… and made. Signalling the shift into, and legitimisation of the hitherto critically rarely considered genre movie, El Topo simultaneously satirises and adds to its chosen area of operations. Which is the western, the spaghetti western to … Read more
Melodrama lush and silk-wrapped in The Reckless Moment, a typically opulent film from Max Ophüls, billed almost inevitably as Max Opuls in the four films he made in the USA, of which this was the last. He’s best known for Lola Montes and La Ronde, and for a strange fascination with female characters whose name … Read more
Rosemary’s Baby: The Prequel would have been a more obvious title for Apartment 7A, for that is what it is, a straightforward precursor movie imagining that Rosemary wasn’t the first sweet young thing to become the broodmare of Satan. If you can remember Rosemary’s Baby we were told as much in that film. And if … Read more
The last of the Great American Novelists of the 20th century, Philip Roth died in 2018, leaving behind a substantial body of work. Deception (Tromperie in the original French) adapts yet another of his novels for the screen, becoming yet another brave attempt at making a movie out of something that doesn’t really want to … Read more
Did the world need Otto Preminger’s In Harm’s Way in 1965? Does it need it now? After all if you’re in the market for a big, formless war movie shot in expensive-looking black and white and starring John Wayne, there is and was 1962’s The Longest Day. But Day was Europe and Way is the … Read more
Greenland 2: Migration follows hot on the heels… no, hang on… comes six years after the first Greenland, which was a thoughtful apocalyptic thriller which somehow seemed to anticipate the Covid outbreak. The second movie has decided to aim for relevance more deliberately. The “Migration” in the title – what could be more of the moment? Starting … Read more
A guy comes back from Vietnam and runs into a whole load of trouble in 1977’s Rolling Thunder, the sort of “guy comes back from Vietnam” movie they used to make around then. Except this one’s all messed up. William Devane plays the guy, Major Charles Rane, who returns from seven years in a Vietnam … Read more
In January 2011 the US Gypsum plant in Empire, Nevada, shut down. By July of the same year the town’s zip code had been discontinued. Nomadland makes personal a phenomenon that’s been going on for decades but has accelerated since the big crash of 2008. Of displaced older blue-collar workers who lose their homes and … Read more
A young man tries to get his oats in Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, a British 1968 sex comedy starring Barry Evans, directed by Clive Donner and written by Hunter Davies. In many ways it’s the suburban Alfie, which was made two years earlier. Where Michael Caine had central London, Barry Evans has … Read more
The title is a bit of a giveaway but The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain does not end well for Kenneth Chamberlain, a 70-year-old former Marine with heart problems and mental health issues who, shortly after 5am one November morning in 2011 accidentally set off his medical alert pendant while he slept. Within two hours he … Read more
Spider-Man spun? Spider-Man: No Way Home is another gargantuan Marvel movie full of action, great power/great responsibility moments and the sort of emotion you’d expect in stories about a highly strung teenage superhero. Jon Watts is back as the director, and the writers are again Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers – all three have been … Read more