Popular Reviews
I’m Not There
A movie for every day of the year – a good one 19 March Bob Dylan releases first album, 1962 Having dropped out of the University of Minnesota and relocated to New York City to visit the dying Woody Guthrie and break into performing, today in 1962 Bob Dylan released his first album. Eponymously titled Bob Dylan it came about after Dylan played harmonica on Carolyn Hester’s album in September 1961 and caught the eye of producer John Hammond. Hammond signed Dylan to Columbia Records in October 1961 and within five months the album was done. It was a collection of folk standards, coffeehouse favourites plus two Dylan originals – Song to Woody … Read more
Tropa de Elite aka Elite Squad
Anyone who’s read a lot of film reviews will be familiar with the “redeeming features” style of reviewing. “Worth a look to see De Niro on fire”, “Ken Adam’s set designs lend it a style the script is struggling to equal”, and so on. Sometimes people pop round to my house to borrow a dvd and, as we whisk through a shimmering stack of them, I give it loads of “redeeming feature” bullshit – “you know the director of Consequences of Love, he made this one”, “Buster Keaton’s last film before he got booted out of his own production company” etc etc. When all the borrowing party wants to know is – is … Read more
L’Avventura
When L’Avventura debuted at the Cannes film festival in 1960 the reception was so unfavourable that the director, Michelangelo Antonioni, and his star, Monica Vitti, ended up beating a hasty retreat from the cinema where it was being shown. Up to the point where they decided it wasn’t worth it any more they’d endured boos, jeers, laughs and shouts of “Cut!” in scenes which, the audience felt, just ran on too long. Everyone’s a critic. By the next day sentiment had started to shift. The film went on to win the Jury Prize – among those on the jury were the writers Henry Miller and Georges Simenon, so a tough crowd – and … Read more
Waxworks
In probably the best condition it’s ever going to be seen, the Eureka Masters of Cinema 2019 restoration of Waxworks is a good 25 minutes shorter than the German original, all trace of which has disappeared. Instead, the Deutsche Kinemathek and Cineteca di Bologna took a surviving print from the British Film Institute and, using elements scavenged from around the world, put together this assemblage for a 2K restoration reinstating the original colour tinting. It’s a historically important film but also a vastly entertaining one, and if you’re a fan of German expressionism, it’s probably required viewing. The original German title, Das Wachsfigurenkabinett, is a clear nod to The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, … Read more
Godland
Godland reminds us yet again that when it comes to film-making there’s always something going on in Iceland. How can a population that small – roughly 380,000 – produce so many talented writer directors? Hlynur Pálmason sits alongside the likes of Valdimar Jóhannsson, Baltasar Kormákur, Benedikt Erlingsson, Grimu Hákonarson and Óskar Jónasson as a director whose films aren’t just good and popular but also distinctly Icelandic. Watching their movies there’s also a strong sense of the connection between Iceland and its Viking settlers. Godland is, to some extent, a case of the Extreme Nordic (see also Kormákur’s The Deep, Erlingsson’s Of Horses and Men or Hákonarson’s Rams for more of the same, with … Read more
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
Black Panther and Da 5 Bloods star Chadwick Boseman died 12 days after shooting wrapped on Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, a fact that colours its critical reception. No one on set even knew that this firecracker performer was ill, let alone that he was being treated for stage four cancer. Put another way, the film isn’t quite as great as some people say – a good film, a fine film, well acted, snappily directed for sure – but hobbled by its forked construction. Is it actually about Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), or her cocky trumpeter Levee, played by Boseman? The other fact is that excellent though Boseman is, so are all the other … Read more
And Then We Danced
The very trad meets meets the very not in And Then We Danced, a pungently flavoured drama about a wild love affair between two men who dance with the Georgian national troupe. Black Swan and Flashdance are the two most obvious points of reference, as punishing regimes take thir physical toll and rivalries for the top slot combine with a push to innovate against the dead hand of tradition, the entire raison d’etre of a troupe like the one that Merab (Levan Gelbakhiani) dances in. He’s perhaps not the best, the most naturally gifted dancer in the troupe, but he’s prepared to do whatever is necessary to make the grade and get into … Read more
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
One of the big surprises of late 2023 was Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves making it onto so many “Best of…” lists for the year. Even more surprising, it actually deserves to be there (usual caveats apply). It’s a big sword-and-sorcery quest movie, with all the stuff you’d expect – spells, elves, shapeshifters, a medieval setting, capes, subterranean realms, undead creatures and, yes, dungeons and dragons. “Wizards and shit”, as one critic once termed it (I suspect it might have been Nathan Rabin, who also gave us the Manic Pixie Dream Girl as a concept). What you might not expect is the tone. It’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the medieval … Read more
Power, Profit and Populism: The Battle for Hard Brexit
At the Raindance film festival, London, UK, 27 October–6 November 2021 The UK voted to leave the EU in 2016. Power, Profit and Populism: The Battle for Hard Brexit tells the story of how the answer to a seemingly straightforwardly worded referendum question was hijacked by invisible forces. “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?” was the question, and the campaign to persuade the electorate to vote to leave was largely fought on the basis that the country would be able to “take back control” of various competencies, like its borders, its fishing and farming, while retaining access to the EU’s single market. … Read more
State and Main
An intelligent and acidic if somewhat stagey comedy about a film production descending on a small New England town and the effect that each has on the other. It’s written and directed by David Mamet, not known for out and out comedy, but clearly feeling flighty at the moment, flighty enough to turn out the sort of farce you might expect from the French, or from Michael Frayn. And Mamet has the cast to perform it – Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Julia Stiles and a surprisingly good Alec Baldwin, all of them upping their game in homage to a master of the blunt misanthropic object who has spent enough time writing … Read more
Paul Is Dead
Paul Is Dead. Depending on your age, most likely, the title of Henk Handloegten’s debut feature might suggest an entire landscape, maybe tickle a vague memory somewhere or pull up a complete blank. The Paul in question is Paul McCartney and the phrase refers to the bizarre conspiracy theory suggesting that at some point in the Beatles’ career, McCartney died, forcing the Beatles to get in a lookalike McCartney in order to keep the band going. The fact that the doppelganger also had the original McCartney’s ability to knock out million-selling tunes is not something the conspiracy theorists ever explain, but then, in the way of these things, who needs facts when you’ve … Read more
The Avengers: Series 4, Episode 5 – Castle De’ath
Three Bond movies had been released and a fourth was just around the corner, when Castle De’ath was broadcast on an autumnal Saturday night in 1965. It’s a mini-me version of Bond, with Scotland standing in for myriad exotic locations, a mini-sub standing in for all the 007 tech and Steed and Peel doing their best to quip for England as the plot takes them north of the border. Things kick off with a pre-Steadycam handheld tour of the castle – every heartbeat of the cameraman registering – which winds up in a dungeon where a man is being tortured on the rack. He’s an agent and soon dead, and the fact that … Read more
