Brian Cox

The Parenting

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Rohan and Josh looking scared

Brian Cox apparently gets a bit sick of being asked in interviews about Succession and playing Logan Roy, which might explain his presence in The Parenting, a film unafraid to do jokes about projectile vomiting alongside a whole slew (spew?) of gags revived from the era of gross-out comedy. Look, this says, I’m an actor, now doing something completely different, alright, because that’s what acting is. Craig Johnson is the director and Kent Sublette the writer, but it’s the Farrelly or Wayans brothers who really preside over this movie – comedy done with a wink and a how-low-can-you-go chuckle. It’s a Meet the Parents set-up. Rohan (Nik Dodani) and Josh (Brandon Flynn) are … Read more

Red

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A dour Avery Ludlow in wide brimmed hat

Pausing momentarily from a binge-watch of the TV show Succession to watch something else with Brian Cox in it – Red, a 2008 movie which went largely unnoticed. For good reason, it turns out, though there is a good film lurking in here somewhere. It was beset by problems – original director fired, Cox’s original co-star also fired – which is how come it’s Trygve Allister Diesen behind the camera and Kim Dickens in front of it with Cox (Cox is also an executive producer so might, Logan Roy style, have ordered the firings, or might not have – speculate away). It’s a John Wick-before-John Wick story of a guy whose dog gets killed, which … Read more

A Woman in Winter

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Jamie Sives and Julie Gayet in A Woman in Winter

For a film-maker, Richard Jobson has an odd CV – a member of the new wave band The Skids (hit single: Into the Valley), a model, performance poet, actor, TV and radio presenter, Jobson arrived as a director with his partly autobiographical debut, 2003’s 16 Years of Alcohol, about growing up in a violent gang in Scotland. A Woman in Winter, his third feature, is also set in Scotland, but draws heavily on that country’s long alliance with France (anything but the English, eh) in its story of a quantum physicist (Jamie Sives) falling for a mysterious French woman (Julie Gayet) and simultaneously finding the parallel universes his theories have predicted. What we have here, … Read more