jeff nichols

The Bikeriders

by
Benny

Since Shotgun Stories, his 2007 debut, there hasn’t been a bad Jeff Nichols film. But The Bikeriders comes close, a downbeat affair quietly putting the glamorous image of the motorbike gang to the test, if not to the sword. The film is based on a 1960s photo-book by Danny Lyon, which followed the Outlaws (here renamed the Vandals) motorbike club for several years, photographing the guys and girls and talking to them about their lives. Constructed as a series of flashbacks, it is strung together by interviews Lyon (played here by Mike Faist, of Challengers fame) conducts over the years with a young woman called Kathy (Jodie Comer), who fell badly for a … Read more

Mud

by
Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland and Matthew McConaughey in Mud

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 10 December Huckleberry Finn published, 1884 On this day in 1884, Mark Twain published Huckleberry Finn. It was the second book to feature the vagabond child of a vagrant drunkard father, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer being the first. Huck Finn would appear in two more short books, Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective, but only as the narrator. Huckleberry Finn is a romantic character, the free spirit not bound by the rules of bourgeois life – hence nice kid Tom Sawyer’s attraction to him. He was based on a Mississippi character called Tom Blankenship, whom Twain was friendly with … Read more