Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala, released on Blu-Ray by Criterion UK, is a nice film. Befuddlingly so, in fact. Nair’s only prior feature was Salaam Bombay! in 1988, a story of Indian street children gritty enough to have critics hailing her as the heir to Vittorio de Sica. Her second film […]
racism
Stupid Sexy Orwell – Literary Loitering 117
Literary Loitering 88 – Tales From Fort Peddlesmut: The Big Cocky Dragon Slayer
Don’t trust fairies and other fey creatures like unicorns. After that public service announcement it’s time for our resident cultural anarchists to venture into the murky dystopia of literature and the arts where they discover racism from the creator of Little House on the Prairie, authors retiring then making comebacks, […]
Agatha Christie: Nice Mysteries, Shame About the Prejudice
Agatha Christie has a certain reputation. If you’ve never read her books, you might associate her with twee, cozy, country mysteries featuring genteel and civilised murderers who delicately despatch their victims, perhaps a body in a library, the kind of coffee-table read favoured by older ladies as they sip their […]
Pool of London (1951) Blazing a Trail for Black British Cinema (Review)
Studio Canal’s latest presentation of London’s finest cinema exponent, Ealing studios, defied all expectations for what one of their films should be. Basil Dearden’s Pool of London evokes the charm associated with an Ealing film whilst also including a complexity beyond the studio’s typical relationship with criminality. An approach to […]
White Dog (1982): Samuel Fuller’s Timeless attack on institutional racism (Review)
Slavery has been a hot topic in cinema over the past 18 months, what with critical & commercial darlings in 12 years a slave and Django unchained bringing racial inequality into the public discourse. With this social sickness being given an unheralded amount of attention there could be no greater […]