Yes, I am yoking three reviews and three films together, but bear with me, and we can ride on this makeshift oxcart together. It’s not just that two of them are from the BFI’s Woodfall collection, a recent boxed set of British New Wave classics; or that all three are […]
Reviews
Crowhurst (2017) if you prefer your biopics a little more obscure and experimental (Review)
In October 1968, a weekend sailor and engineer attempted to sail into the history books with one of the last great adventures of the twentieth century and the new Elizabethan age, the race to circumnavigate the globe single-handed and without any stops. That man was Donald Crowhurst and although he […]
I Kill Giants (2017) loses the magic of the original IMAGE graphic novel (Review)
In a small coastal American town, the middle-schooler Barbara has a secret: she must save the lives of everyone around her from murderous giants. Virtually nobody believes that giants exist, of course, but that’s simply because nobody bothers to look at the evidence. Barbara may be bullied at school, she […]
Yellow Submarine
It was fifty years ago today… On Sunday 8th July, cinemas up and down the land screened the Beatles animated musical fantasy Yellow Submarine to mark the 50th anniversary of its release in July, 1968. Remastered and restored for the celebration (for the first time since the thirtieth anniversary in 1998) […]
Samuel Fuller at Columbia (1937-61)(Review)
There are two schools of thought on what makes a good box set. The first is what you might call the blockbuster principle: just assemble as impressive a collection of hits as you can. Certainly, that works – there’s a reason there are so many anthologies of Hitchcock and Coen […]
The Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner (1962) one of the greatest endings to a film ever (Review)
Based on Alan Sillitoe’s 1959 first-person short story of the same name, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner was an obvious choice for Woodfall Films following the success they had had with a previous adaptation of a Sillitoe novel; Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. It tells the story of […]
Black Peter (1964) The origins of Czech New Wave’s greatest export (Review)
Visiting the local co-op to see his sixteen-year-old son at work, a father barks angrily “That’s not working! That’s just standing and looking!” But there’s a value to standing and looking when you’re employed – as the boy, Petr, is – as a trainee store detective. Miloš Forman’s Black Peter, […]
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) Just as relevant 60 years later (Review)
There comes a point in the life of a teenager when you have to leave the books of your childhood behind and venture into the great unknown of adult literature. It’s a big move, as the books and authors you find there could not only become lifelong companions, but they […]
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou (2004) feels like a living watercolour painting (Review)
I have a strong love for Wes Anderson’s films as they have an odd, quirky feel to each of them. He has a knack for making some of the most mundane aspects of life seem fun and nostalgic; like your first love or a job at a hotel. As with […]
Dark River (2017) … And the continued Ascendancy of Clio Barnard (Review)
She’s got armfuls of good reviews and her films have opened at Cannes, but it still feels like people don’t recognise how good Clio Barnard is. Among her peers, Andrea Arnold is the heir apparent of social realist cinema, Ben Wheatley has the genre fans in his corner and Peter […]