Second Run dropped a bombshell of a box set dedicated to the films of Marc Isaacs, a British documentary filmmaker known for creating closed-off, intimate films with a cast of many memorable and sometimes eccentric personalities. It doesn’t matter if his contributors are small-time BNP supporters, nobody street sweepers, or […]
Documentary
78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene (2017) Whether it is a glorified extra or a film of its own right remains to be seen (Review)
The Tree of the Wooden Clogs (1978) A Classic Example of the Critics Film (Review)
The Seasons in Quincy: Four Portraits of John Berger (2016) Intentionally Incohesive Portrait of a Simple Man seeking Nourishment (Review)
Every Picture Tells a Story: The Art Films of James Scott (1967-84) (Review)
The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) A gruelling and essential World War II documentary (Review)
Stockholm, My Love (2016) The audacity that marks out the best documentary-fiction hybrids is missing (Review)
Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith (2016) it’s a tribute to life, in all its messy glory (Review)
Now here’s a real curio, and one you might be utterly beguiled by. Minute Bodies is a compilation of work by the British biologist and pioneering filmmaker F. Percy Smith and his colleague and editor Mary Field. Smith was quite a celebrity in his day, cultivating an eccentric domestic-boffin image […]
Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans (2017) For fans of Formula One and “the King of Cool” (Review)
If you read the stories surrounding the production of the film Le Mans, the ill-fated Steve McQueen racing passion project, then it sounds like the production of Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. Both films went massively over budget and over schedule, accidents occurred, cast and crew members dropped out by the day etc. But […]
Film / NotFilm (1965/2015) Samuel Beckett only foray and Buster Keaton’s final one (Review)
Playwright Samuel Beckett’s only foray into filmmaking, the aptly titled Film is a 1965 silent short starring the famed movie clown, Buster Keaton. Before anyone makes any assumptions, no, this is not a comedy that made Keaton famous during the golden age of silent cinema along with Charlie Chaplin and […]