BFI
'Glorious, isn't it?' Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Subversive CinemaWednesday, 18 October 2023Announcing “A Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger production” or, alternatively “A Production of the Archers”, an arrow thuds into the centre of a roundel. Whether in black and white or colour, that famous rubric not only conflates the auras of... Read more... |
Blu-ray: BranniganTuesday, 17 October 2023Brannigan begins in arresting fashion, Dominic Frontiere’s funky theme playing over leery close ups of the titular hero’s Colt revolver. Directed by Douglas Hickox and released in 1973, this was the only film starring John Wayne which wasn’t shot in... Read more... |
London Film Festival 2023 - a mixed bag of dramas and documentariesTuesday, 10 October 2023The London Film Festival continues to pull in an eclectic selection of films from all over the world. And it’s from the countries not known for their movie industries that some of the most impressive and engaging films have emerged.Goodbye Julia... Read more... |
Blu-ray: TargetsTuesday, 03 October 2023Targets (1968), Peter Bogdanovich’s first feature is generally regarded as a great film. And yet, it came out of a mixture of false starts and opportunism. Could it be that its unique quality, the elements which make it stand out in the history of... Read more... |
Boiling Point, BBC One review - chef drama that's simmering nicelyMonday, 02 October 2023The problem facing any chef series is that its daily dramas are essentially rooted in the same small, sweaty space. It’s like one of the reductions prepared there, all the flavours compressed into an intense spoonful of sauce.As in Disney+’s... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Gregory's GirlTuesday, 26 September 2023Gregory’s Girl stands alongside Kes as one of the few films offering a realistic depiction of state school life. Director Bill Forsyth’s surreal flourishes delight without getting in the way: think of the penguin waddling along the corridors, or the... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: GothicTuesday, 29 August 2023Ken Russell’s horror comedy Gothic (1986) compresses into one nightmarish night the fabled three days in June 1816 when Lord Byron (Gabriel Byrne) entertained at his retreat Villa Diodati near Lake Geneva his fellow Romantic poet... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Driver's SeatTuesday, 01 August 2023Liz Taylor’s blowsy late-period persona is finessed to its finest point in this 1974 Muriel Spark adaptation, boldly plugging into the mains of her fragile talent.Lise (Taylor) travels from Hamburg to Rome after a mental breakdown, sporting black... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Western ApproachesTuesday, 04 July 2023Writer-director Pat Jackson’s Western Approaches (1944), a Technicolor tour de force partly shot in turbulent seas by Jack Cardiff, is a stirring World War II story documentary that demonstrates the bravery, resilience, selflessness, and collective... Read more... |
Inland review - a cracked mosaic of memories, impressions and lurking anxietyWednesday, 24 May 2023Fridtjof Ryder’s debut feature made a strong impression at last year’s London Film Festival, and its cinema release ought to give the Gloucester-born director’s career a hefty shove in the right direction. Although that doesn’t mean that Inland is... Read more... |
Brainwashed review - the toxic impact of the 'male gaze' in filmWednesday, 10 May 2023The phrase “male gaze” was coined by the British film theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975 and has become a standard tool for analysing a film’s gendered content. What director Nina Menkes has set out to show in Brainwashed is that the techniques that... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Enys MenTuesday, 09 May 2023In Mark Jenkin’s haunted Cornwall, time warps and bends. He is a child of Nic Roeg’s Seventies masterworks (Walkabout, Don’t Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth), whose kaleidoscopic slivering of time expressed an elliptical, sensual mind. ... Read more... |