biopic
Colette review - Keira Knightley thrives in ParisThursday, 10 January 2019
In a telling scene midway through Colette, our lead is told that rather than get used to marriage, it is “better to make marriage get used to you.” In this retelling of the remarkable Colette’s rise, it is evident she did much more than that; by the... Read more... |
Bohemian Rhapsody review – all surface, no soulFriday, 26 October 2018
If a Queen biopic called for drama, scandal and outrage, then Bohemian Rhapsody spent its fill in production. Several Freddies had been and gone, rumours swirling about meddling band members, and then director Bryan Singer’s assault accusations... Read more... |
LFF 2018: Roma review – Alfonso Cuarón’s triumphant return to MexicoSaturday, 20 October 2018
It’s not for nothing that Alfonso Cuarón’s mercurial CV includes Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, because this director really knows something about alchemy. His last, the Oscar-winning Gravity, was a science fiction spectacular... Read more... |
First Man - Neil Armstrong's giant leapThursday, 11 October 2018
Echoes of Phil Kaufman’s 1983 classic The Right Stuff resonate through Damien Chazelle’s new account of how Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. The Right Stuff ended with the conclusion of America’s Mercury space programme in... Read more... |
DVD: Mary ShelleyTuesday, 04 September 2018
This should have been the perfect match. Saudi-born director Haifaa al-Mansour earned real acclaim for her 2012 debut film Wadjda, whose 12-year-old central character had to break the conventions of a restrictive society to realise her dream –... Read more... |
DVD: Al BertoFriday, 17 August 2018
There are plenty of reasons to be apprehensive about biopics of poets. The activity of writing is most often, after all, anything but cinematic, unless its moments of creativity are forced, while the “myth” of the poet all too easily becomes... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Mishima - A Life in Four ChaptersTuesday, 07 August 2018
So much of Japan can be lost in translation, and yet the West is fascinated by a culture that articulates the possibilities of belief and being in such a different mode than our own. Paul Schrader’s now classic 1985 film on the writer and actor... Read more... |
Michel Hazanavicius: 'Losing himself is how he found himself'Friday, 11 May 2018
French director Michel Hazanavicius made a name for himself with his OSS 117 spy spoofs, Nest of Spies (2006) and Lost in Rio (2009), set in the Fifties and Sixties respectively and starring Jean Dujardin as a somewhat idiotic... Read more... |
Crowhurst review - plucky indie wins race with rivalSaturday, 24 March 2018
Perhaps it’s fitting that Donald Crowhurst should once more find himself in a race. Even more aptly, it’s a race against himself. You wait half a century for a biopic about the round-the-world yachtsman who disappeared off the face of the earth, and... Read more... |
I, Tonya review - Margot Robbie shines in over-complicated oddityThursday, 22 February 2018
Tonya Harding and the kneecapping of Nancy Kerrigan – what a story it was, back in 1994. Even if you knew nothing about figure skating, you followed the tale of Tonya, the red-neck, white-trash Olympic hopeful from Oregon, her more elegant rival... Read more... |
Joe Orton Laid Bare, BBC Two review - charming look at theatre's irresistible upstartSunday, 26 November 2017
Laid Bare – it has a lurid implication which is all too suitable for Joe Orton’s work. During a time where the straight-laced British struggled to ease into sexual liberation, Orton stretched acceptability to its very limits. Salacious acts had been... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Montparnasse 19Friday, 24 November 2017
The myth of Modigliani, the archetypal tortured artist, was set in train while he was still alive and remains potent almost a century after his death. Every so often a few game academics try to put things straight, and now Tate Modern’s exhibition... Read more... |
