Once Upon A Time In Anatolia

My short review published online in One Hundred Words Magazine [no longer available]:- Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the most gifted directors in the world; Once Upon A Time In Anatolia is his latest magnificent creation. What seems a simple police procedural is in fact a fascinating, intricate character study and philosophical essay, full …

Carancho

My short review published online in One Hundred Words Magazine [no longer available]:- Carancho, the latest film from talented Argentinean director Pablo Trapero, is a bleak, severe drama which takes the audience on an unsettling but hugely rewarding cinematic journey. In a Buenos Aries rife with casual corruption and extreme violence, Sosa is one of …

The Passion of Joan of Arc

My short review published online in One Hundred Words Magazine [no longer available]:- Amongst the many gems on offer in the BFI Southbank’s complete retrospective of the films of master Danish director Carl Dreyer is this silent masterpiece. The Passion of Joan of Arc portrays the final days of the tragic and deluded heroine. It …

The Kid With A Bike

My short review published online in One Hundred Words Magazine [no longer available]:- The Kid With A Bike – a Special Jury Prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival – is an intense and moving story of a troubled boy, rejected by his father, whose life begins to change when he meets a caring stranger. …

Project Nim

Roger Ebert neatly summarises:- Can a chimpanzee learn to speak by using sign language? Yes. But in what sense does it know what it is saying? "Project Nim," a fascinating documentary, follows the life of a chimp named Nim Chimpsky as it's raised like a human baby and then shuttled from one set of "parents" …

Schleinzer’s Michael – shock tactics or powerful provocation?

Michael [Markus Schleinzer, 2011]: my short review of the film published online in One Hundred Words Magazine [no longer available]:- Markus Schleinzer’s astonishingly assured debut feature is a deeply disquieting film about a paedophile who has a boy locked in his basement. It is also devastatingly brilliant. Carefully understated, its precision of framing, editing and …

New album by Get The Blessing may be best yet…

My short review of OCDC published online in One Hundred Words Magazine:- Bristol-based jazz-rockers Get The Blessing are back with an addictively rousing album, OCDC. It's perhaps their best yet. The front line are Pete Judge (trumpet and flugelhorn) and Jake McMurchie (saxes) playing music which is part-inspired by Ornette Coleman but with a contemporary …

Laura: a cinematic treat…

Laura [Otto Preminger, 1944]: my short review published online in One Hundred Words Magazine [no longer available):- Otto Preminger’s 1944 film noir classic returns to the big screen in a gloriously restored version which does full justice to this richly textured whodunit. The film is worth seeing for the beautifully subtle black and white cinematography …

Attenberg

One of the things I love about Sight and Sound magazine is that you can get two different perspectives on a film within the same edition. In the Oct 2011 publication Attenberg is described by Lisa Mullen as follows:- A simple summary of the plot makes the film sound like the demented hybrid of a …

More on A Separation winning an Oscar…

A previous post concerned itself with the possible wider effects arising from Iranian film A Separation winning an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language category. The main argument I was exploring is forcefully set out in this article from The Independent by Catherine Butler, titled: 'See this film and then say that bombing Iran is …