My Favourite Films of 2017

It's been a pretty awful year in politics, so I find looking back at my year in film is a pleasant diversion. The following is a list of my current 2017 favourites, but before I go through them, there are a few special film-related highlights to mention: In January I hosted a Q&A with producer …

Special screening of Abbas Kiarostami’s THE TRAVELLER (1974)

This Bank Holiday Monday, 29th May 2017, we have a real treat in Cambridge. The Arts Picturehouse cinema, in conjunction with ourscreen.com, is presenting a screening of THE TRAVELLER, the debut feature of the great Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. The event will take place at 9 pm and tickets are only £5. Ehsan Khoshbakht, the film critic …

Film: Further Beyond – A Journey Well Worth Taking

With HELEN and MISTER JOHN, directors Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy proved themselves adept at thoughtful and intelligent fiction features. Mark Kermode waxed lyrical about HELEN in this video review: It's one of those little gems that really makes you think cinema can still be exciting and exceptional in ways that are frankly inexplicable. Their latest …

Interview with Joanna Hogg

Photo: Toby Miller Recently I had the opportunity to interview British filmmaker Joanna Hogg, someone I greatly admire. She was incredibly generous with her time, genuinely engaged and thoughtful in her answers, and patient with my questioning. A lovely, inspiring woman. The full transcript of that interview has been published in Take One and is reproduced …

Mania Akbari and some special Cambridge screenings

There is a scene in the film ONE.TWO.ONE which is so brilliant in its conception and execution that it takes my breath away. I wish that every film student would carefully examine its construction and try to understand how an apparently simple static camera shot can be so richly textured, so simple yet full of elegance and poetry. Mark Cousins …

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie…

Bunuel's classic 1972 film has been re-released, and comes to the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge this week. Having recently re-watched it on DVD, I found it as strange and compelling as ever; it doesn't seem to lose its potency, if anything I find it more intriguing as I get older. Even though on the surface …

Bela Tarr, a brief retrospective

THE TURIN HORSE finally recieving it UK release a week or two back in London and is to be released in my favourite cinema - the Arts Picturehouse Cambridge - this Friday. To celebrate, here's my retrospective on Bela Tarr's films which was published in Take One:- Hungarian director Bela Tarr’s latest film, THE TURIN HORSE, …

The Turin Horse

An expanded version of my short review published online in One Hundred Words Magazine:- I feel very fortunate to live near such an inspirational cinema as the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge; a venue always keen to bring the best in cinema to its appreciative audience. As a huge (though not uncritical) fan of Bela Tarr, …

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. …

Lynch and Kiarostami

Two interesting articles with perhaps only a tenuous connection: they both feature critics talking about the cinema which excites them. In this Guardian piece Peter Bradshaw talks about Blue Velvet, and why 25 years after first seeing the film it still captivates him. There is much I admire in David Lynch's work (though certainly not …