Ever since my mid-teens, the music of Pink Floyd has had an immense impression on me (I thank my older brothers David and Paul for their encouragement). So this post is really just an excuse to talk about their music through the largely tenuous, but admittedly relevant, link of films - films, of course, that … Continue reading Absolutely Curtains: The Movies of Pink Floyd
Night Shift (Ночная Смена) (2018, Russia) Directed by Marius Vaisberg. Featuring Vladimir Yaglych, Pavel Derevyanko, Kseniya Teplova, Natalya Bardo and Anna Mikhaylovskaya. Night Shift (or pronounced Nochnaya Smena in Russian) is a slap-stick comedy set in St. Petersburg, Russia. The multiple script writers appear to have taken the basic premise (and a few particular scenes) … Continue reading The Two Reviews: Night Shift (Ночная Смена) and Peppermint
First Man (2018, Universal, DreamWorks and Temple Hill Entertainment) Directed by Damien Chazelle. Based on First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrongby James R. Hansen. Featuring Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler and Ciarán Hinds. So many movies have been made about space missions. At first I thought that First Man might just … Continue reading The Two Reviews: First Man and The Girl in the Spider’s Web
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018, Warner Bros. Pictures and Heyday Films) Directed by David Yates. Written by J.K. Rowling. Featuring Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Don Fogler, Ezra Miller, Zoë Kravitz, Jude Law and Johnny Depp. Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is the second in an expected series of five films set in … Continue reading The One Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
I suppose the artistic medium of film has been experimented with ever since the early pioneers. For the first 20 years of the 20th century at least, most films were seen to be an experiment. But once the studios of Hollywood established formulas and ensured that films were presented to the public on a manageable, … Continue reading Film Experiments: From Buñuel and Deren to Lynchian and Dogme 95
Bohemian Rhapsody (2018, 20th Century Fox and New Regency) Directed by Bryan Singer (completed by Dexter Fletcher). Featuring Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton, Ben Hardy, Gwilym Lee, Joseph Mazzello and Mike Myers. Bohemian Rhapsody is a very credible biopic of Freddie Mercury and the rock band Queen - from simple beginnings to global popularity. I don’t … Continue reading The One Review: Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)
A Star is Born Directed by Bradley Cooper. Written by Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters. Featuring Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, Sam Elliot, Dave Chappelle, Andrew Dice Clay and Rafi Gavron. Since the turn of the 21st Century, musical movies have been carried on in the Hollywood tradition as per normal. There has, however, … Continue reading The Two Reviews: A Star is Born (2018 Bradley Cooper)
Faces Places (2017) Directed by Agnès Varda and JR. Written by Agnès Varda (in French with subtitles) If you don’t know who Agnès Varda is, then I would recommend you check out some of her movies. She turned 90 this year and has been making provocative and artistic films since the early 1950s. She was … Continue reading Documentary Review Special: Faces Places (2017 Agnès Varda and JR)
Venom (2018 Marvel Entertainment, Sony Pictures and Columbia Pictures) Directed by Ruben Fleischer, featuring Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams and Riz Ahmed. This recent addition to the Marvel superhero/monster-menace series of films is a great box office success, but critics are harder to please. First of all, there is no doubt that Venom contains a comic-book … Continue reading The Two Reviews: Venom and Early Man
Prologue – A Man With No Name This is the story of a story. Not the whole story of course just the highlights. The greatest stories are timeless. They crop up again and again. Christopher Booker, in his 2004 book, described seven basic plots. Leo Tolstoy thought that there were only two: a man goes … Continue reading Akira Kurosawa meets The Man With No Name
