Tarantino's Eight and a Half
In the film’s motivating scene, Pacino’s bar owner cum no.1 fan warns DiCaprio’s TV star that the writing is on the wall of his career…
Isabelle de jour
Just seen Ozon's Jeune & Jolie, and found it to be as elegant and mixed up as its young heroine, uncertain whether it is offering a comment on the prevalent sexualisation of youngsters' lives leading to frigid wantonness, …
All's well that celebrates Wells
It is customary for Ipswich Film Society to hold an end of season event around this time of year, and on 28th April in Ipswich Library lecture hall Sylvia Hardy gave an informed presentation of the career in film of H. G. Wells…
2014 - the Hollywood year, or the imitation game
As the media’s pundits perch, Janus-like, on the threshold of the New Year, and consider the fruits of 2014 while anticipating the pleasures to come – which read ever more like some galactic football results…
Opening Credits
What with exam marking and report writing it has been a pretty fallow month on the cinematic front so, if I may be permitted an indulgence, I thought I would take my cue from Sight & Sound’s very successful ‘closing shot’ series at the end of their monthly magazine…
Anglo-American Hustle
Yep, it’s that time of year again, and has been since Christmas. We have had the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs, with the inimitably imitable Stephen Fry, still the best of hosts, despite the occasionally misguided off-the-wall fancy…
Elf-girl Power!
I went to see the second instalment of Peter Jackson’s epic visualisation of Tolkien’s The Hobbit – The Desolation of Smaug – the other day…
Sorrentino Roma
The cinematic event of last September was for this viewer undoubtedly Paolo Sorrentino’s new film, La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty)…
The Weary Death
Death holds out his hands for the innocent babe’s life, but the heroine after some hesitation demurs…
Clooney's gravitas
Are you, like this writer, a George Clooney fan, I wonder? During the last month I happen to have seen a number of films in which he had a hand: Gravity,…