Just seen David Clare Just seen David Clare

Silence is godly

After Bergman, it is Scorsese's turn to meditate on God's silence, in his tale of a Jesuit priest enduring persecution in seventeenth century Japan. As Father Rodrigues hides in the undergrowth and watches members of his flock suffer…

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Prête-à-manger?

The Neon Demon, NWR’s latest piece of provocation (he’s like a more genre-motivated Lars Von Trier), begins with one of those visual and aural grand statements, a reclining model/mannequin(?)…

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Just seen David Clare Just seen David Clare

Why can't the U.S. be Moore like us?

Michael Moore's latest film, Where to Invade Next, is a tour of European countries - Italy, France, Germany, Norway, Finland, Slovenia, Iceland - and Tunisia, to see if he can find one thing they have got right, in their welfare system…

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Just seen David Clare Just seen David Clare

It's Hateful

I am not sure what is worse, the narcissistic assumption that we are as interested in his opus numbers as we might have been in Fellini's, or the unbridled and increasing tendency to defile his models…

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Just seen, Retrospective David Clare Just seen, Retrospective David Clare

A Good Year

Peter Mayle's book, A Year in Provence, was a newstand hit at the same time I spent my own very formative year there, and so I resisted reading it and, for a long time, resisted watching Scott's screen version of it…

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Close to Heaven

I have seen the best film of 2015 and its name is Carol. It is as close to perfection as anything you could hope to see, short of a re-run of Doctor Zhivago. It's a love story that does not forget the other characters…

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The astronaut and the funambulist

Two movies just seen, The Martian and The Walk, exemplify the symbiotic relationship Hollywood now has with CGI. It is hard to conceive of anything that cannot be realized for the screen, with the possible exception of the human face, which still resists digital counterfeiting…

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Just seen David Clare Just seen David Clare

Minion morceau

As my French colleague's pronunciation of their name never fails to remind me, the Minions are nothing if not cute (Fr. mignon). And this third film featuring the droll little critters trades heavily on that fact…

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Just seen, Retrospective David Clare Just seen, Retrospective David Clare

I Am Cubist

I made a discovery a couple of weeks ago from which I am still reeling with surprise and elation. It was Mikhail Kalatozov’s 1964 film, I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba), made as the world recovered from the Bay of Pigs crisis…

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Just seen David Clare Just seen David Clare

Mann-hunter

The arrival of a new film by Michael Mann is an event indeed for any self-respecting male cinephile, particularly of thrillers. Like Howard Hawks and Walter Hill before him, his narratives are ones in which the professional virtues are upheld,…

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Retrospective David Clare Retrospective David Clare

Straight as a Bullitt

I was taking another look at an old favourite the other week – Peter Yates’s classic police thriller, Bullitt (1968). It is a movie I have seen some nine times – I used to catch it regularly on ITV late-night screenings at one time,…

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