The Artist (France-Belguim, 2011)

It’s rare to see long queues at Bradford’s art cinema, Pictureville, but The Artist was still packing them in a week after it went on general release. I guess the novelty value (if you didn’t know it’s a silent, black and white movie) and the superbly realised, if simple, narrative has generated great ‘word of [...]

Shame (UK-Canada, 2011)

I first came across Michael Fassbender in Hunger, directed like Shame by Steve McQueen. His performance, as hunger-striker Bobby Sands, was extraordinary. His promise has been cemented in numerous films since ranging from X-Men First Class to Fish Tank (UK-Neth, 2009). His performance in Shame is also brilliant; he reminds me of Daniel Day-Lewis in [...]

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (US-Swe-UK-Ger, 2011)

It’s inherently irritating that Hollywood insists on remaking commercially successful foreign-language films as it’s due to the fact that the majority of film-goers, in America and UK at least, won’t watch subtitled films. Anyone who has watched a subtitled film knows that after a few minutes they are barely noticeable. Hollywood is only interested in [...]

Kill the director

In the current issue of the generally excellent Sight & Sound magazine a review of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows states: Ritchie goes for cheap laughs by having the brothers call each other “Mikey” and “Shirley”… (p78b) Now unless the reviewer knows this for a fact, we should assume that this ‘cheap laugh’ originated [...]

Cléo de 5 à 7 (France, 1962)

It’s a sign of age, and too much time watching movies maybe, that I’m running out of ‘classic’ films to see. Cléo de 5 à 7 has recently come available and, having studied and taught  the French new wave (nouvelle  vague), it was great to catch this oft-mentioned film. That said, I was a tad [...]

Cape Fear (US, 1961)

When I first saw the original version of Cape Fear I thoroughly enjoyed it, however in this re-viewing I was struck by Gregory Peck’s woodenness. Indeed, the Christmas tree was giving an Oscar-winning performance in comparison. As a film that dramatises a violent disruption of an all-American patriarchal family, and there doesn’t come many more [...]

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog. Here’s an excerpt: The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 23,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many [...]

Best of 2011

Films released last year 1. Black Swan 2. We Need to Talk About Kevin 3. Pina 4. Melancholia 5. 127 Hours 6. Meek’s Cutoff 7. Attack the Block 8. Wuthering Heights 9. Hugo 10. Rise of Planet of the Apes Films Seen Last Year 1. Apocalypse Now 2. Black Swan 3. It’s a Wonderful Life [...]