Tokyo Sonata (Japan-Netherlands-Hong Kong, 2008)

I found this a frustrating film as, after a fabulous two thirds, it charges off into  absurd narrative developments. As the image above suggests, this is a dysfunctional family headed by a recently fired ’salaryman’. The framing in the home is terrific, using stairs, doorways etc. to divide family members, as in the melodramas of [...]

Blue Eyelids (Párpados azules, Mexico, 2007)

It’s good to see films about the marginalised in cinema. In this case the characters are, I suspect, hardly at the margins in society though they are in cinema: the lonely. If lonely people are to be portrayed then we should be able to sympathise with them, however the protagonists of this film are so [...]

Little Children (US, 2006)

I really enjoyed this edgy melodrama, paedophile lurking in the shadows of his mother’s house, though it is a bit too knowing about it’s own cleverness. Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is heavily cited in this tale of middle class adultery and though Kate Winslet is excellent as the frumpy housewife, her casting does undermine the narrative. [...]

Honeydripper (US, 2007)

John Sayles is a terrific independent filmmaker; by that I mean he’s a terrific filmmaker who works independently of the major studios, so his films are always worth watching, as is Honeydripper, though I wish it hadn’t been so predictable. Of course most movies are predictable but this too readily signposts where it’s going.
It concerns [...]

Sweet Smell of Success (US, 1957)

Script by Odets and Lehman; cinematography by James Wong Howe; music by Elmer Bernstein; direction by Alexander Mackendrick; starring Lancaster and Curtis; need I say more? An absolute classic that remains thoroughly modern in its depiction of the corruption of celebrity culture. Lancaster does evil with a one-note demeanor (mean) and Curtis’ Sidney Falco oozes [...]

There Will Be Blood (US, 2007)

My students have been telling me to watch this film for the last 18 months; don’t know why it took me so long to get to it as Day Lewis is one of my favourites, as is Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia (1999). Much as enjoyed the direction, some terrific long takes that took in much [...]

The Hours (US-UK, 2002)

Seeing this film again is a reminder of how Nicole Kidman (above) has lost her way as an actor somewhat as the commercial movies have taken over from the thoughtful ones. Here she is absolutely terrific but may even be ‘beaten’ by Julianne Moore. Meryl Streep, of course, is wonderful. All this may suggest that [...]

Ordinary Boys (Chico normales, Spain, 2008)

The premise of this film is fascinating: it’s set in a Moroccan village where the Madrid bombers originated and looks at the ordinary lives of its residents. It doesn’t quite work for me but there was much that was engaging.
The film attempts to look at the social context – poverty – that leads individuals to [...]

Bigger Than Life (US, 1956)

After the insipidly directed, if well acted, Revolutionary Road it was great to have an opportunity to see this classic ’50s melodrama at the Bradford Film Festival (celebrating James Mason’s centenery). Everything that was wrong with Revolutionary Road is right with this film focusing on Ed Avery’s increasing megalomania as he gets addicted to cortisone [...]

Babylon (UK-Italy, 1980)

The first black British feature Pressure preceded this by five years and there aren’t, nearly 30 years later, many other black British films (I can think of Babymother, 1998); Babylon is, institutionally, a white film but deals brilliantly (I guess) with the young black experience of the 1970s. The ’70s was not a good decade [...]