So, after several months of barely getting to the edge of CT1 – perhaps a wander into CT2 – lockdown finally eased. I wasn’t in a hurry to get out and about, despite the restriction, with the first exciting thing being a visit on Bloom’s Day to the local second-hand bookshop, where I forced myself to buy three books.
Continue reading →Manic But No Dream Girl
Pixie (Barnaby Thompson, 2020)
There is a great film in here trying to get out — but it just throws too much into it. This isn’t the first two men and a woman crime caper movie — it’s a long time since I saw it, but Shooting Fish springs to mind — and its rural Irish/Northern Irish location gave it a feel of some of the films Channel 4 made in the 1980s. Musically, it wants to be a western, especially of the western variety, but the caption Once Upon a Time in the West of Ireland gag is a one off and risks being mistaken as the film’s actual title.
Don’t Call Me …
Shirley (Josephine Decker, 2018)
The first rule of biopics is that they are not biographies of their subjects — in this case we have Shirley Jackson (1916-1965), best known for the inexplicably thought to be frightening “The Lottery” and the twice-filmed The Haunting of Hill House. She clearly had some issues with smoking and barbiturates and other meds and an unfaithful husband.
Like a Version
The Forty-Year-Old Version (Rhanda Blank, 2020)
Wait — a film directed by a woman of colour? Who also wrote, produced and starred?
And utterly charming it is in a try not to think too much about Woody Allen way. Continue reading →
Rocks n Roles
Rocks (Sarah Gavron, 2019)
Apparently it takes the end of the world to see a female-directed film released, and here we have another one. I seem to recall some quibbles about the director’s Suffragette, but this is a remarkable piece of work in the Ken Loach tradition.
Most Bogus
Bill & Ted Face the Music (Dean Parisot, 2020)
At the tail end of the 1980s was a science fiction comedy, which was just about silly enough — two Californian slacker dudes have to pass their assignment to guarantee the future and are aided in doing so by a man from the future with a time travelling phone box. Continue reading →
Skidoo
23 Walks (Paul Morrison, 2019)
In this romantic comedy for pensioners, you have the collision of two film styles.
Skool’s Back
I have two sets of keys — one with front and back door, one with front and back door (twice), shed, bicycle lock, a broken display case key and what I hope is my office key. Outside of term time, I try to carry the smaller set.
Crime and Titillation
Kjell Ola Dahl, Lethal Investments (Dødens investeringer (1993), translated by Don Bartlett, 2011)
Jo Nesbø has been lucky – whilst they didn’t start with the first Harry Hole novel, all have been translated. Gunnar Staalersen and Jørn Lier Horst’s series have large gaps. And here Lethal Investments has made it into English, but only after a few other novels – Seksognitti (1994), Miniatyren (1996) and Siste skygge av tvil (1998) have yet to follow. At this point he was still K.O. Dahl – perhaps we would have been scared by … Kiel …? Shell…?
Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas
Tenet (Christopher Nolan, 2020)
complexity. their of because follow to impossible almost are that thrillers intellectual producing for reputation a gained has Nolan Christopher, Curiously. Continue reading →
Subject to Change 