Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019)
I confess to not paying that much attention to Reginald Dwight — although there was no escaping his persecution by The Sun when he sued or his Diana anthem and he cowrote with Tom Robinson — oh and he had those photos at t’Tate. Although, curiously, I’ve always enjoyed his songs when I’ve heard them. I knew the brief outline of his life story and … Continue reading →
Sunset (Napszállta, Nemes László, 2018)
I saw the start of this film twice, as the Curzon screwed up the subtitles: a painting of the kind of four or five storey streets we associate with nineteenth century Vienna or Budapest or Paris, with the light fading to night and electric interiors coming into view. To be precise, it is 1913 Budapest, the other capital of the Austro-Hungarian empire and a young woman is trying on hats, barely acknowledging the helpers, staring indifferently into mirrors. Again, with sound — the newest model, the oldest, the most à la mode — and then she announces she’s there for a job.
Continue reading →
Tolkien (Dome Karukoski, 2019)
The author biopic has a real problem to navigate — we want to know what they get their crazy ideas from but it turns out they just lived it.
Picture Tom Eliot wandering down King William Street and some passing bloke in a Stetson says, “Bloody cruel month, April.”
Continue reading →
High Life (Claire Denis, 2018)
This is not alas the big screen version of the classic Alan Cumming-Forbes Masson-Siobhan Redmond sitcom, but Robert Pattison is no Alan Cumming and Juliette Binoche is no Forbes Masson. What we have is sf that suffers in the name of art, with Silent Running, Stalker and Sleeper wizzed in the blender with a crapper version of The Black Hole dribbling out of the jug.
Todos lo saben (Everybody Knows; Asghar Farhadi, 2018)
This was the second time in a week I’d seen a psychological thriller which was frankly a soap with famous actors. Laura (Penélope Cruz) returns from Argentina for a wedding to her home village with her children, but not her husband, and is reunited with Paco (Javier Bardem), a former lover whose family had worked for her family’s vineyard and had bought it some years before. At the reception, everyone gets drunk, and the daughter, Irene (Carla Campra), retires to bed early and is kidnapped.
Continue reading →
At Eternity’s Gate (Julian Schnabel, 2018)
If you need to know — I didn’t know — At Eternity’s Gate is a late painting by Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh, of an old man with his head in his hands, based on earlier designs. Van Gogh didn’t get to be an old man, having (spoiler) shot himself in the stomach whilst not in a fit state. He is the poster boy for artist as mad, tortured genius, seller of a single painting in his life time and now worth millions per canvas.
Continue reading →
On the Basis of Sex (Mimi Leder, 2018)
This is the story of Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Felicity Jones) struggling at Harvard Law School because of discrimination against her even by those who admitted women to the university, struggling to get a job as a attorney or lawyer because she might get pregnant or make her colleagues’ wives jealous and then struggling to bring a sex discrimination case that could uncrack the whole canon of sex discriminatory laws. At one point Dorothy Kenyon (a cameo from Kathy Bates) tells her it will take a generation.
Continue reading →
Girl (Lukas Dhont, 2018)
Trans issues are a hot button topic right now — not least because some feminists have an issue with people declaring themselves to be women and sounding in the process as if they have an essentialist view of women closer to the conservative side of the debate. A programme such as Woman’s Hour can have a presenter claiming that sportswomen will no longer succeed as suddenly a lot of male athletes will claim to be women. And a few years back there was a lot of controversy over the (problematic) The Danish Girl, since Eddie Redmayne was a cis actor. Were there any trans actors who could have played the role? Would the film have been funded with one?
A Private War (Matthew Heineman, 2018)
Marie Colvin was a female war correspondent, following in the footsteps of Martha Gellhorn (and Kate Adie), reporting under fire from many of the hell holes of the world. We know what war correspondents are like from films — hardbitten, tough, driven, sociopathic and unable to maintain normal relationships, slave to the bottle and traumatised if they’d but admit it. It’s still unusually to see a women in this role on film, although since at least the 1930s journalism has been an acceptable job for a woman on screen.
Foxtrot ((פוֹקְסטְרוֹט) Samuel Maoz, 2017)
This film pissed off the Israeli Minister of Culture because it depicted the Israeli armed forces being less than perfect. There have been any number of incidents over the years which are claimed to be misreported or someone else’s fault. But by the law of averages, all armies screw up. Or act inappropriately.
Subject to Change 