politics
DVD: 99 HomesTuesday, 02 February 2016
The opening scene of Ramin Bahrani’s 99 Homes plunges us into the darker depths of American society, post-2008 financial crisis. We’re in the world of home repossessions, and the blood spattered around the bathroom of one property by an ex-owner who... Read more... |
Lost in KarastanWednesday, 20 January 2016
Ah, the fascination of faraway countries of which we know nothing. And of dictators, always a species of interest to filmmakers, because you rarely have to make anything up – Chaplin, of course, wrote the primer on that one. How alluring when... Read more... |
Keep Calm and Knuckle UnderSunday, 17 January 2016
“He lives in Woolwich and Warsaw”. From which author note you might conclude that Owen Hatherley, author of The Ministry of Nostalgia, is not your ordinary kind of UK critic, comfortably ensconced (usually) in North or fashionable East London.... Read more... |
Spin, More 4Saturday, 09 January 2016
Walter Presents, Channel 4's clever and welcome strand of foreign, subtitled drama for broadcast both on television and online, is already throwing up some interesting titles. It launched with the Cold War-set Deutschland 83, and now second in the... Read more... |
DVD: The Czechoslovak New Wave - A Collection, Vol. 2Monday, 28 December 2015
Distributor Second Run’s second collection of the Czech New Wave (strictly speaking, Czechoslovak, although the three films included here are from the Czech side of the movement) reminds us what an astonishing five years or so preceded the Prague... Read more... |
10 Questions for Director Roger MichellMonday, 26 October 2015
It’s not easy to see the pattern in Roger Michell’s career. More than most British directors, he has zigzagged between the stage and the screen. He was the one who first rehearsed such contemporary classics as Kevin Elyot’s My Night with Reg and Joe... Read more... |
SuffragetteTuesday, 13 October 2015
Suffragette is exemplary in its attempt to depict the harrowing experiences of the British women who risked their lives to win the vote. It depicts the awakening of a reluctant recruit who becomes a militant, and graphically depicts the violence... Read more... |
DVD: CitizenFourFriday, 18 September 2015
The repercussions of the revelations about intelligence gathering by American and other surveillance services made by US whistleblower Edward Snowden have proved huge. Laura Poitras’s documentary CitizenFour is no less revelatory about the process... Read more... |
CD: Public Enemy – Man Plans God LaughsSaturday, 15 August 2015
Billed as the hardest hitting Public Enemy album for years, Man Plans God Laughs has a lot to live up to; as far as sonic sledghammers go PE have more than their fair share. However, with lone Bomb Squad member Gary G-Wiz at the controls and the... Read more... |
Veep, Series Four, Sky AtlanticThursday, 16 July 2015
When Jim Hacker MP was unexpectedly promoted to the position of PM, the classic sitcom Yes, Minister required just a small tweak in title and it was pretty much business as usual, albeit with a grander sense of potential impact. When the shit hit... Read more... |
True Detective, Series 2, Sky AtlanticTuesday, 23 June 2015
Last year's debut series of True Detective starred Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in a fascinating slice of metaphysical Southern Gothic. That's all gone now though, because this time, writer Nic Pizzolatto has shunted the action out to the... Read more... |
Philip Guston, Timothy Taylor GallerySunday, 21 June 2015
Light. Light banishes the shadows where monsters lurk and where ghosts rattle their chains. “Give me some light, away!” cries the usurping king in Hamlet as his murderous deed is exposed by the trickery of art. What guilt plagues and seizes his... Read more... |
