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‘Hello, Wembley!’ As the great British actor Bill Nighy turned 60 on 12 December 2009, Cillian Donnelly takes the opportunity to examine this sadly little-seen gem, in which Nighy turns in a career-defining performance as Ray Simms, the conceited yet vulnerable former lead singer of 1970s hard rockers, Strange Fruit. Like many films before it, Still Crazy [...] Lords of the dance Once again, we’re into the arena of films that are perhaps impossible to overpraise, as a completely restored print of The Red Shoes (1948) by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (‘The Archers’) begins its UK re-release. 2009 has been one of the best years in living memory for the opportunities it has [...] Something wicked this way comes… Another outing from the seemingly ‘can’t-lose’ stable of writer-director Shane Meadows. If you enjoyed This is England (2006), and are tempted to view some of his back-catalogue, you may well heed my warning – this is a genuinely unpleasant watch. ‘You’re a big man, but you’re in bad shape. With me, it’s a full-time job. Now behave yourself.’ Wonderful things, weekends – you have time to yourself, time to devote to paying due respect to what is simply the finest gangster film ever made. Take it away, Jack… Trouble with Harry? Jeremy Slater’s back with his thoughts on the latest goings-on at Hogwarts… This may be the sixth instalment in the Harry Potter saga, with Parts I and II of the final book, The Deathly Hallows, to come in 2010 and 2011, but the heart still beats fast in David Yates’s Half-Blood Prince, with [...] Stand up, if you hate Man Utd… Cards-on-the-table time – your reviewer loathes with a passion (some might say with every fibre of his being, at times) a certain football club variously known as Scum, Glory Hunters Central, Manure and the Evil Empire. Oh, and they also go by the name of Manchester United, for the [...] Mother. Wife. Criminal. He’s never had a problem with handling difficult subjects, has our Mike Leigh – the director of Naked (1993) and Secrets & Lies (1996) turned his hand here to one of western societies’ most controversial issues, namely that of abortion and how mothers, morality and the law are expected to navigate the minefield. [photopress:boy_in_stripped_pyjama.jpg,thumb,alignleft]The eye of childhood Following on from my thoughts on this year’s remake of The Last House on the Left (1972), namely that even a very-well made film of its kind (brutal rape followed by brutal revenge) asks certain questions of viewers as to what exactly they are seeking in terms of entertainment, I believe that [...] [photopress:reader.gif,thumb,alignleft]Reading between the lies Objectively assessing a film that’s drawn from Bernhard Schlink’s book about how reading changes lives, for good and ill? An interesting situation. Given the theme of The Reader, and the frequency with which cinema been cited as a medium that is so different from print as to make comparisons invidious (but, as everyone [...] [photopress:Constant.jpg,thumb,alignleft]Raking up trouble This is one I re-watched by accident the other night (and by ‘accident’ I mean that I was too lazy even to change the channel so saw it through to the end). A horrifying movie – in the truest sense of the word – it’s nonetheless a compelling and enlightening view. With a cast [...] |
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