Picturenose

Still on the Rock…

Paul Stump returns with a trenchant analysis of Peter Weir’s elegaic, haunting classic.

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I bet you’re wondering what the hell the title’s about, aren’t you? Well, wonder no more. I have two pieces of news that will be of interest to anyone who likes a movie or two. First up, the very epitome of pretentiousness, a movie and Pink Floyd all in the same article. Oh, and before the hate mail starts coming in, I like Pink Floyd, OK?

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Here be dragons…

James and I tossed a coin for the write-up of Cloverfield and I won – or lost, I can’t remember which. The reason for my difficulty is that I don’t want to give too much away. I know - it’s been all over the internet since the teaser trailer appeared at the initial screenings of Transformers but I managed to get to the official screening armed with nothing more than scant knowledge of the plot and/or cast.

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Picturenose.com is delighted to welcome Paul Stump esquire into its hallowed halls - renowned author and journalist, Paul is also no slouch when it comes to the silver screen and as such will be appearing here regularly from now on. An appreciation of Stanley Kramer’s madcap movie to end all madcap movies from 1963, to get Paul’s ball rolling…

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Lust for strife

Fast making a name for himself as one of the greatest living directors, Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain (2005), The Ice Storm (1997)) has once again set the screen on fire with his latest, a beautifully shot, savagely sexual look at the hunter and prey, betrayer and betrayed, and how easily such roles can switch.

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Mysterious ways

Flemish shorts director and writer Dimitri Karakatsanis takes his first stint at the helm of a feature with this elegaic study of coping with loss.

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Picturenose’s James Drew had the opportunity for a brief chat with director Ken Loach on his recent visit to Brussels, as his hard-hitting indictment on the realities of life for immigrant workers in the UK, It’s A Free World… arrives in Belgium.

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Sobering slant on exploiters and exploited

Long-recognised, from writing Cathy Come Home (1966) onwards, as one of the most uncompromising directors around when it comes to educating audiences about social injustices, Ken Loach has never succumbed to the siren call of Hollywood, and it’s virtually impossible to imagine his particular brand of British socialist realism translating well to that context.

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Whodunnit? More like who didn’t…

Talk about setting yourself up with a film title. This was a film released in late 2006 just begging for bad reviews on account of the easy job supplied by the title. This is a real pity, because I can’t believe the reviewers were watching the same film I saw. First off, it’s not the best film I’ve ever seen - that was, of course, Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow. It does hold its own very well and is a competent, lively and entertaining piece of film-making.

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Derivative dead ringer

Despite inventing the word ‘macabre’, the French rarely venture into the genre from a cinematic perspective; historically, however, when they have, the results have been sometimes sensational - think Henri-Georges Clouzot ’s Les Diaboliques (1955) and Georges Franju’s Les Yeux Sans Visage (1960).

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