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More Grit than True

Tweet The American West as myth is far more powerful than its historical reality. The period of American history that has spawned thousands of films, TV series and books lasted less than 40 years at the end of the 19th century. If the reality of the pioneering spirit of the early settlers runs deep in […]

Elegaic, thoughtful, moving and provoking

Tweet Never Let Me Go – Mark Romanek Ilie Nastase, after he had been overwhelmed by an impossibly young Bjorn Borg (20) in the 1976 Wimbledon final, was asked why he had lost. Ruefully Nastase replied, “We’re all playing tennis out there – I don’t know what he’s playing.” Carey Mulligan’s fellow actors could be […]

Float like a brick – sting like a duck

Tweet The Fighter – David O Russell Stop Press: Amy Adams can say f*** and flash her boobs. Forgive the crudity of my language and coarseness of thought: but welcome to the tone and ethos of this astonishingly over-rated meretricious, unpleasant, really bad film. To be clear: I have absolutely no moral objections to ‘bad’ […]

Humanity, compassion….Art

Tweet Biutiful – Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu Innaritu celebrates our humanity more powerfully than any contemporary Director. But his social, political and personal emotional landscape is implacable; often, true to the lives of many, starkly bleak. He puts in what is missing from most movies: the salutary reality that our aspiration to the good, our struggle […]