Because I’ve given up on going to the local cinema I have to wait until films are on DVD or Sky Movies until I see them, which means coming completely late to all of this year’s Oscar Winners. I’m just now starting to catch up with most of the films (or at least the ones I want to see…)
Unbroken
11 November 2015 by 2 Comments
Today is Armistice Day (Veterans’ Day in the US) and the BBC Festival of Remembrance on Saturday had a focus on the war in South East Asia, including testimony from a British prisoner-of-war who suffered in a Japanese camp. It seems fitting…
Top Ten: Sandra Bullock Films
27 April 2015 by 1 Comment
Last week People magazine named Sandra Bullock as the most beautiful woman in the world this year. This cheered me a lot, I’ve always liked Sandra Bullock – she seems great fun and the kind of woman I’d like to be my friend. She seems not to take the Hollywood hoopla too seriously…
Grace of Monaco
8 April 2015 by Leave a Comment
A couple of years back I took part in a mad attempt to visit all 50 countries in Europe in just one year. We didn’t quite manage it and I’m still tempted to try it again. One of the 25 countries I did visit in the year was principality of Monaco. It was an amazing day trip…
Dallas Buyers Club
11 February 2014 by 4 Comments
I’m just about old enough to remember the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the early 80s. Here in Britain it was accompanied by doom-laden adverts showing exploding mountains and granite gravestones with the tagline “Don’t Die of Ignorance”. It probably saved lives by terrifying people…
Rush
2 September 2013 by Leave a Comment
Ron Howard is a funny old director. You never quite know what you’re going to get with him. His work ranges from the brilliant (Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon) to the fairly good (Backdraft, Splash) to the diabolical (The Dilemma) and encompasses every stage in between. He hits more often than he misses but his name isn’t an automatic guarantee of quality…
Top Ten: 2013 Movies (so far…)
21 June 2013 by 2 Comments
We’re almost half-way through the year so it’s time to have a look back at how 2013 has been so far. Next week I’ll be doing a Top Ten books that I’ve read this year (although not all have been published in 2013) but I’m starting with the Top Ten 2013 Films…
Behind the Candelabra
19 June 2013 by Leave a Comment
I am just about old enough to remember Liberace, the flamboyant, over the top, fur-coat wearing pianist. He died when I was about 11 and he had only vaguely appeared on my radar before then. As I grew older I considered him in the same vein as great British comedy acts like Larry Grayson and John Inman. Camp as Christmas and gay as they come….
Lincoln
11 February 2013 by 2 Comments
When you look at the cast and synopses of some films they scream “Oscar fodder” at you. You just know that at the back of studio executives’ minds when the film goes through the development stage is Oscar Night and a row of shiny bald gold men lighting up their Hollywood offices…
The Iron Lady Trailer Arrives
15 November 2011 by 1 Comment
The full trailer for The Iron Lady, the Margaret Thatcher biopic has arrived online and it appears to show a fairly sympathetic portrayal of the former Prime Minister and her life. Early word came out on Twitter yesterday which seemed to imply that the Daily Mail critic enjoyed the film and the Guardian critic hated it. So no tribalism there then….