Christopher Machell
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Criterion Review: L’Avventura
★★★★★ Now celebrated as a masterpiece of Italian cinema, Michaelangelo Antonioni’s L’Avventura was booed during its first screening at the Cannes film festival before going on to win the Jury Prize, an apparent paradox that reflects the tonal and thematic conflicts at the heart of the film. Critically lauded for its experimental form, L’Avventura‘s central…
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Criterion Review: In a Lonely Place
★★★★★ Nicholas Ray’s In a Lonely Place is the newest addition to the Criterion Collection, a magnificently dark noir thriller comprising one of Humphrey Bogart’s signature roles. Bogart plays Dixon ‘Dix’ Steele, a grouchy, hot-tempered Hollywood screenwriter who finds himself the prime suspect in a murder case. The magnetic Gloria Grahame plays alongside Bogart as…
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Criterion Review: Easy Rider
★★★★★ Dennis Hopper’s counter-cultural classic, Easy Rider, is not only emblematic of independent American cinema, but, released in 1969, is the definitive statement on the death of the 60s. Indeed, as this year’s darkly farcical presidential primaries currently threaten to plunge the US into a political and moral abyss, the timeliness of Criterion’s release of…
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Criterion Review: Tootsie
★★★★☆ In a tearful and candid interview, Dustin Hoffman once explained his impetus to make Tootsie: expecting himself to be a beautiful woman in make-up test, he was shocked not only to discover that he wasn’t, but also realised that if he met the woman staring back at him in the mirror, he would have…
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Criterion Review: It Happened One Night
★★★★★ Up there with It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night is one of the preeminent director’s most beloved and finest works. It’s also anomalous – the film is romantic of course, but there’s little of the director’s famous sentimentality and certainly none of the soapbox…
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Criterion Review: Grey Gardens
★★★★★ Albert and David Maysles’ cult documentary Grey Gardens evokes horror, humour, disgust and pathos, often all in the same moment. It finds its subjects, former high society ladies and would-be stars Edie Bouvier Beale and daughter ‘Little’ Edie (aunt and first cousin to none other than Jackie Kennedy), living in squalour in their dilapidated…
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Blu-ray: What Have You Done to Solange?
★★★★★ Arrow Video continue to impress with their superb run of Blu-ray releases, this time with Massimo Dallamano’s classic giallo What Have You Done to Solange? (1972). Enrico (Fabio Testi) is a charismatic but sleazy teacher at an English Catholic girl’s school, engaged in an ill-advised affair with one of his students, Elizabeth (Cristian Galbo). In…
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Film Review: When Harry Met Sally
★★★★★ Has the form of the romantic comedy ever been more perfectly expressed than in When Harry Met Sally (1989), rereleased in UK cinemas just in time for Christmas? Rob Reiner’s film might not have been the first rom-com, but taking their cue from It Happened One Night (1934) and the screwball comedies of the…
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DVD Review: ‘The Gift’
★★★★☆ Directed by and starring Joel Edgerton, The Gift’s (2015) set-up is simple but effective: Simon (Jason Bateman) and wife Robyn (Rebecca Hall) bump into old school friend Gordon (Edgerton), exchange numbers and are soon sharing dinner and stilted conversation. Before long, Gordon is turning up unannounced and bearing unwanted gifts. It’s a relatable dilemma…
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DVD Review: ‘Ant-Man’
★★★★☆ Following this year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Ant-Man sees the ubiquitous Marvel Studios getting back to basics and back on form. Where the overall flavour of Marvel’s Phase Two has arguably been one of expanded-universe brand management, Ant-Man feels like a return to the simplicity of the early Marvel films: not since Iron Man…