Tom Duggins
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Film Review: I Saw the Light
★★☆☆☆ To hear ’em sing with a heavy heart don’t half tear you up. What a shame then, that I Saw The Light delivers none of the emotional gut-punch that country music might claim as its chief contribution to popular song. The story of how Hank Williams (Tom Hiddleston), with some help from his wife…
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Interview: Marc Abraham
Marc Abraham’s career has known box office success as well as critical lionising, with films such as Children of Men and Spy Game standing out for attention on a resume which covers over twenty years in the business. Having made the transition from producer to director with 2008’s Flash of Genius, his latest film I…
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Film Review: Miles Ahead
★★★★☆ 2004 must seem like a long time ago for Don Cheadle – whose lead performance in that year’s Hotel Rwanda won wide acclaim for its humanity in a film portraying very knotty, harrowing matter. In recent years, his film work has mostly been limited to output from the Marvel stable, so it’s little surprise…
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DVD Review: The Great Passions
★★★★☆ British director Ken Russell passed away in 2011 leaving behind a life’s work devoted to filmmaking at its most exuberant and vital. Russell made a number of films in the early part of his career which depicted artists brimming with the same enthusiasm of expression as the director himself. The Great Passions is one…
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DVD Review: Wild Orchid
★★☆☆☆ If Wikipedia is to be believed, the orchid family is one of the two largest families of flowering plants known to man; they’re everywhere, going wild without a whisper of a care and making love in expensive hotels. But sadly, not all orchids are quite so relaxed; some lack self-confidence and need a little…
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DVD Review: 99 Homes
★★★★☆ The latest film by director Ramin Bahrani is a modern day parable about money and the breadline, a tale of those who do their best to survive within a system which often works to lengthen the odds of their prosperity. Bahrani’s films have almost always been praised by critics, especially in Europe, but recent…
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DVD Review: Love
★★☆☆☆ Let’s get one thing white and semi-transparent: Gaspar Noé’s latest film Love is not for the easily-embarrassed. His previous films have examined ego-dissolving drug use and the brutality of rape, and Love very much continues in the same vein of depressive realism bolstered with an unshakeable aftertaste of possible sadism. Outwardly at least, it…
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Film Review: The Danish Girl
★★★☆☆ Tom Hooper has made several films about men playing roles. 2009’s The Damned United concerned the managerial exploits of Brian Clough (Martin Sheen), a legend of football who alpha-ed his way to the top of a fiercely competitive business. The King’s Speech (2010) was, at its core, a film about a man learning to…
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Film Review: The Forbidden Room
★★★★☆ Do you believe in the power of pure befuddlement? If you do then prepare for some festive deranging because Guy Maddin’s latest film is entering theatres as a non-populist antidote to slightly sweeter seasonal fare. The Forbidden Room (2015) is a comic, mystical melodrama that will puzzle your socks off and then return them…
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DVD Review: ‘By Our Selves’
★★★☆☆ At the age of just 44, English poet John Clare began to suffer from a severe mental illness which ultimately resulted in him being institutionalised under private care for the rest of his life. He managed, however, one short spell of freedom by absconding from an asylum in Epping Forest and making his way…