9 years ago
The Tramp turns 100
As the war began, 100 years ago, Charles Chaplin was making his first movies in Hollywood. While Europe tore itself apart, he became the biggest star the world had …
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9 years ago
The celebrity sex tape
The world changed, if only a little, on July 17, 1988, in a hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia. That was the night Rob Lowe pressed the red button on …
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9 years ago
Top 100 blues, or how we remember movies
Everyone loves a top 10, but you don’t have to write them. Some people take them so seriously. I wrote a top 10 of bicycle movies recently, timed to …
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9 years ago
Monkey business, or simian cinema strikes back
This column is dedicated to Albert the rhesus macaque, the first simian astronaut, launched towards space on an American version of the V2 rocket on June 11, 1948. Albert …
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9 years ago
More stars than there are in heaven, and what they earn
Who’s the biggest star in Hollywood and who cares? I’m not talking celebrities. Celebrities are dull. Who can keep up with who’s in and who’s out and who married which …
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Recent Reviews
Bad people doing bad things
Detour
Written and directed by Christopher Smith
97 minutes, rated MA 15+
3 stars
There’s no such thing as originality, but that doesn’t mean you stop aiming for it. Detour …
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An elegy for Emily D.
A Quiet Passion
Written and directed by Terence Davies
125 minutes, rated PG
4 stars
When one artist makes a film about another artist, you can be reasonably sure that …
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Kartoonish Korean ultra-violence
The Villainess
Directed by Jung Byung-gil
Written by Jung Byeong-sik and Jung Byung-gil
122 minutes, rated R
3.5 stars
The Villainess is a high-octane Korean thriller about a young woman …
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Fascinating half-true story
Monsieur Chocolat
Directed by Roschdy Zem
Written by Cyril Gely, Olivier Gorce, Gerard Noiriel and Roschdy Zem
114 minutes, rated M
4 stars
This is the fascinating true story of …
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Black and white and red
Get Out
Written and directed by Jordan Peele
104 minutes, rated MA 15+
4 stars
A guide to African–American horror films would be a slim volume. There are black people …
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Fine and brave
Don’t Tell
Directed by Tori Garrett
Written by Anne Brooksbank, Ursula Cleary, James Greville, based on a book by Stephen Roche
108 minutes, rated M
4 stars
Child abuse. …
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Gurinder’s personal Partition
Viceroy’s House
Directed by Gurinder Chadha
Written by Paul Mayeda Berges, Moira Buffini and Gurinder Chadha
106 minutes, rated PG
3 stars
Where to begin with this fascinating, infuriating, entertaining …
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Pablo Neruda as fantasy
Neruda
Directed by Pablo Larrain
Written by Guillermo Calderon
Rated MA 15+, 108 minutes
4 stars
A chubby man with a comb-over (Luis Gnecco) sits bare-chested in front of a …
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