Whenever anyone signs up for a research experiment in a film – especially if they’re locked in the kind of laboratory you associate with David Cronenberg – you get the sneaky feeling that things are going to go horribly wrong. Soon. Such suspicions are copper fastened when the person conducting it says things like, “You…
When Pope Francis recently approved the blessing of same sex couples by priests, he polarised many Catholics. Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers (16) may polarise them even more. It deals with the struggle of a gay man, Adam (Andrew Scott), with his sexuality, mixing reality and illusion in an intense operetta of the emotions.…
The famous Irish author had a different type of religion, writes Aubrey Malone John McGahern had well documented problems with the Church, and with his faith, but he always struck me as having a holy sense about him, even a monastic one. It was in his simple bearing, his self-effacing nature, in the frugality of…
It’s 1988 and we’re coming up to Christmas. Elderly Jew Sir Nicholas Winton (Anthony Hopkins) is decluttering his study to please his wife Grete (Lena Olin). In the process he discovers a scrapbook from World War II. Flash back half a century. Nazism is about to sweep across Europe. The young Nicky (Johnny Flynn) is…
I refused to become a Barbenheimer during the year. When I was growing up there was a perfectly respectable practice of showing ‘small’ pictures and ‘big’ ones, despite the threat of the infamous ‘Paramount decree’ of 1948.
I have a theory. Endeavour is based on the same premise as Doc Martin. You probably think that sounds ridiculous but think about it. Both series feature introverted eccentrics who come up with elaborate solutions to complex problems. In one case they’re medical, in the other criminal. I recently bought box sets of both on…
Ronnie O’Sullivan is generally regarded as the greatest snooker player of all time. In the just-released documentary about his life, Ronnie O’Sullivan: The Edge of Reason (Amazon Prime) we’re brought into the complexities of his life and game. At times he appears so good he’s on a different planet to his colleagues. He can do…
As the race for the US presidency hots up, we’re confronted with the fact that we’ll possibly face a re-run of the last one. Regardless of one’s feelings about the merits of Messrs Biden or Trump, their prominence reflects the lack of young blood at the top of the political tree. I was only…
I went into Cat Person (15) thinking of Paul Schrader’s 1982 movie Cat People – for no other reason than the title. It has little in common with Schrader’s nightmarish curio besides that but you keep expecting it to turn into a horror film. Susanna Fogel directs with a clever use of anti-climaxes, red herrings,…
Somebody should put up a statue of Ken Loach. For decades he’s been making great movies about little guys taking on the big institutions. In The Old Oak (15A) the enemy isn’t a conglomerate but a man’s own contemporaries. Refugees TJ Ballantine (Dave Turner) is the proprietor of the eponymous pub, a run-down establishment he’s…