If my calculations are correct, I’ve managed to sit through 53 films at the cinema in 2018. Now I’m doing a PhD I can call this work. The only real criteria for my… Continue reading
It’s funny how what can’t be fully expressed in endless words and countless lines can be encapsulated in the most seemingly insignificant of gestures. In Carol a fleeting hand on the shoulder, the… Continue reading
There are a couple of wise guy gangsters schmoozing in a dimly lit bar. The mood is good and conversation congenial, but then one of the tailored suits takes offence to a throwaway… Continue reading
Alfred Hitchcock, the master of the thriller film, once commented on the idea of voyeurism in a conversation with Francois Truffaut. He said, “I’ll bet you that nine out of ten people, if they… Continue reading
Standing in the queue for the London Film Festival’s mysterious secret screening, all the talk was unsurprisingly concerned with what lay ahead on the mammoth screen at the Odeon in Leicester Square. Packed together like cattle,… Continue reading
Sometimes a film is intrinsically indebted to another. The Ones Below owes such gratitude to Roman Polanski’s pregnancy horror classic, Rosemary’s Baby. Building directly from another film, especially one as renowned and distinctive as Polanksi’s, adds a… Continue reading
Oddjob’s steel brimmed hat in Goldfinger, the tense poker game in Casino Royale, the brawl on the train in From Russia with Love, and, of course, the Union Jack parachute in The Spy… Continue reading
“At the end of this year, The Jam will be officially splitting up,” Paul Weller wrote in October 1982, “as I feel we have achieved all we can together as a group. I… Continue reading
One of cinema’s most enduring and iconic images is Harold Lloyd, donning his trademark boater and circular spectacles, hanging precariously from a clock face above bustling streets below. In this timely snapshot we… Continue reading
In 1988, N.W.A released the album “Straight Outta Compton.” The album’s titular first track opened with the spoken line “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge” and ended with… Continue reading
If Ronnie and Reggie Kray were still knocking about today you can’t help but think they’d be quite chuffed with their latest cinematic adaptation, Legend. There’s an early scene in the film where… Continue reading
