Film

Saturday

Fiona Mountford

The necessary politics of Promising Young Woman

Last month there occurred an event so culturally seismic that it made, well, a barely perceptible dent on the news headlines. Not just one but two actual women were nominated for the Best Director Award at the Oscars, a category that has for many years now been open to five nominees. It was the first time that two women have ever made it into contention in the same year and, by their audacious presence at the top table, Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) and Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) have at a stroke increased the number of women the Oscars have ever nominated for this prize from five to seven. (Only one,

Thursday

Deborah Ross

Riveting and heartbreaking: Sound of Metal reviewed

The multi-Oscar-nominated Sound of Metal stars Riz Ahmed as a heavy-metal drummer whose life is in freefall after losing his hearing. Ahmed learned to play drums for the part. And he learned American Sign Language. And he learned to perform with white noise in his ears. However, he did not have to learn how to be riveting because, if you’ve followed his career, you’ll know he’s been that since day one, and he is magnificently, powerfully, heartbreakingly riveting here. If he doesn’t win the Oscar I’ll be furious. That counts for nothing, I know. But it had to be said. It is directed by Darius Marder, who co-wrote the screenplay

Richard Bratby

The Mozarts of ad music

It’s Christmas 2020 and Kevin the Carrot is on a mission. Snow swirls, ice glistens and roast turkeys and cold cuts wait on the table, bathed in cosy firelight. The visual symbols of Christmas are all present and correct in the big Aldi seasonal advert, but what pulls them together is the music. A hint of John Williams on a solo horn, a burst of swashbuckling rhythm; symphonic strings as our vegetable hero makes it home. It’s all there, sumptuously scored and precisely gauged to make you feel that in 30 seconds, you’ve experienced an epic. And then, of course, to go out and buy parsnips. ‘I was lucky, because

Wednesday

Robert Jackman

The best cop dramas to rival Line of Duty

As the sixth series of Line of Duty heats up, the good old police procedural drama is clearly back in fashion. If you need an additional fix before the next helping from AC-12, here are our favourite cops on television: Jimmy McNulty, The Wire As a rule of thumb, fictional cops tend to gravitate towards two moral archetypes: rule-breaking mavericks at one end and corrupt cynics at the other. But David Simon’s seminal work about the city of Baltimore blew that spectrum wide open, showing its various police teams as every bit as complex and compromised as the criminals they pursued. At the heart of it all is Jimmy McNulty: the

Thursday

Sara Veale

Zippy and stylish, with a glint of mischief: William Forsythe’s The Barre Project reviewed

In the early Noughties there was a Hollywood subgenre (by which I mean a few cult movies, each with terrible sequels) about ballerinas who shake off their classical shackles and liberate the cool girl within. The crown jewel is Center Stage, in which an aspiring prima sticks it to her ballet masters after they affront her with some light criticism of her turnout. She’s not some faceless, uptight swan! She’s a free spirit who dances for fun, as signalled by the presence of not one but two Jamiroquai songs on the soundtrack. When Tiler Peck strutted on screen to James Blake’s ‘Buzzard & Kestrel’ in the opening minutes of The

Wednesday

Flora Watkins

Why is cinema obsessed with remakes?

The game is afoot! Yes, yet again! Hot on the hob-nailed heels of Enola Holmes, the Netflix film about the great detective’s younger sister, comes yet another spin on Sherlock. This time the streaming service brings us The Irregulars, a gaggle of Victorian urchins hired by Dr Watson to investigate crimes with a supernatural element. Elementary, you might say. Though I won’t, because it’s so tired and clichéd. And this convoluted Conan Doyle cash-in isn’t just jumping the shark — the producers of The Irregulars are so far gone, they’ve cleared the wall of the orcas’ tank and have beached themselves in the carpark. ‘Whatever is it like in your

Friday

Esther O'Reilly

What Chariots of Fire can teach us about identity politics

Next week marks the 40th anniversary of Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire, the Oscar-winning true tale of Olympic glory which captured the affections of critics and mass audiences alike. Fondly cited by everyone from Maggie Thatcher to Joe Biden, parodied by Mr. Bean, beloved and bemoaned for its Vangelis score and heightened slow-mo cinematography, Chariots reliably jerks tears from most filmgoers of a certain generation. Yet, four decades on, the film has lost none of its vitality, even for the newcomer. Indeed, so far from being a faded relic of its era, it still crackles with a sharp and nuanced screenplay that offers particularly apt food for thought in a

Stephen Arnell

10 conspiracy thrillers to watch this weekend

Whilst the genre has never gone out of fashion, the 1970s were seen by many as a Golden Age of the paranoia-thriller, with Watergate, the Vietnam War and speculation about the Kennedy assassination leading to classics such as The Parallax View (1974), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Winter Kills (1979) and others. For this piece, we will look at more recent conspiracy-driven motion pictures, which have all used technological advances and the ‘surveillance society’ as a way of ramping up the paranoia. Interestingly, there is a propensity for certain actors to turn up in this particular film genre – stars such as George Clooney (Syriana, The Men Who Stare at

Thursday

Deborah Ross

The fossil-hunting is more interesting than the sex: Ammonite reviewed

Ammonite is writer-director Francis Lee’s second film after God’s Own Country, one of the best films of 2017, and possibly the best film about a closeted gay Yorkshire sheep farmer falling for a migrant worker ever. This is another unlikely romance, but set in the 19th century between the real-life palaeontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) and real-life Charlotte Murchison (Saoirse Ronan), whose wealthy husband had an interest in geology. Mary and Charlotte were friends yet there is no historical evidence they had an affair. This is all poetic licence but told so poetically you will substantially buy it, albeit with a few reservations. Plus it’s Winslet and Ronan and while

Thursday

Igor Toronyi-Lalic

Why are the Oscars such a lousy guide to great cinema?

Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, predicted to win big at this year’s Oscars, is not a terrible film. It’s a slight, sentimental Grapes of Wrath-ish journey through the Discourse, with essential Discourse stop-offs at an Amazon warehouse and the rust belt. It belongs in the New Yorker, not on screen. As with almost every film to win big since No Country for Old Men 13 years ago, you just think: the ‘highest honours in filmmaking’? For that? Amid all the change that’s being trumpeted at this year’s Oscars — more women directors, more ethnic minorities — the one thing missing is any discussion about why the awards are such a lousy guide

Fiona Mountford

Awards season loses its shine when no one can go to the cinema

Here it is again, a couple of months later than usual but back nevertheless. It’s the time of the annual jamboree that is film awards season, a three-month extravaganza that predominantly revolves around three key events: the Golden Globes, the Baftas and the Oscars. All three of these celebrations of artistic excellence and mutual backslapping have been delayed due to Covid. The Globes took place — virtually — three weeks ago, Bafta revealed its shortlist last week and the Oscar nominees were announced on Monday. The starting gun has been fired — while all our cinemas remain closed. Have you seen Nomadland, The Father or Promising Young Woman? Of course

Deborah Ross

Spellbinding: Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time reviewed

The premise for the unsnappily titled Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time is this: a Hungarian neurosurgeon meets a fellow Hungarian neurosurgeon at a medical conference, falls in love, and gives up her shiny life and career in America to be with him in Budapest. They had agreed to meet on one of the city’s bridges. He doesn’t show. She tracks him to the hospital where he works. He says he’s never met her before. And now we are on board. Now we have to know: is he gaslighting her? Is she crazy? How is this going to play out? This is one of those films

Thursday

Deborah Ross

The best film of the year: Judas and the Black Messiah reviewed

Judas and the Black Messiah is a biopic about Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, but it’s not your regular biopic because it’s told as crime thriller, through the eyes of a snitch, who may be found out at any minute. This film says what it has to say — about race, injustice, police brutality — but excitingly, thrillingly and non-formulaically. It’s the best film of the year so far, which may not be saying much, given how few films have been released, but you get the sentiment. (The Bond film No Time to Die has been postponed so many times I fear none of us will see it in our

Thursday

Deborah Ross

It’ll please small kids, but they’re never to be trusted: Raya and the Last Dragon reviewed

Raya and the Last Dragon has everything you might want nowadays from a major Disney film — feisty kick-ass heroine, non-white representation, a narrative that isn’t hung up on romance — but no one involved appears to have asked themselves: do we have an interesting story? Do we have any fresh ideas? Is it fun? This may please very small kiddies who don’t know any better, and there are plenty of them about, but Raya’s not a classic in the making. It’s gorgeously depicted, needless to say, but disappointingly unanimated in all other ways. While this film may please small kiddies, remember: they are not to be trusted. Ever The

Thursday

Deborah Ross

Contains nothing you couldn’t get from Wikipedia or YouTube: Netflix’s Pelé reviewed

Pelé is a two-hour documentary about the great Brazilian footballer — the greatest footballer ever, some would say — who played in four World Cups (a record) and was one of the first global sporting superstars. But while there is plenty of footage showing his astonishing talent, if you’re interested in what made him tick, or what his life was like off the pitch, or how adulation might ultimately mess with your head, then move on, nothing to see here. Or, to put it another way, if, like me, you’re the sort of person who goes straight to ‘Personal life’ whenever you look someone up on Wikipedia, it’s as if

Wednesday

Stephen Arnell

Assassins on screen: from Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Samuel L. Jackson

After Killing Eve, Phoebe Waller-Bridge goes back again to the contract killer well with her upcoming TV re-boot of the 2005 Brad Pitt/Angelina actioner Mr & Mrs Smith. Waller-Bridge will write and co-star with Atlanta’s Donald Glover, who also featured with her in the underwhelming Star Wars prequel Solo (2018). Could this be third time lucky for a TV take on the uxorious assassins? We’ve already had a 1996 series that predated the movie (starring Scott Bakula and Maria Bello) and a 2007 show that never went beyond Doug Liman’s (who also directed the 2005 picture) pilot movie – with Martin Henderson and Jordana Brewster as the titular couple. Over

Friday

Robert Jackman

What to watch on Netflix this spring

With lockdown looking set to continue for weeks on end, more of us have become resigned to more time indoors – reluctantly or otherwise. Thankfully Netflix, as ever, is ready for the occasion, with a slew of new releases scheduled over the next two months. Here’s our guide to what’s coming up: Sky Rojo, 19 March ”  As tens of millions of addicts await the final instalment of his smash hit Money Heist (expected to land on Netflix later this year), Spaniard Alex Pina bridges the gap with the inaugural series of his latest show – a mile-a-minute glitzy thriller about three escaped prostitutes taking on pimps, patriarchy and everything in between. A

Thursday

Deborah Ross

Horrible – but in a very fun way: I Care a Lot reviewed

I Care a Lot is a deliciously dark comic thriller that You’ll Enjoy a Lot. It’s heartless. It’s vicious. It’s savage. It’ll make you dread old age even more than you already do, if that’s possible. It’s horrible in so many ways — cruel? Did I mention it’s also cruel? — yet it is also smart, stylish and such a fun watch. Written and directed by J. Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed), the film stars Rosamund Pike as Marla Grayson, who runs a business ripping off old people. Or, to put it more formally, she is a court-appointed legal guardian for elderly wards — or ‘marks’, as she calls

Dan Hitchens

Our love affair with the Anglo-Saxons

On 5 July 2009, an unemployed 54-year-old metal detectorist called Terry Herbert was walking through a Staffordshire field when his detector started to beep and didn’t stop. Herbert guessed almost immediately that he’d found gold. What he didn’t realise was that he had made Britain’s greatest archaeological discovery since the second world war. Three hundred sword-hilt fittings, many of them spectacular examples of Anglo-Saxon metalwork; a mysterious gold-and-garnet headdress, apparently for a priest; miniature sculptures of horses, fish, snakes, eagles and boars. The Staffordshire Hoard, as it became known, led to a sold-out exhibition, an Early Day Motion in parliament saluting ‘the UK’s largest haul of gold Anglo-Saxon treasure’, and,

Richard Bratby

The two composers who defined British cinema also wrote inspired operas

It’s my new lockdown ritual. Switch on the telly, cue up the menu and scroll down to where the vintage movies gather — Film 4, or the excellent Talking Pictures TV. Then search through their early-hours offerings, and press ‘record’ more or less at random. Gainsborough costume flicks; Rattigan adaptations; anything with John Mills in a submarine — it’s all good. Then, next day, trawl through the catch to see what’s surfaced, and who wrote the music. On a good night you might get Vaughan Williams in 49th Parallel, Richard Rodney Bennett in Billy Liar or — bewilderingly — the fire-breathing serialist Elisabeth Lutyens, keeping herself in cigarettes and brandy