Chris Tookey

Chris Tookey was voted Arts Critic of the Year in 2013. He has not worked since.

What Catherine O’Hara gave cinema

There are actors who dominate the movie screen, and actors who deepen it. There are stars who are “bankable” and have names above the titles, and there are artists who, almost invisibly, give a film its weight, its texture, its lasting emotional impact.  Catherine O’Hara, who has died at the age of 71, belongs emphatically

In praise of Sundance

From our UK edition

Despite the recent death of its world-famous founder, Robert Redford, the Sundance Film Festival is about to become much, much bigger. This year’s festival, which ends tomorrow, is its last hurrah in the small Utah ski resort it brought to prominence, Park City (population 9,000). Sundance needs more cinemas, more venues and better logistics. Next year

What Hollywood owes Robert Redford

From our UK edition

Robert Redford was more than a film star, though he knew that was how he would be remembered. He didn’t like fame all that much, especially when he attracted a creepy stalker: ‘Some strange, dark character was sending me gifts. They kept coming and coming. The guy was obsessed with me and Joan Baez. They

Why PG films do so well

From our UK edition

As we come to the end of another troubling year, suddenly the news from the film front isn’t all doom and gloom. Cinema audiences may be in steep decline, but there’s one kind doing much better than any other: the family-friendly film. Fans of gratuitous nudity, extreme violence and Gregg Wallace are going to hate me

SAS betrayal, the battle for Odesa & in defence of film flops

From our UK edition

48 min listen

This week: SAS SOS The enemy that most concerns Britain’s elite military unit isn’t the IRA, the Taliban or Isis, but a phalanx of lawyers armed with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), writes Paul Wood in The Spectator. Many SAS soldiers now believe that if they kill a terrorist during an operation, they’ll spend

The cinema is the worst place to watch a film

From our UK edition

I’ve always loved cinema, but hardly ever cinemas. It’s no surprise to me that movie-going audiences are in decline. Ticket sales this year are only $4.8 billion, down from $6 billion in 2023. Apparently 65 per cent of Americans now prefer to watch a movie at home, compared with 35 per cent who say they