British film
Blu-ray: Gregory's GirlTuesday, 26 September 2023
Gregory’s Girl stands alongside Kes as one of the few films offering a realistic depiction of state school life. Director Bill Forsyth’s surreal flourishes delight without getting in the way: think of the penguin waddling along the corridors, or the... Read more... |
And Then Come the Nightjars review - two farm friendsThursday, 31 August 2023
This modest British dramedy is billed as a “heart-warming story of friendship and survival set against the backdrop of the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak”. That’s perhaps not the first catastrophe we associate with that fateful year, but it was a grim... Read more... |
Scrapper review - home alone, but then Dad turns upFriday, 25 August 2023
It’s the summer holidays, and though Georgie (Lola Campbell) is only 12, she’s managing to keep her council house looking just the way her mum liked it. There may be a few spiders hanging around but they have names and personalities and there’s food... Read more... |
Medusa Deluxe review - combing for clues in a stylish murder mysteryMonday, 12 June 2023
Medusa is having a moment. From Natalie Haynes’ feminist novel to the recent Brazilian horror movie, the beleaguered, beheaded, snake-haired monstress of Greek myth rises again, and again, as a symbol of female rage and resistance.Now comes Medusa... Read more... |
Inland review - a cracked mosaic of memories, impressions and lurking anxietyWednesday, 24 May 2023
Fridtjof Ryder’s debut feature made a strong impression at last year’s London Film Festival, and its cinema release ought to give the Gloucester-born director’s career a hefty shove in the right direction. Although that doesn’t mean that Inland is... Read more... |
Blu-ray: CroupierTuesday, 10 January 2023
The recently-departed director Mike Hodges was one of our most underrated filmmakers. Along with Get Carter (1971), a dark story of revenge starring Michael Caine, Croupier (1998) – newly released on 4K Ultra HD – is one of the most fascinating and... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Nil by MouthTuesday, 03 January 2023
Greg Urbanski, Gary Oldman’s long-term producing partner, tells us on the commentary track that no film company wanted to touch the script of Nil by Mouth. Oldman was riding high as an actor in 1996, renowned for his shape-shifting... Read more... |
Give Them Wings review - down but not out in DarlingtonSaturday, 06 August 2022
Give Them Wings is the biopic of Paul Hodgson, who seven months after he was born in 1965 was diagnosed with meningococcal meningitis. If that wasn’t bad enough, he survived his precarious childhood to become a devout fan of Durham’s hapless... Read more... |
Blu-ray: Get CarterTuesday, 26 July 2022
Director Mike Hodges's Get Carter (1971) has been praised as the best British gangster film. I would go even further, and put it up against the best gangster films of all time, on the same level as Lang’s The Big Heat (1953), Melville’s Le... Read more... |
All My Friends Hate Me review - beware of the biliousFriday, 10 June 2022
A birthday weekend in Devon goes rather badly wrong in All My Friends Hate Me, the new film co-written by its leading man, Tom Stourton, that looks guaranteed to make shut-ins of us all.The antithesis of the warm-and-fuzzy gatherings proffered... Read more... |
The Camera Is Ours - Britain's Women Documentary Makers review - four decades of directors rediscoveredThursday, 02 June 2022
The Camera Is Ours features films made from 1935-1967 by women like Marion and Ruby Grierson, Evelyn Spice and Margaret Thomson, whose names should be engraved in the history of British film-making.Ever heard of them? Probably not as, surprise,... Read more... |
Blu-ray: The Gentle GunmanTuesday, 29 March 2022
Ealing Studios’ output encompassed much more than comedy, though a viewing of 1952’s The Gentle Gunman suggests that political drama wasn't one of their strengths.Based on a play by Alexander McKendrick’s cousin Roger MacDougall, and directed by... Read more... |
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