documentary
True Horror, Channel 4 review - a Ronseal approach to ghost storiesFriday, 20 April 2018![]() As if the real world wasn’t scary enough... Ghost stories are en vogue at the moment, and after the BBC’s hit-and-miss Requiem, Channel 4 brings True Horror to the small screen – a collection of "real" ghost stories, told by witness interviews and... Read more... |
Stephen: The Murder That Changed A Nation, BBC One review - ‘He was a cool guy and everybody loved him’Wednesday, 18 April 2018![]() When doctors told Doreen Lawrence her son had died she thought, "That’s not true." Spending time with his body in the hospital, aside from a cut on his cheek, it seemed to her he was sleeping. The death of a child will always be strange, and in the... Read more... |
The Queen's Green Planet, ITV review - right royal arborealsTuesday, 17 April 2018QCC isn’t the name of a new football club, nor some higher qualification for those toiling at the Bar, but stands for "Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy". Had you heard of it? On the eve of the Commonwealth conference, along came Jane Treays's gently... Read more... |
Boy George and Culture Club: From Karma to Calamity, BBC FourThursday, 12 April 2018![]() The title signalled what was coming so clearly, it may as well have been called When Bands End Badly: the two camps, the arguments and sniping and the eventual collapse of Culture Club’s US and UK tour to promote an album of new material. It’s... Read more... |
Civilisations: First Contact, BBC Two review - David Olusoga goes for goldFriday, 06 April 2018![]() After the suave theatrical persuasions of Simon Schama and the earnest professorial shtick of Mary Beard, in episode six of Civilisations (BBC Two) it was the turn of David Olusoga, the third of the documentary's triumvirate of presenters. He began... Read more... |
Score review - breathless dash through music and filmThursday, 05 April 2018![]() The crucial yet almost indefinable role of music in film – it’s a subject ripe for exploration and celebration, from the musicological technicalities of leitmotifs and ostinatos, through to the colourful characters working to bring directors’... Read more... |
The Islands and the Whales review - masterful, sensitive eco-documentaryWednesday, 28 March 2018![]() A feature-length documentary on whaling in the Faroe Islands: you might think you can see it unfolding already. Hardy Viking fishermen battling the elements, gruesome killings of majestic sea creatures, implied or outright condemnation of the... Read more... |
DVD: QueeramaTuesday, 27 March 2018![]() Last year, the BFI commemorated the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality with the release of Queerama, part of its Gross Indecency film season. Now available on DVD, the documentary from Daisy Asquith eschews standard... Read more... |
Big Cats About the House, BBC Two review - irresistible feline-human bondingFriday, 23 March 2018![]() There is a jaguar in the house. Aged five days, and having been rejected by her mother, Maya has arrived from the wildlife park where she was born for hand-rearing by Giles Clark at his home in Kent. The cub is going to spend her early days with his... Read more... |
Being Blacker, BBC Two review - absorbing film about family, culture and societyTuesday, 13 March 2018![]() They don’t commission many television documentaries like Being Blacker (BBC Two) any more. That is not unconnected to the fact that Molly Dineen downed her camera a decade ago. Dineen began filming in another age, before the arrival of kiss-me-quick... Read more... |
Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story review - Hollywood's brainiest beautyMonday, 05 March 2018![]() Hedy Lamarr really ought to be the poster girl for the Time's Up movement. “Any girl can look glamorous," she once said. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid.” She was the model for Catwoman and Disney's Snow White. It's less well known... Read more... |
Civilisations, BBC Two review - no shocks from SchamaFriday, 02 March 2018![]() Lord Clark – “of Civilisation”, as he was nicknamed, not necessarily affectionately – presented the 13 episodes of the eponymous series commissioned by David Attenborough for BBC Two in 1969; it was subtitled “A Personal View”, and encompassed... Read more... |
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