Category Archive: FILM
Midnight Cowboy
Are we there yet?
(Dir. John Schlesinger) (1969) A glorious story of two World Class Losers. If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere, but Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) are freezing to death, living in utter squalor and their prospects of success as hustlers are approximately nil. This is a great, bleakly charming and square-toed study of marginal depravity, with two towering performances (both suggesting an incongruous naivety), great direction and keen settings about some of the most scummy parts of the city. The deep sadness of the scenario is mitigated by a profound compassion,…
Continue Reading →Foxcatcher
The 'ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist' (front left) at Penn U.
(Dir. Bennett Miller) (2014) The historical facts are unedifying and abstruse. John Eleuthère du Pont was an heir to the du Pont family fortune, his personal fortune assessed at about $200m (U.S.). A decidedly odd fellow, he was nevertheless a man of some accomplishment as an ornithologist, philatelist, philanthropist (and fantasist). He was also a sports enthusiast and established a wrestling academy at the family estate for a tilt at the Olympics. It was in pursuit of this that the Schultz brothers, world and Olympic wrestling champions, came to live on the du Pont estate, Foxcatcher Farms. The relationship seems to have been interesting,…
Continue Reading →Dior & I
'I could merde a champers...' (still from the official film site)
(Dir. Frédéric Tcheng) (2014) Disclaimer: P neither knows nor cares much about the industry of haute couture but this engaging documentary was an against-the-odds, enjoyable take on a fashion scenario so familiar it is almost a cliché: new designer and effete assistant arrive to head up the major collection of an iconic Euro fashion house with no time to spare. Much eye-rolling, hand-wringing, and undoing beading late into the night, the heroic Parisian seamstresses pulling an all nighter (from their love of the work and helped by some early morning champagne). A last moment decision by designer Raf Simons that he did…
Continue Reading →Lawrence of Arabia
"The trick is not MINDING that it hurts."
(Dir. David Lean) (1962) Despite Lesley having almost invariably impeccable taste, we strongly disagree with her charge that this is the Worst Movie of all Time. Dare we suggest L was prejudiced by the abundance of sand, the monolithic presence of her beloved Peter O’Toole, and the undeniable fact this is a ‘blokes’ picture’? Long (few films these days have an overture, an intermission, an entr’acte) but not overlong (compare and contrast The Hobbit), this is film history on an heroic scale, focusing on T(homas). E(dward). Lawrence’s fostering of the revolt in the desert by numerous squabbling Bedouin tribes, against the…
Continue Reading →The Worst Movie of All Time
L takes no prisoners
Peter’s admirable list of anaesthetic films is frightening, truly scarey. To think that I have sat through all that rubbish. However, it lacks one thing – mention of the worst film of all time. That most tendentious, over-rated, over-blown, self-adoring snore-inducing piece of celluloid-poo of all time, starring the worst actor of all time. Yes, that’s it. Of course I mean LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. You know that scene in Donnie Darko in the cinema? You thought that Donnie, Gretchen and Frank were watching The Evil Dead with some distorted clock faces and stuff? Wrong. Obviously they are watching Lawrence of Arabia. Consider. One of them has…
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