The Parallax View (Pakula) 1974 Imprint Blu Ray. Review by Alan Price. The Parallax View contains a celebrated film within a film.
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Licorice Pizza (2021). Review by Alan Price. The title Licorice Pizza comes from a long gone record store that director Paul Thomas Anderson knew when he was growing up in Southern California. It featured a female cook holding up her freshly baked âlicorice pizzaâ â a yummy black vinyl record!
Mike Leigh’s Naked (1993). Review by Alan Price. In 1993 Naked was an abrupt shift from Leighâs domestic comedy dramas. This raw and provocative film, full of black humour, about the underbelly of London cutting into a morally confused lower-middle class, both excited and dismayed people.Â
Memoria (2021). Review by Alan Price. Memoria is a remarkable non-judgemental and hypnotic experience. It makes you simply look, examine and contemplate the evidence of the image.Â
Les Enfants Terribles (Melville) 1950 BFI Blu Ray 2021. When critics write of Les Enfants Terrible, Jean-Pierre Melvilleâs superlative film of Jean Cocteauâs novel, they use terms like âsibling rivalryâ and âan obsessive incestuous relationship.â
Hot Air: The Inside Story of the Battle Against Climate Change Denial. By Peter Stott. Review by Barbara Lewis.
A year before the Kyoto Protocol committed the developed world to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, Britainâs Education Act of 1996 incorporated the Thatcher governmentâs 1986 Education Act that was designed to deal with a perceived issue of left-wing teachers indoctrinating school pupils. Two decades on, mathematician Peter Stott found himself defending climate science against its deniers, who used Thatcherâs legal legacy to take to the High Court their objections to Al Goreâs climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth being streamed in schools.
West Side Story, directed by Steven Spielberg In the new West Side Story Leonard Bernsteinâs magnificent music and Stephen Sondheimâs incisive and witty lyrics have all been preserved and bring as much pleasure as before.
BFI. Ingmar Bergman Vol 2 (5 Blu-Ray discs). In the 1950âs we experience Ingmar Bergmanâs gradual progression to full maturity as a filmmaker. The culmination of that journey was internationally recognised in such (now) iconic films as Smiles of a Summer Night, Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal.
Spencer. Review by Graham Buchan. Pablo Larrainâs Spencer achieves a great deal that the other major bio-pic, Diana, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and released in 2013, did not.
Director David Greene has gone on record as saying that he finds upheaval in society to be dramatic and exciting. âI like my films to be a sort of reportage of the world around the action.â For me this accurately describes the effect of his three remarkable films of the late sixties. I Start Counting (1969), The Shuttered Room (1968) and The Strange Affair (1968) reveal a brilliantly confident sense of circumvention of plot and action.
Rarely does the cinema provide us with such perfect opportunities for directly (and appropriately) comparing the work of two very different auteurs, but the release, just two months apart, of Jean-Luc Godardâs 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her and Luis Bunuelâs Belle de Jour, provides just such an opportunity.
by Graham Buchan • film, year 2022 • Tags: film, Graham Buchan •
The Duke. Review by Graham Buchan. In The Duke the director Roger Michell establishes exactly the right tone from the outset and maintains it steadily right up to the filmâs very satisfying conclusion.