A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence.

There’s unusual, there’s oddball, there’s idiosyncratic, there’s surreal, there’s downright weird but whilst these all occupy positions on the visible spectrum of strange, you have to move out into the infra red to place the work of veteran Swedish filmmaker Roy Anderon. I can think of no one in cinema who bears even the remotest…

The Water Diviner

One of my earliest TV memories is of the groundbreaking Great War series voiced by Michael Redgrave and in particular the Gallipoli episode. It’s telling conclusion drew attention to the ironies thrown up in warfare. After nearly 9 months of chaos, indecisiveness and slaughter, the eventual evacuation was a model of ingenuity and precise planning…

Blind

Some movies are so difficult that you really need a correspondence course before you can appreciate them properly. If these film move you or have other qualities then this is time well spent. When I first saw Bob Dylan’s Ronaldo and Clara I was completely discombobulated by the narrative, but the music kept me coming…

Mad Max Fury Road

Nice to see that at 73 Director George Miller shows no sign of slowing down. His fourth visit to the post apocalyptic Australian outback is a dense and remorseless reflection on the power and immorality of the Cartel. Here Max (Tom Hardy) is even madder than usual. We know this from the opening scene where…

Voices

Shown as part of the Phoenix Cinema of the Bizzare season this oddity from Marajene Satrapi (Persepolis) certainly lived up to its billing. We are in Milton (popn. 4,505). It’s the sort of small town Middle America that would feel at home in a David Lynch movie. Here Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) something of a manchild,…

Child 44

There  are lots of things to admire about Daniel Espinoza’s adaptation of Tom Rob Smith’s page turning novel from 2007 and if the the whole doesn’t quite equal the sum of the parts, I don’t think it deserves the critical mauling it has received. The depiction of Soviet Russia in the dog days of Stalinism…

Exit

A unique but frustrating mood piece from Hsiang Chienn is set in Taipei and follows the daily trials of Ling (Chen Shiang-chyi) a 45 year old single mother. She lives in a simple apartment in a brutalist tower block where nothing really works properly and the wallpaper is peeling off the walls. The film opens…

John Wick

If there’s one wick you should not get on its John’s. Here in deliciously deadpan mode Keanu Reeves exacts wildly disproportionate retribution on a bunch of unremittingly evil Russian gangsters for offing Daisy his puppy. Honestly. He goes about it in a blizzard of screeching tyres from his signature 1969 black Mustang with a range…

Phoenix

I believe that this is an allegorical account of the search for identity in post war Germany and it helps to know this or you could waste a lot of time and energy trying to answer the myriad of unresolved questions thrown up by, what is undeniably, a terrifically atmospheric but wholly implausible story. At…

Stones for the Rampart

There was something distinctly odd about Robert Glinski’s account of Polish resistance in Warsaw during the early years of WWII, previously immortalised in Aleksander Kaminski’s novel. To me it felt like the first half of the film was so different in tone and style to the second that it must have been the product of…

Danny Collins

The film opens with the words “This is a true story, sort of. At least some of it is.” and this disarming introduction sets the tone for an enjoyable, lightweight updating of Annie Hall; mixing pathos and banter in equal measure. Al Pacino is Danny Collins and Danny has it all. He’s an ageing rock…

Far From The Madding Crowd

I felt a cold shiver of apprehension as the opening titles unfolded. “Dorset (200 miles from London) 1870.” Presumably the need to refer to the location’s proximity to London could only be for the benefit of a transatlantic audience, which would also account for the absence of any “difficult” West Country accents from the principal…

Force Majeure

This Swedish/French/Norwegian co production satisfies like a perfect high speed slalom run. But make sure you strap on your helmet and goggles because this is black run material. It’s a wickedly funny psychodrama telling the story of handsome, successful businessman Thomas (Johannesburg Kuknke), his elegant wife Ebba (Lisa Loven) and their two beautiful children Harry…