Official Secrets

In 2003 with our attention fixed on the highly suspicious death of Professor David Kelly in the wake of the dodgy dossier scandal, Katherine Teresa Gun’s actions in leaking an incendiary memo from GCHQ to the Observer newspaper failed to register on the national conscience. Now with the activities of Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and…

The Day Shall Come

I always think that the opening 30 minutes of Four Lions, Chris Morris’ first feature, was one of the most daring and sharp sequences in British comedy. It was also one of the funniest. Sadly nothing in this his second feature, quite came up to the same level. Part of the problem was that Moriss’…

Hitsville – The Making of Motown

Some years ago my nephew Harry (then aged about 10) asked me if I knew that song about maggots. Somewhat taken aback I asked if he could sing me a few bars to give me a clue. He began. “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day. When it’s cold outside I’ve got the month of…

The Last Tree

Writer/Director Shola Amoo’s autobiographical coming of age film plays out like a version of “Moonlight” but from this side of the pond. It’s not as full and is considerably paler than its Oscar winning forbear, but it employs the same three time frame structure and excerts a similar sort of emotional pull. It did have…

Joker

Well it made me laugh. Not the amateurish clowning of Arthur Fleck (Joachim Phoenix) in his day job, nor his cringeworthy attempts at stand up comedy by night, but the barely disguised disappointment of my fellow audience members who were clearly expecting another episode of DC superhero antics and instead got an intensely grim character…

Judy

A small but perfectly formed biopic following Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland during her final London concert tour in 1968, which also featured flashbacks to 1939, where a fifteen year Judy (Darci Shaw) is cajoled, corralled and chastised by Louis B Meyer during the shooting of The Wizard of Oz. The opening scene in which…