The House of Gucci

“Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.” So says Aldo Gucci to justify some ridiculous design indulgence to his idiot son Paolo, whose idea of style is a lilac corduroy safari suit – and I thought – well I got a complimentary ticket to see this, so impress me. Now what should you…

Piano to Zanskar

Here was a documentary with plenty of room for improvement from first time director Michal Sulima. It purports to tell the story of Desmond O’Keefe, a retired piano tuner, who for reasons which were never explained to my satisfaction, decides to deliver a 100 year old upright to a school in Zanskar. This is a…

The Hand of God

I like sex. I like film. I like music And I like football. So I was going to love Paolo Sorrentino’s love letter to Naples in the 1980s, charting his own coming of age – right? Well to a point. Part of this West Riding boy kept thinking this could have been me. If only…

The Card Counter

Written and directed by the venerable Paul Schrader The Card Counter plays out like an updated version of Taxi Driver, Schrader’s first and biggest hit. This time Oscar Isaac is flawed hero William Tell (a cute reference to the crossbow wielding folk hero, and, when shortened to Will Tell, a reference to a gambler’s greatest…

Mothering Sunday

I really liked the way director Eva Husson approached this adaptation of Graham Swift’s novel. She made a real effort to shake up the usual staidness of period drama, not just with the frankness she brought to the love scenes, but also by focussing attention on the least likely but most interesting character. That would…