The Dead Don’t Hurt

Viggo Mortensen writes, directs, produces, stars in and composes the music for this elegiac and endearingly old fashioned western. And, all things considered, I thought he did a pretty good job (or should that be jobs?) The score in particular was beautifully modulated; often featuring piano and cello in haunting unison. He sets the bulk…

Moving in the Shadows

You get much more of a flavour of what this documentary is about from its sub title: “Remembering Leicester’s 1960s Creative Scene.” And as an adopted son of the city I confess to wallowing just a little in the obvious pride on display from the contributors to Joe Nixon’s nostalgic ode. He was the creative…

The Delinquents

I knew things were going to get tricky with this marathon Argentinian heist movie, when it became clear that all the main characters’ names were anagrams of each other. Maron is lonely, middle aged and locked in a bank job which is sucking the life out of him. He wants something better. Ramon is a…

The Boy and the Heron

It seems like every time Miyazaki releases a new film, he announces that it is to be his last. Well one day this will be true and the world of cinema will be a poorer place. But if rumours are to be believed, he has already begun work on a new project – so we…

The Old Oak

Coincidentally is where the truncated HS2 line is now destined to peter out. Just another kick in the teeth for the north of England, so cynically exploited by the Conservative Party and then conveniently forgotten. How this can be a surprise to anyone is mystifying. Because the Tories have traduced and enfeebled northern communities for…

The Creator

As a keen student of geo politics I have been increasingly alarmed about the fate of our planet. And that was before an existential threat from AI was identified. But after seeing Gareth Edwards’ action- packed yet subversive treatise on the matter, I think that human survival is probably safer in the hands of any…

Maigret

Jules Amedee Francois Maigret has been delighting audiences for 73 years and coincidentally this version of him is played by Gerard Depardieu who also happens to be 73. We probably all have our own favourite Maigret. I go back to Rupert Davis in the 1960’s TV series (Currently screening on Talking Pictures) with his characteristic…

The Innocent

Writer/Director/Star Louis Garrel is a talented guy. He looks like a photo- fit you might get if you just specified “Gallic Heart Throb”. The dark curly thatch, the slab forehead, a hint of mono brow, gipsy stubble, a pronounced and slightly hooked nose, chiselled jaw and saturnine smile. And yet surprisingly he was the innocent…

Oppenheimer 35mm version

Be afraid. Be very afraid. Because the threat of nuclear Armageddon can never go away. Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin is dense, difficult and demanding but it’s central thrust is very simple…you just can’t put the genie back in the bottle. There’s no doubt that Oppenheimer is…

Squaring the Circle.

During what I have come to think of as my “lost” years (1976 – 78) I found myself living alone in a very large Victorian house on the outskirts of Coalville. Work occupied me during the day, but in the evenings and at night time I took solace in music. Writing, playing and, most of…

Inland Empire

Didn’t catch this first time round, but have vague memories of David Lynch riding down Hollywood Boulevard on a cow as part of a campaign to get Laura Dern an Oscar nomination. Now I’ve seen it I can’t help thinking that to succeed he probably needed something a bit more outlandish. Not that she didn’t…

Sisu.

For anyone who was disappointed at the mundane levels of violent retribution unleashed by Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards, welcome to Nazi mayhem Finnish style, courtesy of writer/director Jalmari Helander. And unless you move a Dolmio factory to Arizona this is probably the nearest you’ll get to seeing a spaghetti western this year. It begins with a…

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Based on the book of the same name by Andreas Malm, director Daniel Goldhaber serves up a fast paced, yet thoughtful, environmental call-to-arms and cunningly disguises it as a heist movie. It posits that since conventional measures have demonstrably failed to halt the damaging effects of fossil fuels, now is the time to countenance more…

Nostalgia.

Homesickness is a seriously powerful emotion. In the First World War it was commonly cited as a cause of death for soldiers at the front who died after falling into a miasma of despair. In Mario Martone’s absorbing film it draws Felice (Pierfrancesco Favino) back from a self-imposed (40 year) exile, to Naples, the city…

Women Talking

A film by Sarah Polley which palpably does what it says on the tin. The challenge here is obvious. How do you make a bunch of women in a static location, quietly debating their futures, remotely cinematic? Well first you have to make sure you assemble a very high quality cast, extract from them optimal…

Mrs Harris Goes to Paris

It’s 1957 and in Paris the workers are revolting. Piles of rotting garbage fill the air with an unavoidable stench, while protesters block the roads. Hobos swill cheap red plonk as they huddle for warmth in the waiting rooms of the Gare du Nord. Squint and you might almost think that our current industrial unrest…

Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen. A Journey. A Song.

I owe Leonard Cohen big time. Attending his Dublin Concert with Mrs H in 2009 is still one of of my most treasured memories. He has provided the soundtrack to our love affair since the release of his astonishing comeback album ‘I’m Your Man’ in 1988 and I guess I’ve seen pretty much everything that…

Official Competition

There’s a wonderful sequence about halfway thro this deliciously tart take down of art house cinema, when auteur director Lola Cuevas (Penelope Cruz) appears alone on an empty stage with a metal shredder. Sitting in the auditorium watching are two actors about to play the leading men in her forthcoming production; Ivan Torres (Oscar Martinez)…

Benedetta

I know this sounds mad, but I actually thought that Paul Verhoeven’s adaptation of Immodest Acts: The life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy by Judith C Brown was (for him) actually quite restrained. It’s northern Italy around the turn of the 17th Century and the abbey of Terantia is running along quite nicely…

Red Rocket

Ex porn star “Mikey the Sabre” (Simon Rex) may still believe he has a red rocket in his pants, but now, pushing 50, he needs a little blue pill to fuel it. We meet him on the doorstep of a dilapidated shack, begging estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrond) and her wizened mother (Brenda Deiss) to…