Category: Film

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

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Only Lovers Left Alive

★★★★

(directed by Jim Jarmusch, 2013)

I was annoyed to miss this at the London Film Festival last autumn, but fortunately it’s been given a limited cinema release and so off we trotted to the Odeon in Covent Garden. I hadn’t read any reviews, but decided it was worth seeing if only for the cast. I’d suspected it would be arty and beautiful and perhaps slightly pretentious, but I hadn’t expected it to be so self-aware; nor was I expecting it to be so funny. With an adolescence full of Anne Rice novels under my belt, I found myself faced with a film that was both a love-letter to, and a subtle parody of the kind of world-weary vampirism that touched my teenage heart.

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The Invisible Woman (2013)

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The Invisible Woman

★★★★

(directed by Ralph Fiennes, 2014)

My goodness, it’s been a while! Work has been keeping me busy and it’s been hard to find the time to devote to blog posts. However, I simply have to write a few words about this film, which I actually saw a couple of weeks ago, before I forget the finer details. The Invisible Woman tells the story of Charles Dickens’s well-known love affair with the young actress Ellen (Nelly) Ternan. Based on Claire Tomalin’s book, the film looks at the development of the relationship through Nelly’s eyes, giving the romance even more interesting layers and ethical grey areas than it might otherwise have had. It manages to be thoughtful, intelligent and refreshingly different from your average Victorian bonnets-and-bustles drama, while still revelling in period colour and costume.

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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)

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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

★★★

(directed by Peter Jackson, 2013)

With Christmas hovering on the horizon, it’s once again time for a trip into Middle Earth and, since I wrote in some detail about the first instalment of The Hobbit, I don’t think I need to do too much scene-setting here. We rejoin Bilbo, Thorin and their companions exactly where we left them: on the far side of the Misty Mountains, finally within sight of the Lonely Mountain, with a warg pack on their trail. A breathless cross-country chase takes them to temporary shelter in the cottage of the skinchanger Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) and then into the forest of Mirkwood, to the realm of the elven king Thranduil (Lee Pace, on imperious form). Beyond Mirkwood lies Laketown, the final settlement before the Lonely Mountain; and then there is only the mountain itself to challenge them, as they seek the hidden door that will lead them into Smaug’s domain.

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Blancanieves (2012)

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Blancanieves

★★★★

(directed by Pablo Berger, 2012)

I needed a bit of magic in my life yesterday evening, and this critically-acclaimed Spanish film proved to be just the ticket. LoveFilm really is turning out to be worth its weight in gold, because I’m not sure I would ever have come across this otherwise. For once those who dislike subtitles needn’t worry: this black-and-white marvel is a silent film and the dialogue boards have been translated into English. It’s very much in the tradition of The Artist but somehow purer: this isn’t a film that nudges you to notice how cleverly it does silent cinema; it is silent cinema, accompanied by a pitch-perfect score by Alfonso de Vilallonga.

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Throne of Blood (1957)

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Throne of Blood

★★★★

(directed by Akira Kurosawa, 1957)

This post is severely overdue: I watched this about a month ago and I’m not sure how it slipped through the net (Goodwood seems to have distracted me). To recap: back in early September I had my first proper encounter with Kurosawa, in the form of Ran. That was a reimagining of King Lear set in samurai-era Japan; and Throne of Blood gives Macbeth the same treatment. As I’ve said before, I’m not familiar with Kurosawa’s films and I don’t know which of these two is generally considered the better. My own preference is for Throne of Blood, which I found much more accessible than Ran, even though it was filmed almost thirty years earlier. (In fact, I was surprised to find out just how old it is.)

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Much Ado About Nothing (1598/99): William Shakespeare

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Much Ado About Nothing: William Shakespeare

★★★★★

(directed by Joss Whedon, 2012)

From the minute I saw the poster, with its moody Casablanca vibe, I couldn’t wait to watch Joss Whedon’s modern-day take on Much Ado About Nothing. Even the story behind the making of the film is marvellous. Apparently Whedon had a bit of spare time between commercial projects and, as you do when you’re an A-list director, he decided to fill it with a bit of Shakespeare.

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Artists on Film: Caravaggio (2007)

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Caravaggio

★★★

(directed by Angelo Longoni for Italian TV, 2007)

Considering my interest in the Old Masters, my affection for swordsmen, and my possible weakness for doomed heroes, it’s hardly surprising that I have a soft spot for Caravaggio. One of the first exhibitions I saw as a teenager was The Genius of Rome, a feast of the Caravaggisti held at the Royal Academy in 2001, and from that moment I was captivated by the violent swagger of the period.

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Vikings: Season 1 (2013)

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Vikings: Season 1

★★★★

(created by Michael Hirst)

Anyone who’s been reading this blog for a while will have noticed that I tend to get slightly overexcited about some subjects. Tudor costume, for one thing. The Trojan War, for another. And Vikings – for which we can entirely blame Dorothy Dunnett’s King Hereafter. Earlier this year, there were a lot of posters around London advertising the new drama series Vikings, made for the US-based History channel. As I don’t have Sky, I’d given up all hope of being able to watch it any time soon, but I then discovered that LoveFilm Instant has the exclusive rights in the UK and so, over the weekend, I stormed through the entire first season.

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Lancelot du Lac (1974)

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Lancelot du Lac

★★

(directed by Robert Bresson, 1974)

LoveFilm strikes again with this 1974 film, which has been on my Amazon wishlist for almost ten years, ever since I first heard about it at university. As a slice of Arthurian legend, I thought it sounded rather wonderful and yet, for one reason or another, I haven’t got round to watching it until now. With the weight of ten years’ expectations behind it, I regret to say the film disappointed me even more than it might otherwise have done.

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