Film

A new film about three giants of football, who not only revolutionised their clubs, but galvanised communities, defined cities and shaped modern Britain. Footballing dynasties feel like a thing of the past. Certainly these days, when football itself plays out in empty stadia around most of Europe, vast bowls echoing to the sound of bellowing […]

The two films – and a TV show – that helped make conspiracy theories mainstream. So let’s recap. This virus that you’re all so scared of isn’t actually real, just a flammed-up cold that’s been exaggerated to enslave the easily-led. But if it is real, then it was cooked up in a government laboratory either […]

As cinema enters dark times, the 60th anniversary of À bout de souffle offers a much-needed reminder of film’s ability to revive itself, says JAMES OLIVER. The irony is almost too bitter. This is the 60th anniversary of Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle (Breathless, as it was translated, as it shall be hereafter), one […]

In the age of the coronavirus, it’s perhaps as well not to dwell too much on six degrees of separation, the idea that all people on average are six – or fewer – social connections away from each other. Still, I was struck by how true this was just over a decade ago when I […]

Spike Lee’s Bamboozled was a box office bomb on its release, Richard Luck says this is definitely the right moment for a reappraisal. In the wake of his long-overdue Oscar win for the BlacKkKlansman screenplay and the success of his recent Netflix outing Da 5 Bloods, it’s easy to forget that Spike Lee hasn’t always […]

Nathan O’Hagan asks whether the film is toxic in 2020. When it was published in 1996, Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Fight Club wasn’t a huge commercial success, despite a largely enthusiastic critical response, but it instantly developed a strong cult following, resonating particularly with disaffected young men who, up until that point, didn’t see their experience […]

I miss the days when I’d think nothing of looking at my diary and seeing I had a lunch with someone like Eartha Kitt. The reputation of the West End stage meant that the greatest performers from all over the world were continually converging upon it. I realise now how I took that for granted, […]

Boris Johnson’s spinmeisters have been going on a lot just lately about how “Churchillian” his rhetoric has been. Ian Blackford, the SNP politician, was probably closer to the mark when he characterised what Johnson had been saying – and his delivery – as “yapping, bumbling, mumbling”. I’ve no doubt, too, that if Robert Hardy were […]

Hounds chase foxes not out of any personal antipathy, but because it’s what their lords and masters train them to do. It was once a bit like this between Hugh Grant and me. The stand the actor has taken on media intrusion into people’s lives – including his own – meant he was considered to […]

Thirty years on, RICHARD LUCK looks back at a Downing Street summit to revive British cinema, and the curious films that followed. It’s one of those nights everyone remembers – that summer’s evening when Noel Gallagher, Kevin Spacey, Eddie Izzard and Ross Kemp rocked up at Number 10 for drinks and nibbles with Tony and […]

JASON SOLOMONS reports from the Venice Film Festival on an event that is critical to the industry’s recovery from the pandemic, and details the new release that will lead the fightback. Director Luca Guadagnino Dana Thomas and Roberto Cicutto at the Venice screening of Salvatore Ferragamo: Shoemaker of Dreams. Photo: Andrea Avezz – Credit: Archant […]

JASON SOLOMONS talks to the director of Radioactive, a powerful film not only about the pioneering scientist but her research that changed the world Marie Sklodowka Curie (1867 – 1934) in her laboratory. She shared a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 with her husband Pierre for their work in radioactivity. In 1911 she became […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY remembers the life of the first director to receive an Academy Award outside of Hollywood, who shaped views of Britain. Think of Henry VIII and the chances are you’ll think of a larger-than-life cross between Falstaff and the Goodyear blimp sitting at a banqueting table, tearing at a chicken leg with his teeth […]

CHARLIE CONNELLY on the remarkable Czech backstory of cinema great Herbert Lom. In the early months of the Second World War Herbert Lom answered a knock at the door of his London home to find a burly policeman standing on the doorstep eyeing him warily. “Care to explain this, sir?” the officer said, holding out […]

Without even showing up, Roman Polanski managed to dominate the 76th Venice Film Festival. Of course, if he had appeared, the 86-year-old film-maker and fugitive rapist might have been extradited to the US to face the charge he fled in 1977. That would have been some drama. Louis Garrell as Alfred Dreyfuss and Jean Dujardin […]

JASON SOLOMONS identifies one of the films of the summer and hears from director Gurinder Chadha about how it was inspired by Brexit. Gurinder Chadha, director of ‘Blinded By The Light’. Picture: Getty Images – Credit: Getty Images Blinded by the Light is one of the best films of the summer. A big, bright British […]

Ibiza: The Silent Movie tells the playful potted history of the world’s most famous capital of hedonism. JASON SOLOMONS talks to the film’s director Julien Temple. STEAMY NIGHTS IN IBIZA (Photo by Stephane Cardinale/Sygma via Getty Images) – Credit: Sygma via Getty Images Like the residents and apartment holders near the Ushuaia hotel when its […]

JASON SOLOMONS speaks to the makers of an enigmatic and ominous film set in Budapest shortly before the First World War, and finds plenty of parallels with today. Director of Sunset, Laszlo Nemes. Photo: Laookon Filmgroup – Credit: Archant Europe is glorious yet divided, on the brink of collapse. Warring factions and clashing political interests […]

JASON SOLOMONS on a new book which captures – and cherishes – the idiosyncrasies and occasional flaws of the capital. London is the best city in the world. As soon as you surrender to this indisputable fact, then you can set sail on the tide of emotion and information that swells through a new book, […]

JASON SOLOMONS on a tale of two films of the same story, and their very different fates. When we talk about entente cordiale, it very rarely refers to the French and British film industries. First of all, as Francois Truffaut infamously remarked to Alfred Hitchcock, the French think of ‘British’ and ‘cinema’ as two incompatible […]

JASON SOLOMONS reports from the London Film Festival on a British hat-trick and the return of Peter Jackson Josh O’Connor and Laia Costa in Only You. Photo: Getty – Credit: Archant As the last post on the annual festival circuit, the BFI London Film Festival has carved out a unique position in Europe as a […]

This year’s Venice Film Festival delivered hit after hit after hit Elisia Del Genio and Ludovica nasti in My Brilliant Friend. Photo: Eduardo Castaldo – Credit: Archant Often when reporting on a film festival, the temptation is to sift the movies for themes in a strained attempt to intuit what the world’s filmmakers are saying […]

Does the modern game make it even more difficult than ever for players to come out? Jason Solomons writes about a timely film that puts a sport on the spot Of the 736 players registered as team members in Russia for the recent World Cup, how many were gay? Statistically, the likelihood is quite a […]

Between them, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe provided one of sport’s greatest ever rivalries. But, as JASON SOLOMONS reports, a new film centred around their most famous clash is really all about unravelling the Swedish enigma Tennis was never the same after the fourth set of the 1980 Wimbledon final. Upstart, foul-mouthed American John McEnroe […]

Amid the undoubted glamour of the Venice Film Festival, a jaded JASON SOLOMONS wonders whether a complacent movie industry might dwindle into irrelevance – until he sees a new production which restores his faith in film Cinema needs its stars. It’s what the big screen has stood for since the silent era, after all, and […]

The new film Dunkirk is one of the greatest depictions of war on screen. But despite its anti-war message it also comes with some pretty heavy baggage Fionn Whitehead in Dunkirk, Christopher Nolan, 2017 – Credit: Cover Images Shell-shocked. That’s how they describe Cillian Murphy’s shivering soldier, rescued from a sinking hull by Mark Rylance’s […]

Russian film Loveless landed with a wallop, representing the first serious contender for this year’s Palme d’Or. It’s a weighty, heavy, compellingly grim look at modern Russia and confirms its director Andrey Zvyagintsev as one of the top film makers around, even if Putin might not see it that way. Like his recent Cannes entry […]

Cannes celebrated the opening of the 70th edition of its film festival with a knotty, indulgent film about a knotted, indulgent film maker Marion Cotillard in Ismael’s Ghosts – Credit: Archant Here on the Croisette, at least, they know their audience. Ismael’s Ghosts, by Arnaud Desplechin, premiered at Cannes before wider release across France, its […]

The unfailing brilliance of some of Europe’s greatest ever exports: cinematic villains, and villainesses Jeremy Irons in Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995) – Credit: Cover Images I blame Alan Rickman. The late British actor practically trademarked the sneering villain role back in the 1980s, first as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, then as the […]