Mutating into Another District: Elysium (2013)
Mutating into Another District: Elysium (2013) I suppose that after writer-director Neill Blomkamp’s terrific and surprising debut a few years ago with District 9, his second feature was always going to be a hard act to follow. I didn’t expect it to be this much of a move back to the inner city, though. Sure, I guess that in retrospect his previous allegory of South African apartheid was a bit heavy-handed, but by heavens it...
Untruths and Fragility: La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty)
Untruths and Fragility: La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty) (2013) “You’re 53, with a life in tatters like the rest of us. Instead of acting superior and treating us with contempt, you should look at us with affection. We’re all on the brink of despair. All we can do is look each other in the face, keep each other company, joke a little. “Don’t you agree?”...
Pizza Porn with Oscar – The Oscars 2014
Pizza Porn with Oscar Yes, I know I’m a moaning bastard of a human being with very few good qualities, but I hate the Oscars and that’s all there is to it. There’s something about the whole freak show that makes me want to eat my own vomit. Maybe it’s all the self-congratulatory, glad-handing back-slapping that goes on; maybe it’s the way the nominees grind their teeth and pretend to smile when their name isn’t the one that’s...
The Fallible Memory: Connemara Days
The Fallible Memory: Connemara Days For it’s in the heat of summer when clouds are banished from the sky And the mountains wave and shimmer in the haze That your thoughts will always wander To a time when life was slow And they were never ending Connemara Days. —Anon. The films of director John Ford have never ‘spoken’ to me as strongly as they seem to speak to so many others. In fact I recently bought a copy of She...
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