Call Me By Your Name (2017)

"We wasted so much time" Spring and part of the summer of 1983 (when this film is set) was the beginning of an important period of my life - although I didn't realise it at the time. Aged somewhere between main characters Elio and Oliver, I spent several months living in Italy as part of …

Final Portrait (2017)

Here's the thing about genius artistic creatures. They're often self-centred shits. And no matter how wonderful their work is, they make difficult subjects for me to watch and appreciate. Mr Turner being a similar case-in-point. Alberto Giacometti (Geoffrey Rush) is a lauded, talented artist who is constantly sabotaging his own work, treats his wife and …

My Cousin Rachel

Rachel Weisz is as captivating a screen presence as you could wish for. Beautiful, mysterious and beguiling, she has the whole audience in the palm of her hand, just as she does with young Philip (Sam Claflin), her cousin by marriage. But Rachel is a complex character whose actions and emotions are open to interpretation, …

A Bigger Splash

I must confess that I found director Luca Guadagnino's previous feature - I Am Love - very self-indulgent and highly irritating, so the publicity around A Bigger Splash had me worried. But the cast was impressive enough to draw me in so off I went. Ralph Fiennes is gloriously irritating, Tilda Swinton magnificently indecipherable, Dakota Johnson sulkily …

Spectre

Strange. Skyfall was a step in another direction for Daniel Craig's Bond, yet this felt like it had leapt back in time to another Bond entirely.While I appreciate the visual mirroring and dialogue echoes from some of the other films in the 50 year old franchise, parts of this seemed badly misjudged, and yes, I am …

8 1/2

I know I have seen this before, a while ago, and I clearly wasn't giving it my full attention as I remember being vaguely complimentary and vaguely dismissive at the same time.What was I thinking?! Having just seen the restored re-release of this 1963 Oscar-winner on a cinema screen, I formally recant any reservations and …

Habemus Papam – We Have a Pope

The main selling point of this film in the publicity was that it had been directed by Nanni Moretti (of which more below). He also acts in the film, playing a psychoanalyst called in to assist a newly-elected Pope who feels overwhelmed by the resp...

Le Quattro Volte

A totally extraordinary film. There is no dialogue, apart from background conversations among the Calabrian villagers, and so there is no need for subtitles. Nobody addresses the camera. There is no plot. There is no beginning, middle or end. Dail...

Pais??

Pais? was a screened as part of my film course on Italian Neorealism at Cornerhouse cinema in Manchester. It was released in 1946, and directed by Roberto Rossellini. I had never even heard of this film let alone seen it, so I went in to the cine...

Inglourious Basterds

This is an anomaly. An American film where the Germans speak German to each other, the French speak French to each other, and the Germans stationed in France speak French to the locals. The majority of the film is subtitled and if it weren't for t...