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The World's End, Charlie Chan and old men waving their arms around - Reviews...
I've seen just 11 full-length films since last we met, as I was on my honeymoon for the rest of that time (yes, lovely thank you). Here they are:FEATURES: CINEMA: The World’s End (Edgar Wright, 2013) -...
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Janet Gaynor, The Whales of August and risible Hemingway - Reviews #170
I've been busy lately: house-hunting, eating my tea, going on holiday, but I also consumed this stuff:FILMS:*SPOILERS*Lucky Star (Frank Borzage, 1929) - An intoxicating romance from the incomparable...
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The Way Way Back, Greta Gerwig and hating the moo-er - Reviews #171
I haven't seen many movies over the past three weeks, but the ones I have seen have almost all been fantastic. I think my good film radar must have been fixed. Ratings are out of four, if you weren't...
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Rick tries to write sketch comedy
I write. A lot. Features, reviews, stories, emails to my brother, even the odd poem (not to my brother). But I've never tried to write sketch comedy before a week last Thursday. Here, for reasons of...
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Why I love... Remember My Forgotten Man
I wrote the first draft of this piece on spec for the Guardian's fantastic Why I Love... series, but they're not accepting freelance contributions, so I decided to go into a bit more depth and tack it...
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Sergeant York, Andie MacDowell and a really, really bad film - Reviews #172
Nowadays I mostly just watch films on a little computer on the train. Like a boss, as I believe they say. That's how I saw most of these - as the director intended.Sergeant York (Howard Hawks, 1941) -...
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Myrna Loy, Gaslight, and Toronto's premier downtown mall - Reviews #173
SOME REVIEWS! Also featuring: MGM showing off, Alan Ladd being cool, and Anton Walbrook being mean. Very mean. Evil, even.Test Pilot (Victor Fleming, 1938) is the epitome, if not the apogee, of Old...
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The fiendishly difficult Advice to the Lovelorn movie quiz
Fifty questions, each more tricky than the last (except for question seven, that's a doddle if you get number six right). No prizes except for pride, but there's plenty of that available. There are 52...
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Cloudy 2, Joan Blondell and a Faustian folk tale - Reviews #174
Plus: '30s America, Katharine Hepburn and acute disappointment, in the latest batch of reviews of stuff I've just watched.Boring stupidness.CINEMA: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 (Cody Cameron and...
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Dennis Potter, Broadway Danny Rose, and the corners of Noah's beard - Reviews...
I got to watch a lot of films this week. These ones:Pennies from Heaven (Herbert Ross, 1981) - A conceptually dazzling musical, adapted by Dennis Potter from his BBC series, which juxtaposes the grim...
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The fiendishly difficult Advice to the Lovelorn movie quiz - ANSWERS
#50 Thanks to all those who entered the inaugural Advice to the Lovelorn movie quiz, and congratulations to kirbyapplegate for top-scoring with a staggering 49 out of 52 points. The full leaderboard is...
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Clueless, Sam Rockwell, and Steinbeck done right - Reviews #176
I've been busy trying to finish the first draft of my kids' book (around 7,000 words to go, thanks for asking) and even pitched it to a grown-up (that's me in the tie), so movies have taken a long...
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Some thoughts on Lulu in Hollywood
Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks (1982) I find Louise Brooks a little over-hyped as an actress. Yes, she was a distinctive, even iconic performer, with her helmet of black hair and that aggressive,...
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Review: Bob Dylan at the Royal Albert Hall
Thursday, November 28, 2013 Every Dylan gig seems to bring something new: a reggae version of A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall (Manchester, 2005), a bit where Bob does a little dance to Highway 61 Revisited...
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Review: Napoleon at the Royal Festival Hall
Saturday, November 30, 2013 Yesterday saw a rare screening of Kevin Brownlow's near-mythic five-and-a-half-hour reconstruction of Abel Gance's silent film Napoleon, a labour of love that has dominated...
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John Ford, Romeo and Juliet, and a bawdy grandad - Reviews #177
Plus: Ben Hecht, Maggie Smith and a damp squib of a kung fu film.Romeo and Juliet (George Cukor, 1936) - This is an astonishingly good translation of the Shakespeare play, devised and demanded by the...
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Lucille Ball, The Hunger Games and the strange case of Benny Wilder - Reviews...
Plus: Wes Anderson flailing, and noir icons directing pirate capers, in the latest reviews update. Feel free to argue or agree with me below or on Twitter.CINEMA: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire...
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Joan Crawford, Nebraska and the B-movie actor, Jack Nicholson - Reviews #179
A mammoth round-up of recent cinema releases, things I watched on a tiny laptop on a train, and a few we had on in the run-up to Christmas.CINEMA: Nebraska (Alexander Payne, 2013) - I saw this in a...
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Review of 2013: Part one - Best films of this year
This year's review comes in two parts. The first is my top 10 of 2013, taking in everything from indie comedies to animation - and a couple of neat returns to form. The second contains my 20 favourite...
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Review of 2013: Part two - Crazes and discoveries
Here's the second part of my review of the year, dealing not with new movies, but with the best old ones I came across this year. For the other half, my top 10 of 2013, click here.In brief:The man and...
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