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A Single Man: A Day in the Life
4th February | 3 comments | 3 people like this
Tom Ford, the Vanity Fair helming, Gucci saving, fashion designer, has delivered a fairly assured debut film. A Single Man, which looks just as sharp as Ford's tailoring, tells a 24 hour story held up by a central and almost career defying performance from none other than Mr Darcy himself, Colin Firth.
Looking like Yves Saint Laurent and often sounding like a mid 70's era Micheal Caine, Firth's smart debonair literature... -
Joanna Newsom: Return of the Queen
25th January | 5 comments | 3 people like this
The first time I ever saw the awkwardly shy, wonderfully cute and sickeningly talented Joanna Newsom around 2006 on a Later... with Jools Holland Episode, it was a find of epic proportions.
As the first words of the The Book of Right On fell out of this beautiful thing, cradling a ginormous harp and as everyone else in the room grimaced at her "squeeky" voice, It was then that I pretty... -
A Prophet: Audiard’s Crime Masterpiece
15th January | 2 comments | 2 people like this
Jacques Audiards knack with the crime film has been growing steadily in force since the his debut. Each film tightening, focusing, yet becoming more and more subtly complex.
When he decided to follow up the brilliant Hitchcock influenced Read My Lips, with a remake of James Toback’s little seen Fingers, he garnered his first world wide hit. The Beat My Heart Skipped showed a knack for character amongst the “cool” that... -
The Road: Bleak and Beautiful
12th January | 7 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
Some time ago, Cormac McCarthy's post apocalyptic Pulitzer Prize winning novel really affected me (embarrassingly so) on a plane somewhere above Thailand. As I finished reading it on a long haul flight, after crying into my terrible airline food, i knew it was a book I, myself wanted immediately to make into a film.
The Road is definitely a cinematic novel. So vivid is McCarthy's writing and so brilliantly placed is... -
I’m Gonna Explode: Godard in Mexico
4th January | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
When I saw Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna's names as producers on at the front of Gerardo Naranjo's I'm Going to Explode I immediately got a sense of what might be in store. Young love, beautiful outcasts and a sun bleached road trip. I'm not sure what that says about the pair or the definitive themes in Mexican Cinema itself which has been blooming since the late nineties; But...
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It Might Get Loud: 3 Men & an Amplifier
4th January | 2 comments | 3 people like this
Davis Guggenheim leaves the brain battering Powerpoint presentation of a documentary that was The Inconvenient Truth in the dust to make a simple film about three guitarists getting together to discuss the instrument they love.
I'm sure the thought of Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White sitting in a room together would have even the most modest player salivating on their pick guard, but does the film have anything to... -
Nowhere Boy: A Tale of Two Mothers
4th January | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
I was listening to John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band LP yesterday after watching Sam Taylor Wood's impressive directorial debut about the teenage years of the most discussed and arguably most loved of the fab four. The always painful opener "Mother" somehow sounded deeper and even more sad. The hopeless wailing, angry vocal about his only parent makes for a small window into the relationship that almost passed both of them...
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Synecdoche New York: The Film of 2009
21st December 2009 | 8 comments | 3 people like this
Rather than hit up another top ten list of films from the last 12 months (mine would probably include The White Ribbon, A Prophet, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Milk, Fish Tank, A Serious Man and Encounters at the End of the World amongst others) I instead decided to put one egg in one basket.
Its a weird egg too so I must apologise.You know one of those ones with two yolks in... -
The Cove: The Flipside of Flipper
18th December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
Richard O’Barry is the man who trained Flipper; The Lassie of the sea and surprisingly, in the opening moments of The Cove the man who believes that by sparking the public interest in these fascinating creatures, he is directly responsible for the way the species is treated, bought and sold today.
The Cove takes us to a small beach near Taiji, in Wakayama, Japan, which O’Barry has discovered is actually a... -
Raging Against the Machine?
15th December 2009 | 8 comments | 0 votes yet, click here to agree or disagree
As was the case last year when <insert 2008 Xfactor winner name (when I can be bothered to look it up) here> was nearly debunked by Jeff Buckley's sublime cover of Leonard Cohen's hallelujah (Cohen himself got swept up in it also I believe and made it to the mid 30's), a similar upset laden beast has emerged from the swampy depths of Facebook.
Only this time its message is more...
CONTRIBUTOR
Neil Innes
Neil was born in the UK but weaned on cinema in the world's most isolated capital city (Perth, Australia). He moved to london in 2001 where he works as a film editor and writer. He has travelled widely and is passionate about cinema and music and can often be found waiting on line in the Brixton Sainbury's. This column is a little celluloid-like piece of him.
