Shock Corridor

I was going to write a blog post about Spike Jonze's new film 'her' and I had tonnes of clever stuff lined up about relationships, and the future, and technology, and about being a human being, and...y'know, life. Then I remembered, he'd already done it himself in January in the old Sight and Sound : 'I was thinking about how I interact with technology every day, how much everybody I know does, and what that means.... There is a distancing to relationships today, and it's obviously a big part of the movie, but it's not necessarily just technology, it's also the tempo at which we live our lives, and the amount of information and communication that come at us and that we're expected to react to. It's easy to say technology connects us and it's easy to say that it doesn't. There's no black and white, the conversation is more complicated, and it's in those grey areas that it's interesting and real. I tried to make a mo

Howdy, in case the poster isn't clear enough, I saw  Only Lovers Left Alive  (Jim Jarmusch, 2013) recently and being who I am, I now feel oddly compelled to talk at you about it.  I'll shout **SPOILERS**  at this point but I'm going to have to add that if anything spoils this film for you then we probably wouldn't get on very well if we were to meet at say a fashion show, harvest festival or even in a pub. The film was directed by Jim Jarmusch. Jim Jarmusch is a dude. He is effortlessly cool and so are his films: Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999), The Limits of Control (2009), and the rest drip and ooze cool, although cool generally isn't the best way to describe things that drip or ooze. That said, it would be a mistake to think that his films are superficial. They can meander, they can be sharp, they can digress, they can be powerful and they can be flippant; they are like thoughts. Jim Jarmusch might be desc

Howdy. Offt! March is looking like a very strong month of films at the cinema and I'll tell you what, I'm going to try and see them, and then write about them and then…ehh…maybe watch a bit o' telly or something. What is catching my eye in particular is: Nymphomaniac (parts I and II) (Lars von Trier, 2013);  Her   (Spike Jonze, 2013);  Only Lovers Left Alive   (Jim Jarmusch, 2013), The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014) and  Under the Skin  (Jonathan Glazer, 2013) Let's kick this of with Nymphomaniac  (Lars von Trier, 2013). In typical style there was a buzz around - no! A furore - No! A brouhaha (doesn't fit as well as furore but I like the sound of it) around the film.  The controversy, or expectation, or umbrage, or what ever swell of feeling, is often stimulated in no small part by von Trier himself (see the publicity shot) . This time Lars von Trier has remained muted about the film in a self imposed gagging after his persona non grata at 2011'

At some point, I don't remember exactly when, Philip Seymour Hoffman overtook Steve Buscemi as my favourite (living) actor, but I do remember why. He played disconnected people so well, so true, so recognisably. He broke my heart so many times in these roles but never as much as he has now. I never met him and...well I never will, but I felt close to him because he played people that I felt I understood or, more importantly, people that I think would have understood me. I have written about my connection with film before and in that I mentioned one of my favourite performances of his; a performance that I truly adored and admired and identified with. This was his portrayal of Caden Cotard in  Synecdoche, New York (2008), a man struggling to cope with life, to get to grips with life, and so to just live life. There are many more. In his only film as director, Jack Goes Boating (2010), he played a man who couldn't understand others relationships to one another. In Boogie Night

Howdy.  Martin Scorsese is a guy that makes films and - get this - apparently doesn't hold all the answers to all the big existential questions that have plagued man since they evolved from walking on their haunches and rubbing shit in their hair...well, not every day at least. For some that seems to be a problem, but not me. The Wolf of Wall Street  (2013) is Scorsese's latest, riffing technically from other works by the director, most notably Goodfellas (1990), and seeing Leonardo DiCaprio, in my humble but foul mouthed opinion, on a career fuckin' high with an exuberant performance that I found rather astonishing; he's in almost every frame of film and I wanted to see him more. In a wee bit I'll talk about the end of the film, so if you're one of those that can't get any enjoyment from a film unless everything is a complete surprise then jog on before I tell you about Bambi's mum, who Keyser Söze is and what  the shitting tits is in the box .

I just seen a film at the pictures, well a wee while ago there, and I rarely write about new stuff here because...because...well I'm too...y'know...too *Ahem* lazy, but I think I might have loved this film and I think I might have loved how it used technology and so that's maybe an important thing for me to think about. That said there is absolutely no need for me to subject you to those thoughts, but that has never stopped me before. Ohh and there might be * spoilers* but I don't think so, I've seen it though so I'm probably not the best judge. Anyway the film was  Gravity ( Alfonso Cuarón, 2013 ). Starring Sandra Bullock as Ryan Stone, and George Clooney in a supporting role as Matt Kowalski. The film is the first one where I can remember people actually pushing you to see it in 3D, not only people but film critics too (if you can stomach it you can watch Mark Kermode make a typically self-indulgent mess of telling us that it is good here ) and for what it&