Film
Mad Max: Fury Road reviewed - your inner 12-year-old will be in heaven
No one goes slack-jawed in wonder at the movies any more. In our cyber-enabled times, kid designers can mega-pixelate any…
Don’t believe Orson Welles, says his biographer Simon Callow — especially when he calls himself a failure
Orson Welles would have been 100 this month. When he died in 1985, aged 70, the wonder was that he…
Top Five reviewed: Chris Rock hits rock bottom
The oeuvre of Chris Rock may not be fully known in this parish. He was the African-American stand-up who made…
Far from the Madding Crowd reviewed: a proper film with proper acting and a proper story
Firstly, a message to all Marvel fanboys: there is nothing for you here. Nothing. No CGI, no endless battles, no…
Avengers: Age of Ultron reviewed - confusing, undramatic, repetitive and loud
Avengers: Age of Ultron is the second film in the Avengers franchise, as written and directed by Joss Whedon, and…
A profile of the worlds’s most famous film director — with the most famous profile
‘Do it with scissors’ was Alfred Hitchcock’s advice for prospective murderers, though a glance at these two biographies reminds us…
A Little Chaos review: Kate Winslet emotes her little socks off
A Little Chaos is a period drama directed by Alan Rickman and starring Kate Winslet as a woman charged to…
Why Bette Davis loathed theatre
It was called Frankly Speaking and by golly it was. The great screen actress Bette Davis was being interviewed by…
How Fellini made his modernist masterpiece
Ian Thomson on the creative limbo that spawned Fellini’s modernist masterpiece, 8½
Woman in Gold review: even Helen Mirren is weighed down by the script’s banalities
Woman in Gold feels rather like a Jewish version of Philomena as this too is about an older woman seeking…
How gaming grew up
Sometimes a guy feels abstracted from the world. He visits Europe’s finest galleries, but the paintings seem to hang like…
Lily James's Cinderella is more of a doormat than my actual doormat
Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella is a Disney film based on a Disney film, so is double Disney, if you like. It…
The Voices review: a hateful, repellent, empty film
The Voices is ‘a dark comedy about a serial killer’, which is not an overcrowded genre, and I think we…
Suite Francaise review: what is this film playing at, when it comes to Jews in attics?
Suite Française is being billed as a second world war romance about ‘forbidden love’ and, in this regard, it is…
How Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic, Blade Runner, foresaw the way we live today
How Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, made 33 years ago, foresaw the way we live today, by William Cook
Still Alice review: you can see why Julianne Moore won an Oscar but the film’s still boring
There’s always seemed something masklike about Julianne Moore’s face: she seems walled in by her beauty. When she smiles, the…
All radio drama should be as good as this Conrad adaptation
The aching hum of crickets. The susurrus of reeds. The lapping of waves. The unmistakable noise of a sound technician…
The Boy Next Door reviewed: a terrible new J-Lo movie that's disturbingly enjoyable
Stateside critics, who panned Jennifer Lopez’s new film The Boy Next Door on its US release last month, may be…
Fifty Shades of Grey, review: ‘Use a condom!’ my sister shouted
And so, in the end, I went with my sister, Toni, to see Fifty Shades of Grey and we saw…
My moment of mortification with Saint Joan Collins
My time with Joan Collins was wonderful – except for one mortifying moment
Selma review: rich, nuanced, heartbreaking
Selma, the civil rights film that stars David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King, undoubtedly contains the best and most powerful…
How Japan became a pop culture superpower
Peter Hoskin on the island nation that has taken over popular culture
Trash, review: trash by name, trash by nature
Trash is the sort of film one desperately wishes to be kind about — heart supremely, if not burstingly, in…
How consumer habits are subject to the law of unintended consequences
Some time in the 1960s, a group of people in an advertising agency (among them Llewelyn Thomas, son of Dylan)…
A Most Violent Year, review: mesmerising performances - and coats
A Most Violent Year is a riveting drama even though I can’t tell you what it’s about, or even what…
