Film
I honestly had no idea how rubbish The Choir would be
If heartwarming, against-the-odds, triumph-over-adversity, wrong-side-of-the-tracks films float your boat and you are in no way demanding then The Choir is…
Masterly and heartbreaking: Amy reviewed
Asif Kapadia’s documentary about Amy Winehouse, whom Tony Bennett describes as ‘one of the truest jazz singers that ever lived’,…
She's Funny That Way isn't funny at all
The writer and director Peter Bogdanovich has made three of my favourite films of all time (The Last Picture Show,…
Why is a festival of Israeli film fighting for censorship in London?
The attempt to ban Jewish men from seeing ‘The Gift of Fire’ sets a very dangerous precedent
Don’t tell me not to be scared of sharks
If naturalists accept they’re terrifying, we’ll have a better chance of saving them
I dozed through it quite significantly: Mr Holmes reviewed
Mr Holmes stars Ian McKellen as the great detective in his old age and while it could have proved a…
The choreographer that does things to tango couples that Relate would not recommend
I often regret that I’m writing in the past tense here, but never more than about milonga. It is such…
Stunning, riveting, horrifying: Joshua Oppenheimer's The Look of Silence reviewed
With Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing you’d be minded to think that’s it, that’s the Indonesian genocide (1965–66) done,…
Completely unmemorable - even though I saw it yesterday: Queen & Country reviewed
Queen & County is John Boorman’s follow-up to his 1987 semi-autobiographical film Hope & Glory, although why a sequel now,…
Man Up review: a film that treats female singledom as if it were cancer
Man Up is a British rom-com starring Simon Pegg as Jack and Lake Bell as Nancy. Nancy’s problem, at the…
We Are Many reviewed: does anyone think this anti-Iraq War film will change anything?
Big-screen documentaries never change the world. Blackfish has not shortened the queues to see maltreated killer whales leap through hoops…
Martin Gayford finds a few nice paintings amid the dead trees, old clothes and agitprop of the Venice Biennale
Martin Gayford finds a few nice paintings amid the dead trees, old clothes and agitprop of the Venice Biennale
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…
