White liberal America’s holy trinity of Spielberg, Hanks and Streep combine in this account of the Washington Post’s stand against Nixon over publication of Vietnam documentation. On the week after Trump’s election Hanks said on British radio that America tends to take two steps forward and one back. This is… Continue reading
Aaron Sorkin’s account of the extraordinary story of Molly Bloom, Olympic skier who goes on to run the biggest poker games in the US and becomes vicariously involved in Russian money laundering, is predictably sharp, witty and cool. This is Chastain’s movie through and through, in that it’s hard to… Continue reading
Martin McDonagh’s much praised take on small town Americana conflict commences with shots of the eponymous, dilapidated billboards in mist set to operatic aria. There’s enough pathos in that scene and & McDormand’s drawn features to justify the ticket price. McDormand plays Mildred Hayes, the grieving, angry mother of daughter… Continue reading
We all have our critical blindspots. Some people like films about flying men and people who dress up in bat outfits. I have one for Agatha Christie adaptations. They nearly always disappoint, because Christie novels have been designed with one instantiation in mind – reading them on a rainy afternoon… Continue reading
In his critique of the British approach to heritage, Robert Hewison argued that museums were guilty of creating a sanitised, detached version of the past, divorced from much of its reality, controversy and connection to modern living, which stifled the capacity for creative change. Writing of English heritage he made… Continue reading
