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New Release Reviews

New Release: The Green Knight

You may have met a man – quite young – A brisk-eyed youth, and highly strung: One whose desires And inner fires Moved him as wires … -From “So Various,” Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) The role of Gawain in David Lowery’s The Green Knight (2021) offers Dev Patel the opportunity to display a round table smorgasbord of […]

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Feature Screengem

Screengem: The bridge in The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957)

Spare a thought for Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness) in David Lean’s World War II drama, at the mercy of his Japanese captors in a deep jungle POW camp, tortured, baked in the sun in a tiny corrugated “oven” after procedural and ethical clashes in the lead-up to the construction of the titular monument – an […]

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New Release Reviews

New Release: Memory: The Origins of Alien

Fans will find much to relish in Alexandre O. Philippe’s obsessive documentary, Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019). As its title suggests, the film explores how Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror masterpiece draws from the past (especially Egyptian and Greek mythology) and speculates about the future, yet continues to feel entirely of the moment. A number […]

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Lost Classic Reviews

Lost Classic: Hearts of Darkness (Bahr, Hickenlooper & Coppola, 1991)

The great French director Francois Truffaut won an Academy Award for Day For Night (1972), a behind the scenes look at the making of a movie. Its romanticised view of filmmaking may have led the public to wonder – how difficult can it be to direct a movie? It sounds like fun. You will make […]