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Lost Classic Reviews

Lost Classic: A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, 2009)

The Coens’ A Serious Man is rooted visually in the nostalgic memory of the brothers’ lives and thematically in the idea of chaos; there is a fondness for symbols from the filmmakers’ collective memory but also a real cynicism towards religion and the mysticism of meaning. The film is beautifully, tightly wound, building around the […]

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Feature Screengem

Screengem: Withnail’s Coat in Withnail and I (Bruce Robinson, 1987)

Cigarette, bottle of wine, coat: enter Withnail, Richard E. Grant’s raging antihero and elegantly wasted actor au-chômage. It’s winter in Camden Town, London, and he and Marwood (Paul McGann) are holed up in a squalid flat with no booze, heating or food. There’s the tweed coat. It’s always there: deep heat, rubber glove and coat. […]