Film Shapes

There is an awful lot happening in The Critic , on screen and off. Ian McKellen is the central pivot as snobby theatre critic, Jimmy Erskine, his venomous pen the scourge of many playwrights and actors in 1934 London. The film is based on an Anthony Quinn (not that one) novel called Curtain Call , with apparently one whole plotline (about a serial killer) removed. Patrick Marber (screenwriter of Closer  and Notes on a Scandal , as well as many other stage and TV credits) clearly decided to jettison that particular thread in favour of focussing on Erskine and the other players, including Gemma Arterton's actress Nina Land and Mark Strong's Viscount David Brooke, who has just taken proprietorship of the newspaper Jimmy writes for, The Chronicle. Brooke doesn't really approve of Erskine's writing style, or lifestyle (he's a vaguely closeted gay man who likes a bit of 'rough trade'), so he's under pressure to keep his nose clean. But a scathing, nasty revie...

This documentary has been in the works for a few years, with Covid proving a hefty stumbling block. It focusses on the work of Tenille Bentley, a musician trying to get to the bottom of the healing qualities of sound and music, specifically in the frequency range. Most music these days is tuned to 440 hertz but Bentley and her En Coda Orchestra play at 432. If this sounds a bit vague, it's purely because I'm a tone-deaf numpty and all this musical jargon is beyond me. The split between science and the arts is mentioned and the film aims to integrate these fields. There's a satisfying balance between the scientists and professors, talking about brain waves and neuroscience, and the musicians coming at it from a more experiential, more emotional angle. This is one of the doco's strengths - it doesn't actually preach anything to the audience, it's more about informing and recording research. Another strength is the tightness of the film. Director Dom Giorgi, of Sid...

Well, that was some kind of experience. I can't say I loved it, but it certainly left an impression. This second feature from French writer/director, Coralie Fargeat, is a sci-fi, slash satirical black comedy, slash body-horror, and it's quite heavy on the slash. I'm usually not squeamish but part way through, I realised I'd probably had one too many peanut M&Ms. I'd say it was the most uncomfortable viewing experience since.....hmm, You Won't Be Alone or.... Triangle of Sadness maybe (for the orgy of vomit)....and I'll throw in Ichi the Killer as well. These were the reactions of the people I saw The Substance with: Tap - Fantastic; Merv - Fucking boring; Yoshi - won't recommend it to others. And the funny thing is, all of them have a point. Demi Moore plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a faded Hollywood star who has had to resort to doing an 80s style exercise TV show, run by the cartoonish misogynist Harvey (Dennis Quaid). After getting the arse from th...

Speak No Evil is a remake of a Danish psychological thriller of the same name (or Gæsterne in Danish) from 2022. James Watkins directed and adapted the script from Christian and Mads Tafdrup's earlier film and tweaked just enough to plop it in the same bucket as The Vanishing (U.S. remake). Seeing this version on its own merits is fine but I'm guessing if you've seen the original (I haven't), you may feel slightly deflated or energised, depending on your sensibilities. For the record, I had a blast with this. It's a clever genre film that satirises societal norms and avoidance of conflict and all participants are bang on it. The story runs that a regular American couple with a young daughter meet an English couple with a son on holiday in Italy. They get on well and promise to catch up when they get back to England. The Americans are having some domestic problems and see an invitation to Devon to visit the holiday couple as a good chance to recharge. Mackenzie Dav...

This surreal film about the Surrealist painter Salvador Dali is another oddity from the abstruse Quentin Dupieux. He's never short of a batty idea but the strange thing about this film is that it might be his most straightforward work, at least in the subject matter. A print journalist, Judith (Anaïs Demoustier) is chasing an interview with the legendary artist but has trouble tying him down, particularly if she can't provide a film crew. Dali needs to be seen, not just written about. The story flirts with mortality and fame and is multi-layered in its structure. Dali is played, at different times, by Edouard Baer, Jonathan Cohen, Gilles Lellouche, Pio Marmaï and Didier Flammand, and if there is any method to the madness of who plays him when, it was lost on me. It reminded me of the Dylan film by Todd Haynes, I'm Not There , in this respect, though that was more measured and didn't jump back and forth, if memory serves. There's also the little matter of the unrelia...

This is an engaging, relatively fluffy documentary about French filmmaker, Michel Gondry, directed by his regular assistant, François Nemeta. As such, it comes across as a bit of a fawning love letter to a genius. This may sound like damning with faint praise but it's a pretty infectious watch, mainly due to Gondry's sheer likeability. I can't imagine this bloke angry, and it's almost a twist when he marginally raises his voice in one section where he's directing a scene from Mood Indigo . Gondry started his arts career as a drummer in the band Oui Oui, where he made the music videos to accompany their songs. Soon enough, his talent for filmmaking outshone his drumming and he moved on to create clips for other musicians, including Thomas Dolby, Inspiral Carpets, Lenny Kravitz and Terence Trent D'Arby. But it was his association with Björk that propelled him towards stardom, making eight music vids with her, notably Army of Me and Human Behaviour . He was much s...

This is a 'talking heads' documentary about the famous (or infamous, depending on your outlook on life) Scala cinema that operated in London's King's Cross from 1978 to 1993. It's a snapshot of an era - this place was the muster point for a ragtag group of misfits during Thatcher's uncompromisingly nasty reign. There's a fantastic array of interview subjects: actors Ralph Brown (who used to work there) and Caroline Catz; comedians Adam Buxton and Stewart Lee; directors Ben Wheatley, John Waters and Mary Harron;  musicians Matt Johnson (The The) and Douglas Hart (The Jesus and Mary Chain); as well as numerous less well-known folk who attended screenings or worked at the Scala in some capacity.  The celebrity tales are fun but the meat comes from the staff - in particular one pretty tense retelling of a suicide at the theatre. And the building itself, still erect and acting as a nightclub not far from King's Cross Station, is the star of the film. Built ar...