Film Shapes

The title of the film refers to a series of paintings started by Julian Sklar in the 90s but left unfinished for reasons made clear later. Sklar, as played by Ian McKellen, is eccentric and irascible, and seems to be a blend of famous British painters, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud. As Sklar is getting on in years, his grown children hatch a plan to have the paintings 'completed' for sale, with, or preferably without, their father's knowledge. For this undertaking they must enlist renowned art restorer (and dab hand forger), Lori Butler, an old acquaintance from art college. The premise is fine, but unfortunately, as created by Steven Soderbergh (director) and Ed Solomon (writer), it doesn't have any legs. Paradoxically, the best bits are probably also part of the reason it falters. McKellen is superb as the lovelorn painter, artistically blocked and emotionally bitter. His pithy, acerbic dialogue is great and he gives the performance full welly, but the actual storyli...

It's been six years since Mike Leigh stepped behind the camera for the disappointing Peterloo but this film is a return to tip top form. In fact, by my reckoning, that 2018 historical record was his only career misstep. And in Naked , Secrets and Lies and Happy-Go-Lucky , he has written and directed some of the very best British films of all time. Hard Truths reunites him with one of the stars of Secrets and Lies , Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She plays Pansy, an angry, fearful misery guts who can't help but annoy her family (and members of the public) with her constant, nasty invective. At first, her moaning is quite funny until the realisation that this woman is suffering takes hold. Pansy is married to plumber Curtley (David Webber) and they have a son in his early 20s, Moses (Tuwaine Barrett) who doesn't say much and stays in his room playing flight simulator games. Both these guys deal with Pansy in their own way, in quiet despondency. Her only real friend is her sister,...

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 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...

This debut feature from Charlotte Regan is a low-key, yet ambitious drama about a 12-year-old girl, Georgie (played by Lola Campbell) raising herself on a London housing estate. It becomes clear that she has lost her mother recently but is making a fair fist of it by half-inching bikes with her mate, Ali (Alin Uzun) and selling them to a local fence (apologies for the geezer language, but the film has that effect). Soon enough, the kids spot a wide boy jumping over the back fence who turns out to be Jason, Georgie's absent-until-now father (Harris Dickinson, last seen as the twatty model in Triangle of Sadness ). The central relationship is the focus of the film, along with Georgie's method of working through her grief, and this is all sweetly done. It has slight hints of another father/daughter film from this year, the superior  Aftersun. I've been attempting to work out why I didn't really gel with Scrapper since seeing it a few days ago and I think it may be the ton...

Quiet dignity radiates from this moving remake of Kurosawa's  Ikiru  and it has the recognisable stamp of Kazuo Ishiguro all over it. This acclaimed (Nobel Prize-winning, even) novelist has previous with Merchant/Ivory fare - he wrote the screenplay for  The White Countess  and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala adapted his great novel,  The Remains of the Day  - and  Living  isn't too far removed from the style of these Brit heavyweights. The focus is on stuffy Mr. Williams, played with fierce introspection by Bill Nighy. As much as we all want him to crack out some semi-drunken wittery, he holds himself in check, and it's probably his most mannered, yet natural performance. He's tip-top in this. Set in early 1950s London, Ishiguro and director, Oliver Hermanus show Williams as a buttoned-up, broadsheet reading, Fortnum & Mason frequenting gentleman - in fact, he confesses that a gentleman was all he ever aspired to be. His confidante takes the form of a y...

Edgar Wright's newest film is something of a return to his early days, but without the comic elements. Last Night in Soho , starring Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy, is an astral projection murder mystery set in London, now AND in the 1960s. McKenzie's Eloise gets a bursary to study at the London College of Fashion and leaves her country town for the big smoke. She quickly gets fed up with her student digs and takes a room in a house in Goodge Place owned by Ms. Collins - Diana Rigg in her final film. The first night she dreams (travels?) herself as hopeful music star, Sandie, with Taylor-Joy's image reflecting back at her through the mirrors in the Café de Paris. So far, this is all exciting stuff, but things start to go pear-shaped for Sandie/Eloise when Matt Smith's Jack shows his true, nasty colours. Now, unlike some folk, I went along with this film. It's very clever, plot points are set up to pay off later, the story by Wright wears it's influences o...