Playtime, 1967. Directed by Jacques Tati.Starring Jacques Tati, Barbara Dennek and Rita Maiden. SYNOPSIS: Monsieur Hulot battles the modern architecture and technology of Paris, creating pockets of benign chaos through to the early morning. Playtime opens on an airport lounge for what feels like ages. People are dwarfed in the longshot, going about their business. […]

Oliver Davis continues our Buster Keaton month with reviews of The Electric House and The Navigator… The Electric House, 1922. Silent comedies like these often have such overly complex set-ups. For The Electric House, a two-reeler (about 20 minutes long), Buster Keaton has his ‘Botany’ degree mixed up with an electrical engineer’s (Steve Murphy) at […]

Simon Columb begins our Al Pacino Retrospective with a look at The Panic in Needle Park… While we read of those trapped in the never-ending cycle of drug-use, it is more tragic and soul-destroying to see the innocent victim pulled into it. In 1971, The Panic in Needle Park captures the story of an artist’s […]

Simon Columb continues our Buster Keaton month with a review of The General… Though The General is the highest ranked comedy in Sight and Sound’s recent poll of ‘The Greatest Films of All-Time’, it is interesting to note how it failed to recoup the costly production in 1927. An expensive bridge-destruction rivalling The Bridge on […]

Simon Columb kicks off our Buster Keaton month with a short introduction… In his definitive book on Silent Comedy, Paul Merton, 88-pages in, titles a chapter “Enter Buster – and Others”. Many would imagine Buster Keaton, with Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd, are front a centre in a guide on the era. Indeed, while Chaplin […]

Jackson Ball continues our Al Pacino Retrospective with Scarface… Some films are almost inexplicable watchable. Measured solely on their individual components – such as foul language, unrelenting gore and non-stop, start-to-finish intensity – these films ought to drive audiences away, or at least make them think twice about a second viewing. However, the ultimate sum […]

Simon Columb continues our Al Pacino Retrospective with Serpico… Al Pacino has been a target for many during his career. Serpico begins as full-bearded Frank Serpico (Pacino) is wheeled on a stretcher through bustling corridors, blood over his body, in the same manner as Carlito Brigante in Brian DePalma’s Carlito’s Way. Clearly DePalma owes a […]

Tori Brazier continues our Al Pacino Retrospective with a look at The Godfather… Regularly topping polls as one of the greatest and most influential films ever made, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece The Godfather needs very little introduction. Suffice it to say, the film deserves every one of its accolades (including three Academy Award wins […]

Former Doctor Who star Karen Gillan has been at SXSW to promote the release of the upcoming horror film Ocolus, but of course with a role as the villain Nebula in Guardians of the Galaxy on the horizon, discussion soon turned to the cosmic Marvel adventure, with the actress offering up a few words about […]

Jackson Ball continues our Al Pacino Retrospective with Glengarry Glen Ross… Having won both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize, you may think that David Mamet’s 1984 play was always ripe for a big-screen adaptation. However, a closer look at Glengarry Glen Ross indicates that a play-to-cinema translation was not as simple as it seemed. […]