Gosford Park (2001) - ickleReview (DVD)

Outstanding Robert Altman comic drama set in 1932. A shooting party takes place at an English country house. Servants make preparations belowstairs gossiping about their masters' squabbles above. A huge ensemble cast shines with innumerable layers of intrigue so subtly conveyed. The snobbish hierarchy of the aristocracy is mimicked if not outdone by the servants' stuffy conventions belowstairs. Wonderful performances by Helen Mirren as the perfect head servant Mrs Wilson, Maggie Smith as a wickedly snobbish old dame, Alan Bates as the butler, Jennings, and Richard E. Grant as a swaggering footman - amongst many other superb characters.

Nugget: it's almost a shame there had to be a murder, so enthralling are the intertwining storylines of servants and masters.

The Wind That Shakes the Barley (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

A devastating thresher of a film by Ken Loach about the early days of the IRA in rural Ireland, 1920. Damien (Cillian Murphy) is a young doctor about to move to the teaching hospitals in London, leaving the provincial life behind him. However, having witnessed the pointless brutality of the British Black and Tans regiment, he is compelled to stay behind in Ireland and joins the Irish Republican Army to drive out the British and establish a democratic Irish republic. Damien leads a small but determined militia against the British, ambushing them to acquire weapons. When caught, the British soldiers are ruthless in their torture and punishment of the Irish rebels.

Paul Laverty's screenplay skilfully covers a number of issues relating to the rebellion: hatred of the cruel treatment by the British, a worker's desire for socialism, the impact of brother fighting against brother, the amateurish training of the Irish rebels, the in-fighting and disagreements about what they are fighting for and what to do with their power once they have it, the involvement of the women, the stubborn pride of the republicans, the moral guidance offered by the clergy.

Loach bludgens his audience with realistic detail and rounded characters. There are token scenes to sketch out the wider implications of the plot, but they don't feel at all clunky. There is, for example, a politically slanted sermon by a Catholic priest to demonstrate how the clergy side with whoever has money and power, and a civil court scene to demonstrate how the women have taken over administrative roles and seek to establish a more just, egalitarian society.

Although it only covers a short period in history, the film manages to convey the hopeless struggle of ideologies and the factions within factions as the men and women fighting for Ireland's freedom have many conflicting motives. Once the Irish Free State is established, not all of the IRA freedom fighters are happy because the senators will be made to swear an allegiance to the King of England still. Yet had the British granted full independence, they would have succumbed to similar nationalist movements all across the Empire much sooner than they did.

Nugget: an important and impeccably observed film with an outstanding performance by Cillian Murphy in the lead roll and a strong supporting cast.

Phone Booth (2002) - ickleReview (DVD)

Colin Farrell plays Stu Shepard, a self-centred publicist in New York who is held hostage in a phone booth he has used to call his girlfriend (Katie Holmes), a young actress he's trying to take advantage of. He used a phone booth so that his wife (Radha Mitchell) wouldn't see the calls on his cell phone bill. The caller (Kiefer Sutherland) is holding him at gunpoint from an unseen window with a sighted sniper rifle. Short and sweet at 81 minutes, the tension builds in long takes as the caller exacts a conscience from Stu, enjoying his mind games and manipulation in the sight of TV news cameras, tourists, passers-by and a trigger-itching police presence.

Farrell's performance is impressive. He's in almost every scene of the movie and has lots of dialogue. (But then so does any stage actor, so I don't think he should be singled out just because he could remember his lines.) The long takes build the tension. Joel Schumacher has made an entertaining film on a tight budget and 10-day shooting schedule. The ending seems to come a little soon and doesn't quite pay off. I felt like it should have gone on for another 10 or 15 minutes. It's a little anti-climactic, but at least it's trying something different.

Nugget: next time you see a phonebox ringing, it's best not to pick up. Oh, and don't cheat on your wife.

Casino Royale (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

Daniel Craig's first Bond film - and possibly one of the franchise's best. Craig is a much harder, colder, more macho Bond than Brosnan, with no campness. Someone said perceptively about this film that it's what Bond would be like if it was real. The baddies in this one are small terrorist groups and the men who finance them. Bond has just been made a double-O agent. In the opening black and white sequence we see his first kill. For once his turn and shoot towards the camera for the opening credits actually means something. The stunts are grittier and more enthralling than usual, including Free Running (Parkours) specialists. I was impressed with the use of technology: the thought of Bond logging into MI6's secure database using M's username and password, the constant use of mobile phones, the tracking chip that is placed in Bond's forearm by his employers to keep track of him, and so on. The gadgets are ones that we all use - except, perhaps, for the DIY defibrilator that he keeps in the glove compartment of his Aston Martin...just in case he has that heart attack.

The Bond girl, Eva Green, is smarter and harder to get than her predecessors. She's the Treasury's representative at the high-stakes poker game he plays in order to smoke out one of the terrorist financiers. I like the way Bond orders a new drink, the way he says he couldn't care less whether his dry Martini is shaken or stirred, the way we see, for once, characters being affected by the deaths around them.

Some people may object to the product placement, but that's what our world looks like nowadays: it would be odd not to see these brandnames. Richard Branson having a cameo out of focus at a security check point at Miama airport is another matter; although I found that quite amusing. I wonder how much he paid.

It's quite a long one (144 minutes), but the plot deserves the treatment. The changes of pace are welcomed and the downtimes are some of the most interesting moments of the film. Bond even thinks he falls in love. (Shades of On Her Majesty's Secret Service...)

Nugget: good to see some fresh ideas and I'm very impressed with the new Bond.

Scoop (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

Woody Allen's second film shot in the UK is about Sondra (Scarlett Johansson), a doh-brained journalism student from America who is staying in England over the summer with her upper-class family friends. When she takes part in a magic trick in Splendini's stage show she receives a tip-off about a murder story from back-from-the-dead reporter Joe Strombel (Ian McShane). Splendini (Woody Allen), whose real name is Sid Waterman, accompanies Sondra on her precarious investigation of the lead, which brings them into contact with high-class businessman and politician Peter Lyman (Hugh Jackman), a Lord's son, whom they are told is responsible for the unsolved serial Tarot Card Murders.

As Match Point was a British remake of Crimes and Misdemeanors, so Scoop* is a refashioning of Manhattan Murder Mystery. It is an enjoyable, light film, taking itself less seriously than Match Point did, and thus has no jarring changes of tone, as happened when the earlier London film brutalized towards the end. The plotting feels smoother and the conclusion less of an afterthought than his previous film.

Johansson's character is ditsy and, after some initially awkward scenes, the Allen-Johansson double act functions well as they botch their way through their hunt for clues to connect Peter Lyman to the murders. McShane spends the film escaping from Death's boat to the Underworld to give Sondra and Sid clues, having been told the scoop by Lyman's poinsoned former secretary.

Allen seems more confident in his portrayal of his London fantasy world of high society, much like the New York rich set that probably doesn't exist either. The locations are more low-key: he does not gawp up at the Royal Albert Hall, for example, as he dallied past Buckingham Palace in Match Point like a tourist. He also seems more comfortable with the British English idiom, even poking fun at it with Sid's refrain "I love you, really. With all due respect, you're a beautiful person. You're a credit to your race." The soundtrack is full of atmospheric classical music rather than his more familiar jazz score, partly because it is a mystery film, not a comic romp.

One wonders why, in December 2006, this has yet to be released in the UK. (I watched this film at the seedy Museum Lichtspiele in Munich, Germany, where they have been showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show every week since its release in 1975. There is no - or ineffective - heating, ineluctable popcorn and Coke spillage, and buzzing, faulty speakers.) Is it to be another Hollywood Ending and sneak below the UK distributors' radar? Surely Woody Allen has earned the reputation by now to be treated with more respect.

Nugget: good to have you back.

* NB This has nothing to do with Evelyn Waugh's eponymous 1938 novel about the bumbling war correspondent William Boot sent to Abyssinia.

16 Blocks (2006) - ickleReview (DVD)

Bruce Willis police action thriller. The old man plays Jack Mosley, a broken, alcoholic cop who, after a long nightshift, has to escort a witness 16 blocks through New York City rushhour traffic to the courthouse before 10am when the jury expires. The prisoner/witness, Eddie (Mos Def) is a talkative baby-voiced crook who is going to testify against police curruption, affecting Jack's ex-partner Frank Nugent (David Morse) and other precinct colleagues who try to chase them down and prevent the testimony in a familiar good cop/bad cop routine.

After a few twists, it all ends happily and everyone gets a slice of birthday cake. The alternate ending on the DVD is more complicated but more intriguing and implausible and would have lost more audiences.

Nugget: pretty standard stuff.

Letter to Brezhnev (1985) - ickleReview (DVD)

Love story about two Scouse girls who meet a couple of Russian sailors out one night in Liverpool. One of them (Margi Clarke) is looking for a good, care-free time; the other, Elaine (Alexandra Pigg), wants romance. Sergei (Alfred Molina) and Peter (Peter Firth) duly oblige. However, the sailors have to go home the next day, which leaves Elaine, who has fallen in love with Peter, desolate.

Had it ended here, it would have been a bonnie enough film, akin to Before Sunrise but without the eloquence. Yet it moves on to a second act in which Elaine, rather implausibly, writes to the Russian president to intercede in her situation: she wants to marry Peter but he is not allowed to leave the Soviet Union.

The film looks dated with 80s fashion disasters around every pub pint. It is now a period piece for Thatcher's Britain. Pigg and Firth give the best performances, although Eileen Walsh is amusingly course as Elaine's mother.

By no means a bad film - the first half is sweet - but the second is less engaging. Writer Frank Clarke is at his best creating Scouse banter on a night out.

Nugget: nothing to write home to Russia about, but not to be written off either.

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) - ickleReview (TV)

Spike Lee's two-part feature-length Storyville documentary about Hurricane Katrina, focusing on New Orleans and its largely black, underprivileged underclass. It follows the events in sequence through the hurricane, the rescue missions, the "refugee" crisis (although this is a word the victims took offence at, as if they were not citizens of their own country) and the diasporal aftermath, showing how the survivors are trying to rebuild their homes in a devastated city.

It is often tremendously moving as the survivors tell their stories with real intimacy and - at times - humour. There is a great deal of hard feeling against FEMA and the incompetant Bush administration. One feels this is the reason why some leftists parts of the British press were so sceptical about the election of a stupid president in 2000: his foot-in-mouths are inconsequential in comparison to the uncaring bunch of cronies he appointed to his government.

Nugget: it's amazing these people don't question their faith when it appears their suffering has been caused by an "act of God".

Q&A with the directors of "The U.S. vs. John Lennon"

My Q&A with the directors David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, makers of The U.S. vs. John Lennon, is now published on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Forrest Gump (1994) - ickleReview (TV)

Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) was a dumb, crippled kid from Greenbow, Alabama who grew up to be an all-American hero: college football star, Vietnam war hero, ping-pong player, shrimp boat captain, corporation owner, inspirational long-distance runner, und so weiter. It's a cross between Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July. His life story is wonderfully implausible, narrated waiting on a bustop bench to whoever is sitting there, not always listening. His life-long sweatheart, Jenny (Robin Wright Penn), abused by her father as a child, struggles through life as a stripper, hippy, drug addict and waitress, never far from Forrest's thoughts, which are predominantly simple, sometimes profound, always endearing. The film is focalized through Forrest's low IQ of 75, told with a naivety that looks at the world anew and that shows but doesn't tell the (presumably smarter) audience what's going on: that Jenny's father is an alcoholic widower whose hugging and kissing of his daughters isn't as loving as it sounds; that there are rather a lot of political assassinations in America's recent history; that drug addicts died from AIDS, and so on.

In the mid-nineties there was excitement over the film's CGI faux-documentary footage of Forrest Gump meeting the president (twice) and appearing in news footage about racial segregation while at college. Twelve years later these inserts still stand up quite well, but look a little shakey. I suppose they were always supposed to look a little odd - a bit like those video mixes of Blair and Bush singing "Gay Bar".

Nugget: some wonderful touches and still compelling to watch after a number of previous viewings. At 142 minutes it is stretching running-time etiquette but I think, in this case, it is justified because there are simply so many crazy stories to cram in. I wonder what quirks they left out.

A room with a view

The view from my bedroom window this afternoon at sundown.

Cricket sledging

I suspect there may have been more F-words used in these gentlemanly exchanges at the crease. I like the one about the biscuit.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

Borat Sagdiyev is another character creation by Sacha Baron Cohen, who gave us Ali G. Borat is a TV presenter from Kazakhstan who is sent by the Ministry of Information to make a documentary about America ("US and A [...] the greatest country in the world").

Along the way Baron Cohen in the character of Borat tries to be as offensive as possible to as many people as possible, including random New Yorkers walking the streets of Manhattan, veteran feminists, gays, blacks, Jews, women, college frat boys, polite dinner parties, a rodeo audience and, eventually, Pamela Anderson.

It's much like his short sketches from Da Ali G Show strung together with a flaky plot. It's a road trip movie with Pamela Anderson as the spur to cross coast to coast in a second-hand ice-cream van with his producer Azamat Bagatov (Ken Davitian) in tow.

There are many laughs in (or maybe at) this film, as well as a quite deflating poignant moment, but it needn't have tried to force a narrative out of it. Borat is much funnier when he's just causing havoc with people you're never really sure are in on the joke.

Nugget: the film suffers a little from over-exposure. I'd heard too many of the jokes and encounters in reviews on radio, TV, and in the press, weakening their impact on screen. (They're still funny, but they were funnier first time round.)

The official movie website, though, is a masterpiece.

Veiled school photograph

Source: Private Eye, no. 1171 (10-23 November 2006), p. 15.

Bloom (2003) - ickleReview (DVD)

Film adaptation of James Joyce's Ulysses (1922), one of the greatest novels ever written in any language. Having read the book twice and studied it over the past five years, it's difficult to give an objective view of Bloom as a stand-alone film. I'm not sure if it would work for someone who knows nothing about the novel. Director Sean Walsh has certainly done a lot of creative cutting: entire chapters are omitted or condensed into a scene or two. From what I could make out, the most cinematic chapter of the novel, "Wandering Rocks" (chapter 10), which features an interpolative narrative technique similar to parallel editing, and the "Sirens" episode of the sing-song in the Ormond Hotel bar (chapter 11), were missing.

The film begins at the end of the novel with Molly's monologue in bed with Bloom at the end of the day, and then comes full circle, like Joyce's final work, Finnegans Wake, returning back to where it started with Molly, and ending with her famous last words "yes I said yes I will Yes."

The film is about a day in Dublin, 16 June 1904. Leopold Bloom makes breakfast for his adulterous wife, Molly (Angeline Ball), who fucks Blazes Boylan while Bloom is out of the house later in the day. Stephen Rea's Bloom is more melancholy than I imagined him. Rea and Walsh emphasize his sadness at the death of his son, Rudi, and foreground the anti-semitism he faces in Dublin. Meanwhile, Stephen Dedalus (Hugh O'Conor) has breakfast with his friend Buck Mulligan (Alvaro Lucchesi) and their English companion, Haines, at their Martello tower home outside the city. He then teaches a lesson at school and walks along the strand into Dublin. (Small factual error: he should be walking north, with the sea on his right, not south with it on his left, as he does in the film. Many other artistic liberties are taken: Bloom's home at 7 Eccles Street, for example, does not have a front garden or a path, and backs straight on to the pavement.) The rest of the film follows them about the city until they meet up later at night, drunken, in a brothel.

Walsh achieves, on the whole, the right tone and casts some characters such as Molly, Mr Deasy (Des Braiden) and Buck Mulligan particularly well. The central characters are weaker. Rea does not convince me his is Bloom; O'Conor is too cheerful as Stephen.

Nugget: don't neglect to read the book!

I've also written a different review of this DVD for FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Blogcritics redesign

Blogcritics has improved its site design. It's still quite cluttered and text-heavy, but that's because there's so much material contributed by its 1,700 reviewers. The ads cheapen it a little, but I guess they're a necessity. On the whole, though, it looks so much better, especially with a slightly smaller font size. Arial looks mince when it's too big.

I've contributed a few of my ickleReviews.

The Producers (2005) - ickleReview (DVD)

Remake of the 1968 Mel Brooks movie musical about a flopping Broadway producer, Max Bialystock (Nathan Lane) and his accountant, Leo Bloom (Matthew Broderick of Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986); I could establish no relation to Joyce's Leopold Bloom), who run a scam to produce a deliberate flop show to maximize their profit from the investment money. They pick Franz Liebkind (Will Ferrell)'s Nazi paean, Springtime for Hitler, and hire gay-as-you-like director Roger DeBris (Gary Beach) and Swedish chorus girl/secretary/receptionist Ulla (Uma Thurman). The only problem is, with Hitler camped up, will audiences really take offence?

At 129 minutes it's a little flabby and uncinematic. The exposition scene between Max and Leo is far too slow to develop and is not as funny as it thinks it is. Ferrell is brilliant as the tall lederhosened German with Nazi-saluting pigeons, and Thurman manages to be ridiculously sexy without being arousing.

It's a fun film with some great choreography and production design, and a marvellous tune in "Springtime for Hitler", but it remains a little flat throughout.

Nugget: I'd have to see the 1968 original before I can pass fair judgement.

Bug Juice - episode 6

Hurray! Another episode of Bug Juice has appeared. Please, sir, I want some more.

Handkerchief Drill (1949) - ickleReview (cinema)

Amusing one-minute short public information film produced by the British government's Ministry of Health to encourage its citizens to use handkerchiefs when sneezing. In the style of Mr Cholmondley-Warner. This black and white film has recently been restored by the BFI and is being screened before performances of The History Boys.

Nugget: surely this sort of thing was made with tongue inserted firmly in cheek.

The History Boys (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

In 2004 Alan Bennett's play The History Boys was a huge success at the National Theatre on London's South Bank. Its run was extended to meet audience demand and it toured with similar popularity in New York and Sydney, receiving numerous awards. This film crystallizes those immaculate performances, preserving them on celluloid for future generations, who would never be able to see the same cast performing the play. Already the boys were becoming young men. This film came before it was too late. It's so rare that the entire cast and the director (Nicholas Hytner) are able to carry on over into the film adaptation of a play.

Set in a Yorkshire grammar school in the early 1980s, The History Boys is about a class of exceptionally smart boys who return to school for one final term after their A-Levels to prepare for Oxbridge entrance exams. The school does not have a tradition of sending candidates to these two most prestigious universities, so the headmaster (Clive Merrison) hires a young teacher called Irwin (Stephen Campbell Moore) to tutor the boys and teach them how to stand out. Irwin's journalistic slant on History, turning it upside down, taking the controversial angle, is at odds with the teaching philosophy of Hector, their beloved English teacher (Richard Griffiths), who fills their heads with poetry and useless knowledge, not to pass exams, but for the sake of it. Their History teacher Mrs Lintott (Frances de la Tour) has taught them hard facts and taught them well, but Irwin finds their essays correct but boring. Gradually the boys learn Irwin's method of doing the unexpected thing, although they also begin to understand the value of what Hector has taught them.

The strength of the play was its characterization, which is happily carried over on to film. When Bennett was writing the play, he had no characters for the boys in mind. He just wrote "Boy" in the speech heading. It was in rehearsal for the National Theatre production that the company discovered who said what. Even sitting at the back of the theatre, when the actors' faces were out of focus, their characters emerged in sharp detail. Only Rudge could define history as "just one fucking thing after another". Only Posner could have a crush on Dakin. Only Timms could incur the fond wrath of Hector, be hit over the head and called a "rancid little turd". It was a relief (but no surprise) to find these characters had only grown stronger on film.

The plot and dialogue are effectively the same and the strong writing of Bennett translates superbly across media. It's still a wordy film, but it never feels like a recorded play. Even though I knew it was coming, I still couldn't help welling up when Hector and Posner discuss Hardy's poem "Drummer Hodge" in a private one-on-one tutorial, so poignant are their softly spoken words, flirting around the edges of a confessional.

Nugget: a film of joy. Full of the wonder of a type of teaching no longer possible in our curriculum incubus schools. An inspiration to teachers and to anyone who ever had a teacher as wonderful as Hector. I did. His name was Mr Williams (PSW) of Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, who always read "in [his] own inimitable style".

This review was also posted on Blogcritics.

It's not right and it's not fair

A black man's leg.

Source: Ross Brooks, debased housemate.

Wide Sargasso Sea (2006) - ickleReview (TV)

Made-for-TV BBC feature-length adaptation of Jean Rhys's prequel novel to Jane Eyre. Sumptuously shot with a minimal cast, it focuses on the troubled marriage between Edward Rochester (Rafe Spall) and Antoinette (who became the madwoman in the attic). Their courtship is touchingly but concisely portrayed, forced together by family pressures. Edward Rochester is the second son of a family with a good name and has been sent to Jamaica to find his own fortune and marry a well dowried wife. Antoinette is a beautiful creole with £30,000. Their early passion is soon cooled by a whispering campaign amongst the local servants and Antoinette's half-brother.

The dialogue is often dubbed over jumpy editing and creates an unsettling effect, augmented by the heavy soundtrack of wildlife and atmospheric music, when, really, the actors were doing a good enough job by themselves. The soundtrack does, however, recreate the over-sensuous feel of the book, the bewildering over-stimulation of love in a strange place.

Nugget: at 85 minutes this is sensibly concise. Just a shame it had to be cut in half by the 10 O'Clock News on BBC1.

Red Road (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

Set in a scabby part of Glasgow, the Red Road of the title refers to a towerblock housing estate where much of the action takes place. Jackie (Kate Dickie) works in a CCTV control room, reporting crimes and keeping track of her favourite citizens, including a dancing late-night cleaning lady and a man with an incontinent dog. One night she spots a face she recognizes, one she wasn't expecting to see. Clyde (Tony Curran) has been released early from prison. Jackie begins to stalk him, but it is unclear how she knows him, what the nature of his crime was, and why she is putting herself in such danger. Martin Compston (who brilliantly debuted in Sweet Sixteen (2002)) is a schemie friend of Clyde's called Stevie, a role he plays particularly well.

The plot unravels slowly. We are never sure until the end about what went on before and how the characters are related to each other. It's creatively shot, much of it from what appears to be real CCTV cameras. They are intrusive, but the way Jackie watches out for her favourites is also affectionate, and it makes you realize how, in a violent city like Glasgow, they keep us safe. The director Andrea Arnold is a confident and proficient storyteller with an eye for colour and beauty in a bleak urban landscape.

Nugget: solidly acted, engagingly told thriller not afraid to show the scary sides of Glasgow. Doesn't exactly make me homesick.

37 Uses for a Dead Sheep (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

BBC4 Storyville and ARTE France documentary about the Pamir Kirghiz tribe of central Asia, who migrated from Russia to China, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the twentieth century before settling in eastern Turkey in 1982. The filmmakers collaborate closely with the Kirghiz community who re-enact seminal moments from their history in a patchwork of film stocks made to look like newsreels and early Soviet films.

Nugget: amateurish in the pejorative and positive senses it approximates the essence of a people without the patronizing tendency of anthropoligical studies.

Read the full review on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Proof (2005) - ickleReview (DVD)

John Madden/Miramax actors' vehicle starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Jake Gyllenhaal and Hope Davis. Based on David Auburn's Pulitzer Prize-winning play (on which Madden and Paltrow collaborated), it tells the schizophrenic Lear-like story of a brilliant maths professor at the University of Chicago (Hopkins) who loses his mind and mathematical "machinery" becoming a burden on his favourite daughter (Paltrow). Gyllenhaal plays his student determined to rescue his reputation by finding a breakthrough proof in his legacy of over a hundred notebooks, most of them filled with gibberish. Davis is the unfavoured other daughter who's made a success of her life in New York but now returns to Chicago after her father's death.

Nugget: the plot is cleverly structured with hypotheses and proofs, but doesn't quite pay off. An above average film.

Read the full review on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Moonlight Mile (2002) - ickleReview (DVD)

Perfectly formed minor masterpiece by writer/director Brad Silberling that was ravaged by the critics when it first came out. It's best not to know anything about this film, just watch it and let it grab you. Strong cast on top form with Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, newcomer Ellen Pompeo and Holly Hunter.

Nugget: bravely drawn-out exposition keeps you learning about the characters throughout the film.

Read the full review on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken. But, lucky for you, I kept a backup.]

Jake Gyllenhaal 4-Disc Box Set: Moonlight Mile DVD (15)


Dir: Brad Silberling, 2002, USA, 114 mins
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Susan Sarandon, Ellen Pompeo, Holly Hunter

Joe Nast (Gyllenhaal)'s fiancée is dead: shot as a bystander in a smalltown New England diner. He's staying with her parents Ben and Jojo Floss (Hoffman and Sarandon) for the funeral and its aftermath. They treat him like a son-in-law. There are warm bonds between them, beyond just the dead girl they have in common. Yet Joe isn't being quite honest with the Flosses or with himself.

Writer/director Brad Silberling has produced a perfectly crafted minor masterpiece. Impeccably acted by a strong cast, including Holly Hunter as Mona Camp, the lawyer prosecuting the man who murdered the Floss' daughter. Newcomer Ellen Pompeo plays Bertie Knox, a girl Joe meets who is also going through a grieving process for her lost lover, Cal.

Set around 1973, the unrest in the outside world is a faint background to the Floss' problems. The family dog is called Nixon and it's implied that Cal is missing in Vietnam. Like the soundtrack of low-key B-sides, these details deftly determine the mood. (The music never screams "Listen to me!" like Tarantino or John Williams.) Silberling admits he writes to music and encouraged his actors to listen to the same songs on set. The lyrics often complement the onscreen situation.

Hoffman and Sarandon are a natural couple. Their imperfect but loving marriage is indelibly plausible. They seem to be coping admirably with their daughter's death; but each character in turn chokes towards their breakdown. When the three of them are sitting in front of the TV, Ben cryptically acknowledges, "I almost slipped and he broke my fall," at once thanking Joe for rescuing him in a moment of emotional weakness, while protecting Jojo from this knowledge. Gyllenhaal gives an assured performance, much of his acting without words (he jokes on the commentary that he's all "ums" and ellipses); yet when he does speak, the lines are flawlessly delivered.

The relationships between the characters aren't telegraphed; they emerge gradually through dialogue. Joe is so intimate with the Flosses that it appears at first he's their son. The lost fiancée/daughter, Dianne, is a constant presence in the film, and yet she only appears in a glimpsed photograph, a half-waking dream. (No need for schmaltzy flashbacks.) In some ways the film is about how a person lives on in the lives of the people who loved her. In a typically delicate touch, Jojo wears her daughter's watches, winding them each day, as if to keep her alive by keeping her time going.

The plot revolves to reveal its unironed creases, keeping us interested without gimmicks. The exposition extends well beyond the hour-mark: a brave filmmaking decision; one that is closer to a play script. It's best to know as little as possible about this film, just to watch it and let it grip you.

Extras:
Includes two commentary tracks by the director, and the director and cast (Hoffman and Gyllenhaal) with some amusing rapport and fascinating insights into the filmmaking process; deleted scenes with director's commentary; and a 22-minute bog standard promotional "making of" documentary about casting and production.

Also in the collection:
DONNIE DARKO: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT
THE GOOD GIRL
PROOF

The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

Highly polished documentary about John Lennon's life in America from 1966-76 at the height of his involvement in the anti-war movement.

Nugget: contains some rare footage from the Lennon archives and a soundtrack almost entirely of Lennon's songs.

Read the full review on FilmExposed, where you can also find my Q&A with the directors, David Leaf and John Scheinfeld.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

The Good Girl (2002) - ickleReview (DVD)

The Good Girl doesn't know who her daddy is. Bastard offspring of One Hour Photo (2002), Fargo (1996) and Gigli (2003). Starring Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal, the real strength comes from the supporting cast, who provide most of the humour to off-set the semi-tragic love story between frustrated wife (Aniston) and intense writer-type (Gyllenhaal).

Nugget: this certainly wasn't the run-of-the-mill date movie the packaging led me to expect, but it wasn't quite successful in the generic detours it decided to take.

Read the full review on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls (2003) - ickleReview (DVD)

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is a documentary adaptation of Peter Biskind's book about the New Hollywood era spanning from the collapse of the old studio system in 1966 to the advent of high-grossing blockbusters Jaws (1975) and Star Wars (1977).

Nugget: essential viewing for anyone interested in these filmmakers.

Read the full review on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut (2004) - ickleReview (DVD)

Recut of the 2001 original with 20 minutes of additional footage, redesigned sound and visual effects, a slightly reordered soundtrack of songs, and a commentary track by director Richard Kelly and Kevin Smith.

Nugget: elucidates some of the ambiguities of the original version without spoiling it, as I had feared. A good complement for fans of the film, but should not be treated as the superior version.

Note: this review refers to the Region 2 single disc edition.

Read the full review on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Romanzo criminale (2005) - ickleReview (cinema)

Italian mafia film about a gang of boys who form a criminal gang after an adolescence of petty crime and take on the established mafia in Rome, murdering their way into a position of power. At 152 minutes it's a very long film, but doesn't have the epic thrust of a Godfather to justify so many reels. I was getting bored after about 90 minutes.

The opening half hour has a curious tone: the characters speak all the gangster clichés but it feels slightly fraudulent. Either the film is badly scripted and acted (or the subtitle translations wear away the cool idioms), or the characters are supposed to look like newbeats adopting a pose before they truly find their criminal vocation.

The film tries to tell a parallel story about the Machiavellian world of Italian politics and its resemblance to the criminal underworld, even suggesting the two are deeply related; but to someone who doesn't know twentieth-century Italian political history in any detail, the weaving of archive footage (if indeed it was genuine) into the plot made no great semantic impact.

The most intriguing character is the bald-headed State representative, who performs the same clean-up role no matter who is in power. There is a glimmer of a twist involving him at the end, but again it was opaque.

The best aspect of this film is its soundtrack. Reasonably stylish, yes, but based on what appears to be a pulpy novel (the title translates as Crime Novel), it has little original to say in the genre. At least it makes the gangsters more human and amateurish than the slick professionals of Scorsese and Coppola.

Nugget: average mafia Joe, although at least this time it's made by Italians. Curious, though, that they learned the syntax to tell such a story from American films.

Wedding Crashers (2005) - ickleReview (DVD)

Another good one to watch on a bus journey. Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn get their kicks from crashing weddings to score with chicks. During one season they do 17 of all denominations. One time they get caught up with a couple of powerful American families, the sort who could run for President, and get a little too involved with two of their daughters (including Home and Away's Isla Fisher, who plays a nymphomaniac).

Nugget: good fun with amusing gags, plus Christopher Walken and Will Ferrell in smaller roles, but hardly a classic and nothing to be proud of.

The Football Factory (2004) - ickleReview (DVD)

Adaptation of John King's books about life as a Chelsea football hooligan. The film is updated to the present day, whereas the book was set in the early 90s. Captures the nastiness of these men who arrange to fight on matchday using their mobile phones, with young boys as scouts on the lookout. Infectious levels of swearing in cockney and an impressive ruckous scene between Millwall and Chelsea. Doesn't do any favours for the reputation of English football fans, but at least it tries to justify their behaviour by putting it in the context of Britain's history as a warring nation. (Still, not everyone acts like this.) Some of the characters are a little 2-D, but that's because the narrative is told from the perspective of Tommy Johnson (Danny Dyer from Human Traffic (1999)).

In the violent genre of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) but with a different feel from another football hooligan film, I.D. (1995), in which the fighters actually bothered to go to the match.

Nugget: I remember being more scared when I read the book.

Starsky & Hutch (2004) - ickleReview (DVD)

Remake of the 1970s TV series. Enjoyable enough in a rugby coach with Ben Stiller as Starsky, the uptight stickler cop and Owen Wilson as Hutch, his more easy-going partner. They try to bust a big cocaine deal and pick up some girls along the way. So what's new? Not a lot, but it passes the time.

Nugget: good for a few laughs. The car didn't feature as much as I'd been expecting.

The Bicycle Thieves (aka Ladri di biciclette) (1948) - ickleReview (DVD)

De Sica's masterpiece of Italian Neo-Realism. Shot in beautiful black and white in post-war Rome, it tells the story of Ricci, a poor bill poster who loses his livelihood when his bike is stolen. He searches all over the city for it, helped by his devoted son, Bruno.

Nugget: a wonderful, sad, but touching film.

Read the full review on FilmExposed.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Blow-Up (1966) - ickleReview (TV)

Film by Michelangelo Antonioni set in London, based on the short story Las babas del diablo by Julio Cortázar. A photographer (David Hemmings) inadvertently photographs a murder when he is taking pictures of a couple cavorting in a park. The woman (Vanessa Redgrave) asks for the pictures back when she sees him, but he refuses. She tracks him back to his studio. He fobs her off with the wrong film and develops the right one after she has left. It is then when he is blowing up (enlarging - hence the title) the pictures that he notices a gun and a corpse in the bushes.

There are early scenes of him shooting models in the studio. He treats some of them quite harshly. He is over-exposed to beautiful women and doesn't treat them with much respect. Yet the women are desperate to be photographed by him and use their bodies as lures; but because he sees so many beautiful women, he is hard to impress. When he does let a couple of groupies in, there follows a number of artful but nevertheless gratuitous and quite inexplicit semi-nude erotic scenes.

The remarkable thing about this film is the almost total lack of significant dialogue. Most of the story is told just in pictures. It's so pervasive one doesn't notice the characters aren't speaking most of the time. This is nicely rounded off at the end when the photographer watches a group of mime artists collecting money for charity play a mime tennis match without balls or racquets. They even make the photographer go to fetch the ball and throw it back to them.

For film buffs, the most interesting thing about this film is the influence it had on Brian Da Palma's Blow Out (1981), which develops the detective aspect much further. The best scenes are those in which the photographs are being developed in the dark room. The pictures-within-the-picture are telling a hidden story within the pictures.

Nugget: not quite the blow-me-up-and-away cinema classic I was led to expect. Not a bad film, but not a world-breaker either. Some rather artificially lit night scenes when the photographer goes to look for the corpse and the fact that he never appears to have to change films when stalking the couple outdoors puncture the plausibility of the film.

This review was also posted on Blogcritics.

Amores perros (2000) - ickleReview (cinema)

Debut feature by director Alejandro González Iñárritu, who went on to make 21 Grams (2003). This film about dog owners, set in Mexico City (and hence in Spanish with English subtitles),is indebted in some respects to Quentin Tarantino in its structure of three interrelated stories told out of chronological order, which collide - in more ways than one - in a car crash at the beginning of the film, which recalls the crash scene in Pulp Fiction (1994) when Butch (Bruce Willis) runs over Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames).

Octavio (Gael García aka Gael García Bernal) and his buddy are being chased in a car when the film opens. A body is bleeding on the back seat. Only later do we realize it is a fierce fighting dog called Cofi. In their attempts to escape their pursuers, they crash side-on into a car at a crossroads.

Octavio, we later learn, as the film goes back in time, has an infatuation with his sister-in-law, who has fallen pregnant for the second time and is afraid to tell her husband Ramiro (Cofi's owner), a violent, volatile thug who robs convenience stores and fucks checkout girls at the place he works. Octavio builds up a stash of money using Cofi in highly profitable dog fights and asks the sister-in-law to run away with him.

The second story, whose characters we have caught glimpses of already, is about a magazine editor who leaves his wife for a perfume model. They move into an apartment together, overlooked by one of her huge billboard advertisements. They have anything but a smooth start to their lives together and even lose her beloved dog, Richie, when he falls down a hole in the floorboards, chasing a ball.

The third story features a tramp, also a dog-owner, a former university professor who became a militiaman and now survives by doing contract killings. He, too, has appeared in the earlier stories and ends up nursing the wounded fighting dog, Cofi, back to health after the car crash. He claims to have given up being a hitman, but agrees to one more job, killing a man's partner.

The film is quite long at 153 minutes, but each story is engaging and could be a film in itself. It doesn't reflect very well on dog owners. (There is a disclaimer right at the beginning of the film that no animals were harmed during the making of the film. Usually this appears in the end credits.) The dogs become characters, a big influence on the lives of their owners in each stratum of society.

Iñárritu is a compelling storyteller, ingeniously linking the three stories. After the first crash, one can sense it coming from the other characters' points of view. One of the best aspects of this film, uncommon in Hollywood narratives, is the lack of plot resolution; but nevertheless it retains a sense of closure.

Nugget: a fresh way of storytelling. The title translates roughly as "Love's a Bitch", punning on "perros" meaning "dog". The main characters are all, of course, driven by the love of their dogs.

This review was also posted on Blogcritics.

Turning the vicar's bike around

The euphemism "I'm just off to turn the vicar's bike around" means "I need to go to the toilet". I am fond of this expression and can be heard using it in special company.

Books I have read

Here is a list of books I have read recently. Each time I finish a book, I'll add it to the list.

* denotes a book read (either whole or in part) while turning the vicar's bike around.

December 2024

370) Nora Ephron, Heartburn (audiobook)

369) Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (audiobook)

November 2024

368) Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (audiobook)

367) Sally Rooney, Intermezzo

October 2024

366) Mikey Walsh, Gypsy Boy (audiobook)

365) Malcolm Gladwell, Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering (audiobook)

364) Sam Freedman, Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It (audiobook)

September 2024

363) Douglas Adams, Douglas Adams at the BBC: A Celebration of the Author's Life and Work (audiobook)

362) Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think (audiobook)

August 2024

361) Mark Rothko, Mark Rothko, 1903-1970 (Tate Gallery)

360) Sloane Crosley, Grief Is for People (audiobook)

359) Edith Eger, The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life (audiobook)

358) Roman Krznaric, History for Tomorrow: Inspiration from the Past for the Future of Humanity (audiobook)

July 2024

357) Simon Sharpe, Five Times Faster: Rethinking the Science, Economics, and Diplomacy of Climate Change (audiobook)

356) Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

June 2024

355) Melissa Maerz, Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused" (audiobook)

354) Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses (audiobook)

May 2024

353) Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass, Book 3 in His Dark Materials: The Complete Collection

352) Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat (audiobook)

351) Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife, Book 2 in His Dark Materials: The Complete Collection

350) Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life (audiobook)

349) Tim Harford, How to Make the World Add Up: Ten Rules for Thinking Differently About Numbers (audiobook)

April 2024

348) Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist (audiobook)

347) David Grann, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (audiobook)

346) Tim Parks, Hotel Milano

345) Tim Parks, Italian Life: A Modern Fable of Loyalty and Betrayal

March 2024

344) David Baddiel, Jews Don't Count (audiobook)

343) Cal Flyn, Thicker Than Water: History, Secrets and Guilt: A Memoir

342) Philippa Perry, The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) (audiobook)

341) Sara Wheeler, Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica (audiobook)

340) Claire McGowan, The Fall

February 2024

339) Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World (audiobook)

338) R. D. Laing, Conversations with Children

337) John Kampfner, In Search of Berlin: The Story of a Reinvented City (audiobook)

January 2024

336) Andrew Leland, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight

335) Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (audiobook)

334) Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (audiobook)

333) Chuck Klosterman, I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling With Villains (Real and Imagined) (audiobook)

December 2023

332) Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto

331) Michael Lewis, Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

330) Chuck Klosterman, Eating the Dinosaur (audiobook)

November 2023

329) Graham Robb, The Debatable Land: The Lost World Between Scotland and England (audiobook)

328) Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (audiobook)

327) John McMurtry, The Cancer Stage of Capitalism: From Crisis to Cure

326) Katja Hoyer, Beyond the Wall: East Germany, 1949-1990 (audiobook)

October 2023

325) John Kampfner, Why the Germans Do It Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country (audiobook)

324) Julia Samuel, Grief Works: Stories of Life, Death and Surviving (audiobook)

323) Cariad Lloyd, You Are Not Alone (audiobook)

322) Peter Frankopan, The Earth Transformed: An Untold History (audiobook)

September 2023

321) David Eagleman, Sum: Tales from the Afterlives (3rd reading)

August 2023

320) Flann O'Brien, The Third Policeman (audiobook)

319) Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch (audiobook)

318) Richard Ford, Be Mine

317) Peter Bently and Mei Matsuoka, The Great Dog Bottom Swap

316) Tim Parks, Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing (audiobook)

July 2023

315) Ned Boulting, 1923: The Mystery of Lot 212 and a Tour de France Obsession

314) Brendan O'Shannassy, Superyacht Captain: Life and Leadership in the World's Most Incredible Industry (audiobook)

313) Chris Goodall, What We Need to Do Now: For a Zero Carbon Future (audiobook)

312) Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin

311) Noam Chomsky, The Essential Chomsky, ed. Anthony Arnove (audiobook)

310) Philip Pullman, Northern Lights, Book 1 in His Dark Materials: The Complete Collection

309) Chanel Miller, Know My Name (audiobook)

June 2023

308) John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces (audiobook)

307) John Barton, The Word: On the Translation of the Bible (audiobook)

306) Private Eye Annual 2018, ed. Ian Hislop *

305) Jack Kerouac, On the Road (audiobook)

304) Bernard Hare, Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew

303) Nevil Shute, A Town Like Alice (audiobook)

May 2023

302) Judith Guest, Ordinary People

301) Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (audiobook)

300) Tim Parks, Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence

299) William Golding, Lord of the Flies (audiobook)

298) P. G. Wodehouse, Mike and Psmith (audiobook)

297) Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: On Living Better with Less Technology (audiobook)

296) Steve Krug, Don't Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 3rd rev. edn

295) Breece D'J Pancake, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake

294) Tim Parks, The Hero's Way: Walking with Garibaldi from Rome to Ravenna (audiobook)

April 2023

293) Emma Richler, Feed My Dear Dogs

292) John Barton, A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths (audiobook)

March 2023

291) Rory MacLean, Pravda Ha Ha: True Travels to the End of Europe (audiobook)

290) Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (audiobook)

289) Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (audiobook)

288) Kes Gray and Jim Field, Oi Cat!

287) Kes Gray and Jim Field, Quick Quack Quentin

286) Kes Gray and Jim Field, Oi Duck-billed Platypus!

285) Kes Gray and Jim Field, Oi Frog!

February 2023

284) Lucy Mangan, Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading

283) Rob Wilkins, Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography (audiobook)

282) Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance

281) Isabella Tree, Wilding (audiobook)

January 2023

280) Stanley Tucci, Taste (audiobook)

279) Ben Goldacre, Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients (audiobook)

December 2022

278) Alis Rowe, The Girl with the Curly Hair: Asperger's and Me

277) Cal Flyn, Islands of Abandonment: Life in the Post-Human Landscape

276) Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons (audiobook)

November 2022

275) James Rebanks, The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District (audiobook)

274) James Nestor, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art (audiobook)

273) Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species (abridged audiobook)

272) Jonathan Raban, Coasting

271) Roman Krznaric, The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long-Term in a Short-Term World (audiobook)

270) Ken Thomas, The Official Channel Four American Football Annual 1992-93

October 2022

269) Jarvis Cocker, Good Pop, Bad Pop (audiobook)

268) P. G. Wodehouse, Joy in the Morning, in P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1: The Jeeves Collection (audiobook)

September 2022

267) Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity! (audiobook)

266) Matthew J. Bruccoli, Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald

265) Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (audiobook)

August 2022

264) F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

263) Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea

262) P. G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters, in P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1: The Jeeves Collection (audiobook)

261) Blanche Ebbutt, Don'ts for Wives

260) Salman Rushdie, The Moor’s Last Sigh (audiobook)

259) Gary Imlach, My Father and Other Working-Class Football Heroes

July 2022

258) Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

257) Michael Mosley, The Fast 800: How to Combine Rapid Weight Loss and Intermittent Fasting for Long-Term Health (audiobook)

256) Stephen Fry, Troy: The Siege of Troy Retold (audiobook)

255) David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky (audiobook)

254) Tim Parks, Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo

253) Michael Moore, Dude, Where’s My Country? (audiobook)

June 2022

252) Michael Moore, Stupid White Men: ...and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!

251) P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves, in P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1: The Jeeves Collection (audiobook)

250) W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge (audiobook)

249) Joseph Heller, Catch-22

248) Michael Mosley, The Clever Guts Diet: How to Revolutionise Your Body from the Inside Out (audiobook)

247) Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (audiobook)

246) Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto (audiobook)

245) Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer, The Fast Diet: The Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer (audiobook)

244) Emma Smith, Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers (audiobook)

May 2022

243) David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (audiobook)

242) Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. George Bull (audiobook)

241) Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Lionel Giles (audiobook)

240) P. G. Wodehouse, Carry On Jeeves, in P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1: The Jeeves Collection (audiobook)

239) Tom Fletcher, Ten Survival Skills for a World in Flux (audiobook)

238) Richard E. Grant, With Nails

237) David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day (audiobook)

236) Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (audiobook)

235) Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (audiobook)

234) Tim Parks, Adultery and Other Diversions

April 2022

233) A. M. Homes, This Book Will Save Your Life

232) Tim Parks, An Italian Education

231) W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence (audiobook)

230) David Eagleman, The Brain: The Story of You (audiobook)

March 2022

229) Faith G. Harper, Unfuck Your Brain: Using Science to Get Over Anxiety, Depression, Anger, Freak-Outs, and Triggers (audiobook)

228) Hope M. Harrison, The Berlin Wall: A World Divided (audiobook)

227) Andy Miller, The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life (audiobook)

226) Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Jonathan Miller, The Complete Beyond the Fringe

225) Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (audiobook)

224) John S. Mason, The Making of Ynyslas: Tales from an Area the Size of Wales - 25,000 Years Ago to the Present Day

223) Patrick McGuinness, Real Oxford

February 2022

222) Chuck Klosterman, The Nineties: A Book (audiobook)

221) Chris B. Brown, The Art of Smart Football

220) P. G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves, in P.G. Wodehouse Volume 1: The Jeeves Collection (audiobook)

219) Leonard Gardner, Fat City

January 2022

218) Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (audiobook)

217) Tim Krabbé, The Rider, trans. Sam Garrett

December 2021

216) H. M. van den Brink, On the Water, trans. Paul Vincent

215) Martin McDonagh, A Very Very Very Dark Matter

214) David Hare, The Absence of War

213) Rory MacLean, Berlin: Imagine a City

212) Joe Miller, Ugur Sahin, and Özlem Türeci, Vaccine: How the Breakthrough of a Generation Fought Covid-19 (audiobook)

November 2021

211) Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island (audiobook)

210) Bill Simmons, Now I Can Die in Peace: How The Sports Guy Found Salvation Thanks to the World Champion (Twice!) Red Sox

209) Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War (audiobook)

208) George Orwell, Keep the Aspidistra Flying (audiobook)

October 2021

207) Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race (audiobook)

206) Stephen Fry, Heroes: Mortals and Monsters, Quests and Adventures (audiobook)

205) Frances Stonor Saunders, The Suitcase: Six Attempts to Cross a Border

September 2021

204) Bob Mortimer, And Away… (audiobook)

203) Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis (audiobook)

202) Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

201) Jon Ronson, Lost at Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries (audiobook)

August 2021

200) Tim Parks, Italian Neighbours: An Englishman in Verona

199) Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning (audiobook)

198) Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants (audiobook)

197) Robert Clark, Friday Night Lives: Photos from the Town, the Team, and After

196) Michael Lewis, Pacific Rift

195) Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success (audiobook)

194) Deborah Frances-White, The Guilty Feminist (audiobook)

193) Bertrand Russell, What I Believe: 3 Complete Essays on Religion (audiobook)

192) Tim Parks, A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character and Goals

191) David Sedaris, Theft by Finding: Diaries: Volume One (audiobook)

July 2021

190) Elizabeth Day, How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned from Things Going Wrong (audiobook)

189) Luke Edwardes-Evans, Serge Laget, and Andy McGrath, The Official History of the Tour de France

188) Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference (audiobook)

187) Prof Steve Peters, The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme for Confidence, Success and Happiness (audiobook)

186) Alan Bennett, Talking Heads (audiobook)

185) Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

184) Caroline Criado Perez, Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (audiobook)

June 2021

183) Mark Williams and Danny Penman, Mindfulness: The Eight-Week Meditation Programme for a Frantic World (audiobook)

182) Ross Gay, The Book of Delights (audiobook)

181) Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life (audiobook)

180) Mario Puzo, The Godfather

179) Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (audiobook)

May 2021

178) Michael Lewis, Playing to Win (audiobook)

177) Stephen Fry, Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (audiobook)

176) Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

175) Tom Brady, The TB12 Method: How to Achieve a Lifetime of Sustained Peak Performance (audiobook)

174) Richard H. Thaler, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (audiobook)

173) Julian Jackson, The Fall of France: The Nazi Invasion of 1940

April 2021

172) Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking (audiobook)

171) Ben Goldacre, Bad Science (audiobook)

170) Rand Fishkin, Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World (audiobook)

169) Trevor Warner, Cat Body Language: 100 Ways to Read Their Signals

168) Richard A. McKay, Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic (audiobook)

March 2021

167) Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner, Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

166) Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World (audiobook)

165) Don Norman, The Design of Everyday Things, 2nd rev. edn (audiobook)

164) David Epstein, Range: How Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (audiobook)

163) Malcolm Gladwell, Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know (audiobook)

February 2021

162) Ten Poems about Home, selected and introduced by Mahendra Solanki

161) Richard P. Feynman, "Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character as told to Ralph Leighton, ed. Edward Hutchings

160) Bert Wagendorp, Ventoux, trans. Paul Vincent

January 2021

159) Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work (2nd reading)

158) Nathan Pyle, Strange Planet

157) Art Spiegelman, The Complete Mous

156) Marci Alboher, One Person / Multiple Careers: The Original Guide to the Slash Career

155) Craig Brown, One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time

December 2020

154) Shirley Hughes, Dogger's Christmas

153) W. Timothy Gallwey, Edd Hanzelik, and John Horton, The Inner Game of Stress: Outsmart Life's Challenges and Fulfill Your Potential

152) W. Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis: The Ultimate Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance

November 2020

151) David Hare, Beat the Devil: A Covid Monologue

July 2020

150) Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends

May 2020
149) Sally Rooney, Normal People

March 2020
148) P. G. Wodehouse, A Pelican at Blandings

February 2020
147) Kenneth Wheare’s autobiography
146) Richard Ford, A Piece of My Heart

December 2019
145) Karl Blanks and Ben Jesson, Making Websites Win: Apply the Customer-Centric Methodology That Has Doubled the Sales of Many Leading Websites (audiobook)

May 2019
144) Chris Voss and Tahl Raz, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as If Your Life Depended on It
143) Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness
142) Michael Lewis, The Fifth Risk
141) Steve Jalim, career.fork(): How to Thrive as a Freelance Developer
140) Pat Kirwan, Take Your Eye Off the Ball 2.0: How to Watch Football by Knowing Where to Look

January 2019
139) Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

October 2018
138) John Sutton, Walton Well: the Ford, the Fountain, the Foundry and the Prophet Elijah
137) Alan Bennett, Allelujah!

August 2018
136) Karl Blanks and Ben Jesson, Making Websites Win: Apply the Customer-Centric Methodology That Has Doubled the Sales of Many Leading Websites

May 2018
135) Richard Ford, The Ultimate Good Luck
134) Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

March 2018
133) Richard Ford, Between Them
132) Sarah Knight, The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k

January 2018
131) Tarell Alvin McCraney, The Brothers Size
130) Martin McDonagh, The Pillowman

December 2017
129) Michael Lewis, The New New Thing: A Silicon Valley Story

November 2017
128) Sarah Knight, How to Not Give a F*ck at Christmas: A No F*cks Given Guide to Surviving the Holidays

September 2017
127) Michael Lewis, The Money Culture

August 2017
126) Michael Lewis, The Undoing Project: A Friendship that Changed the World

July 2017
125) Martin Amis, The Rachel Papers

May 2017
124) Nicholas Dawidoff, Collision Low Crossers: Inside the Turbulent World of NFL Football
123) Andrew Fusek Peters, Dip: Wild Swims from the Borderlands

April 2017
122) Chris B. Brown, The Essential Smart Football

January 2017
121) Alan Alda, Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself

November 2016
120) Jon Ronson, The Elephant in the Room

July 2016
119) Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

May 2016
118) Dave Eggers, The Circle

March 2016
117) Michael Lewis, Losers: The Road to Everyplace but the White House (aka Trail Fever)

January 2016
116) Michael Lewis, Flash Boys: Cracking the Money Code

December 2015
115) Roy Peter Clark, How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times
114) David Lodge, Changing Places

September 2015
113) Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, Now, Discover Your Strengths: How to Develop Your Talents and Those of the People You Manage

June 2015
112) Roger Deakin, Waterlog: A Swimmer's Journey through Britain

February 2015
111) E. M. Bard, Test Your Cat: The Cat IQ Test

December 2014
110) Richard Ford, Let Me Be Frank With You: A Frank Bascombe Book
109) Tom Gauld, You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack

November 2014
108) Aleks Krotoski, Untangling the Web

September 2014
107) Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

May 2014
106) David Eagleman, Sum: Tales from the Afterlives (2nd reading)

December 2013
105) Michael Lewis, Coach: Lessons on the Game of Life
104) Michael Lewis, Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood

August 2013
103) David Eagleman, Sum: Tales from the Afterlives
102) Michael Holley, War Room: The Legacy of Bill Belichick and the Art of Building the Perfect Team

February 2013
101) Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise: The Art and Science of Prediction
100) Margaret Forster, Diary of an Ordinary Woman

January 2013
99) Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics

July 2012
98) Roman Krznaric, The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live

June 2012
97) Hugh Warwick, The Beauty in the Beast: Britain's Favourite Creatures and the People Who Love Them
96) Hugh Warwick, A Prickly Affair: My Life with Hedgehogs
95) Rob Brydon, Small Man in a Book

May 2012
94) Roman Krznaric, How to Find Fulfilling Work
93) David Allen, Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-Free Productivity
92) H. G. Bissinger, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream

December 2011
91) Michael Lewis, Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour

August 2011
90) Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse (audiobook)
89) Simon Gray, The Early Diaries: "An Unnatural Pursuit" and "How's That for Telling 'em, Fat Lady?"
88) Michael Lewis, Next: The Future Just Happened (audiobook)

December 2010
87) Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

March 2010
86) Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
85) Reviel Netz and William Noel, The Archimedes Codex: Revealing the Blueprint for Modern Science

February 2010
84) Alan Bennett, The Habit of Art
83) Lynne Truss, Get Her Off the Pitch!: How Sport Took Over My Life
82) George Plimpton, Paper Lion: Confessions of a Last-String Quarterback

January 2010
81) Simon Gray, Key Plays: "Butley", "Otherwise Engaged", "Close of Play", "Quartermaine's Terms", "The Late Middle Classes"

December 2009
80) Deirdre Wilson, Slave of the Passions
79) Michael Lewis, Liar's Poker
78) Michael Lewis, The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
77) H. D., Palimpsest

November 2009
76) Richard Ford, Women with Men

October 2009
75) Stephen Potter, The Theory and Practice of Gamesmanship; or, The Art of Winning Games Without Actually Cheating

September 2009
74) Richard Wiseman, 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot
73) Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

July 2009
72) Joe Simpson, Touching the Void

June 2009
71) Susan Orlean, The Orchid Thief

April 2009
70) William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
69) Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot
68) A. Walton Litz, The Art of James Joyce: Method and Design in "Ulysses" and "Finnegans Wake"
67) Little Gidding: An Illustrated History and Guide
66) Mark McCallum, Home Truths: The Peel Years and Beyond: Real Stories from British Life as heard on BBC Radio 4

March 2009
65) Azar Nafisi, Reading "Lolita" in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
64) Philip Welsh, The Single Person
63) Tom Paulin, The Secret Life of Poems: A Poetry Primer *

January 2009
62) Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

December 2008
61) Simon Gray, Enter a Fox: Further Adventures of a Paranoid
60) Gillian Butler and Tony Hope, Manage Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide

November 2008
59) George Bornstein and Ralph G. Williams, eds, Palimpsest: Editorial Theory in the Humanities
58) Simon Gray, Coda

September 2008
57) Eviatar Zerubavel, The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, and Books
56) Sarah Dillon, The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory (2nd reading)

55) Ed Morrison and Derek Robinson, Better Rugby Refereeing: Guidance, Tips, Warnings, Insights and Advice on Refereeing at Every Level
54) Simon Gray, Fat Chance
53) Simon Gray, The Last Cigarette

August 2008
52) Sarah Dillon, The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory

May 2008
51) Peter Elbow, Writing Without Teachers

April 2008
50) Geert Lernout, The French Joyce

March 2008
49) Michael Groden, "Ulysses" in Progress
48) Fritz Senn, Joycean Murmoirs: Fritz Senn on James Joyce, ed. Christine O'Neill
47) Frank Budgen, James Joyce and the Making of "Ulysses": And Other Writings

February 2008
46) Richard Bath, The Scotland Rugby Miscellany *

January 2008
45) Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader
44) Karl Beckson, The Religion of Art: A Modernist Theme in British Literature, 1885-1925

December 2007
43) Michael Lewis, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
42) Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, trans. Geoffrey Wall

October 2007
41) Richard Ford, The Lay of the Land
40) Arthur Power, Conversations with James Joyce, ed. Clive Hart

September 2007
39) Laura O'Connor, Haunted English: The Celtic Fringe, the British Empire, and De-Anglicization
38) Know Your Traffic Signs *

August 2007
37) The Mays, 15, ed. Sean O'Brien, Colm Tóibín, and others
36) The Highway Code, rev. 2004 *
35) Fitz Hugh Ludlow, The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean, ed. Stephen Rachman

July 2007
34) P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves and Wooster Omnibus: The Mating Season; The Code of the Woosters; Right Ho, Jeeves
33) Philip Larkin, Collected Poems, ed. Anthony Thwaite *

June 2007
32) Imre Madách, The Tragedy of Man, trans. George Szirtes *

May 2007
31) James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ed. Jeri Johnson
30) Clive Hart, ed., James Joyce's "Dubliners": Critical Essays
29) Thomas F. Staley and Bernard Benstock, eds, Approaches to Joyce's "Portrait": Ten Essays
28) Ian Halperin, Fire and Rain: The James Taylor Story *
27) James Joyce, Stephen Hero, ed. Theodore Spencer, John J. Slocum, and Herbert Cahoon

April 2007
26) David Norris and Carl Flint, Introducing Joyce, ed. Richard Appignanesi *
25) Steve Fuller, The Intellectual: The Positive Power of Negative Thinking... *
24) Stanislaus Joyce, My Brother's Keeper: James Joyce's Early Years, ed. Richard Ellmann
23) Conor McPherson, The Seafarer
22) The Dublin Diary of Stanislaus Joyce, ed. George Harris Healey

March 2007
21) Pound/Joyce: The Letters of Ezra Pound to James Joyce with Pound's Essays on Joyce, ed. Forrest Read

February 2007
20) Samuel Beckett, Happy Days
19) Conor McPherson, The Weir
18) Gérard Genette, Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree, trans. Channa Newman and Claude Doubinsky

January 2007
17) Richard Ellmann, James Joyce, 2nd rev. edn (1982)

December 2006
16) A. S. Byatt, The Biographer's Tale

November 2006
15) Homer Obed Brown, James Joyce's Early Fiction: The Biography of a Form
14) Richard Ford, A Multitude of Sins
13) James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ed. Jeri Johnson
12) Instructions for British Servicemen in France, 1944 *
11) Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain, 1942 *
10) Roman Krznaric, The First Beautiful Game: Stories of Obsession in Real Tennis *
9) James Joyce, Stephen Hero, ed. Theodore Spencer, John J. Slocum, and Herbert Cahoon

October 2006
8) Patrick Dunleavy, Authoring a PhD: How to Plan, Draft, Write and Finish a Doctoral Thesis or Dissertation
7) Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast *

September 2006
6) Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
5) James Joyce, Exiles

August 2006
4) Tom Stoppard, Rock 'n' Roll *
3) Tobias Wolff, Old School

July 2006
2) Sylvia Beach, Shakespeare & Company *

June 2006
1) The Mays, 14, ed. Don Paterson, Jeanette Winterson, and others

See also books to read.

Movies beginning with V

Looking through my list of ickleReviews, I realize I've reviewed a film for every letter of the alphabet except V. Any suggestions for how I should plug this gap? V for Vendetta springs to mind, but I've never been particularly keen to see that. I'm sure I've seen a few V's in my time, just not in the past couple of years.

Shin

Don't step on my blue suede shoes!

Clouds above Oxford

This one looks like a painting. I love the way the sun highlights the top right corner.

An Inconvenient Truth (2006) - ickleReview (cinema)

Documentary featuring Al Gore's slideshow presentation about global warming and climate change. For a film so full of scientific evidence, Gore does a much better job of presenting it than The Corporation (2003), without the sense that he's bashing you over the head with it.

Gore comes across as so much more statesman-like than he did in the 2000 presidential election campaign. He is a highly skilled, engaging spokesman. The visual aids he uses come across superbly on film. There is no doubt at the end of the film that global warming is a real and impending danger; and yet Gore's message is uplifting, not depressing.

The film is all about Al Gore. It's called "his" film about global warming in most media summaries, although he doesn't direct it (Davis Guggenheim does). It is a cutting together of a number of slideshow presentations he gave in cities across the world.

There are some moments (shot away from the presentation in hotel rooms, in the back of cars, in airports) where he talks about nearly losing his six-year-old son when he was run over, which feel like a presidential TV commercial, showing that he is a real person, not some political robot. He also has an annoying habit of calling the scientists who supply his data "a friend of mine", "my friend Joe Schmo". He probably has befriended them or knew them at college, but drop the act, bozo!

Nugget: everyone, including George W. Bush, should see this film.

Every Little Thing (aka La Moindre des choses) (1997) - ickleReview (DVD)

A documentary about a French sanatorium where the inmates rehearse and perform an annual summer play.

Nugget: not Philibert's best, but certainly still worth watching.

Please go to FilmExposed to read this review.

See also In the Land of the Deaf (1992) and Être et avoir (2002) by the same director.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

In the Land of the Deaf (aka Le Pays des sourds) (1992) - ickleReview (DVD)

A magical, informative and entertaining documentary of the highest order, In the Land of the Deaf brings a whole new meaning to the concept of foreign language film by exploring sign language and the lives of deaf people in France.

Nugget: on a par with Être et avoir.

Please go to FilmExposed to read this review.

See also Every Little Thing (1997) by the same director, Nicolas Philibert.

[Update: Friday 17 June 2011: looks like FilmExposed is no more, so that link is broken.]

Eeking into the top 10 in the world

My housemate Emma-Kate Lidbury, a journalist at the Oxford Mail, only started competing in triathlons a year ago. Now she has finished 8th at the World Triathlon Championships in Lausanne, Switzerland. Well done, Eek! I wonder if she'll make it to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when she'll only be 28.

Devastating new drugs craze

Drug users in parts of Yorkshire have started to inject ecstasy into their mouths. It's called "E by gum".

Source: my housemate Dafydd.

Dogville (2003) - ickleReview (cinema)

Quite simply one of the best films you will ever see. Lars von Trier reinvents allegory for the modern day. Filmed on a bare soundstage with chalk lines marking out a set that isn't there, the visual paucity of this movie is at first unsettling. We hear the scrunch of feet on a dirt track or the sound of a door opening and closing; but we cannot trust the images alone. After a while, the understated flare of the acting takes over, suspending our sense of disbelief.

Nicole Kidman's performance is enchanting. She plays Grace, a gangster's girl mysteriously on the run, who finds temporary asylum in the Southpark-like secluded town of Dogville. At first, Grace finds it difficult to fit in; the townsfolk won't even let her lend a helping hand; they deny that their life could be made any better. But then, as Grace becomes more accepted, thanks to the support of the frustrated writer Tom Edison (Paul Bettany), the people of Dogville begin to take advantage of what she offers them. The purity of Grace and the innocence of the Dogville townsfolk gradually become besmeared as the nine pre-defined episodes progress. It seems inevitable that the gangster Godfather/God the Father (James Caan) will come to reclaim Grace.

Von Trier was co-founder of the Copenhagen "Dogme 95" group of directors who devised a set of avant-garde rules a decade ago known as "The Vow of Chastity" designed to reclaim the new wave in film. Yet Dogville consciously disobeys some of these rules - stating its intention in the mesmerizing opening crane shot, which slowly tracks in from a high-angle bird's-eye-view, all the way to street level. (Dogme dogma states that "The camera must be hand-held.") Despite the loss of "Chastity", the Dogme ethos is never lost: Dogville looks and - more importantly - feels unlike any other film. It seems to be leading you one way, only to baffle your suppositions, leaving you feeling wounded by the end, and lingering with you for hours, even days, afterwards.

Nugget: charming and unnerving; highly-suggestive, without ever being heavy-handed, John Hunt's quirky narrator tells it like a bedtime story, relating choice details which grate against his idyllic tone of voice. A pile-driver is pounding in the foundations for a nearby penitentiary, but it seems that Dogville is too innocent to be harbouring criminals. Outward appearances often hide a grotesque inner vision; but Dogville is beautiful by the very virtue of its darkened grandeur.

AKA (2002) - ickleReview (cinema)

Three is the magic number in director Duncan Roy's ambitious digital video portrayal of identity fraudster Dean Page (Matthew Leitch). Miserable in his middle-class life in Romford, Essex, with no chance of going to college and an abusive father, 18-year-old Dean is mesmerised by the glamour of the high-class clientele in his mother's posh restaurant.

Through a succession of lucky breaks, Dean slithers his way into the upper echelons of Londons fashionable Eaton Square, where he is adored by the camp aristocracy. Soon he too is wearing expensive clothes and eating in exclusive restaurants, all paid for on a bogus credit card. Dean's naïvety leads him into a homosexual Bermuda love triangle with fellow con man Benjamin (Peter Youngblood Hills), on the run from obscurity and family troubles in small-town Texas, and David Glendenning, a detestable free-loader who lives by the axiom that he makes even the royal family look "positively middle-class".

But Dean's masquerade soon melts under the heat of passion and the pursuit of two credit fraud investigators who hunt him down following his lavish spending trail in London, Paris and the south of France. On the brink of being accepted into the high society that he craves, Dean ultimately faces a choice between love and society status.

Roy tackles this re-working of his own true-life experiences with a refreshing vigour of originality. The entire film is presented in three simultaneous square frames, which show the action from concentric camera angles - sometimes in sync, sometimes ahead of each other, like a Bruce Nauman video installation at Tate Modern. The first twenty minutes of viewing is consequently very demanding, but one soon adapts to the format and appreciates the nuances it allows. The action appears to be filmed from three cameras recording at the same time, but the triangulation reveals that each frame represents a different take - as if three versions of the same story are happening at once.

Nugget: the end product is a visual banquet; but Roy's writing is at times unbelievable and potholed. Despite flashes of genuine humour and pathos, it is nowhere near as accomplished as Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley, but perhaps this is a deliberate move to mimic the crass falsity of polite society. Nevertheless, the sheer bravado with which the film ravishes class posturing in late-1970s Britain makes it more than worth a three-way look.