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I’ve been at Sundance this weekend, not in Utah but at its first festival in London, where we saw ‘Chasing Ice’, an extraordinary documentary about the National Geographic photographer James Balog, who headed to the Arctic in 1995 on a tricky assignment: to capture images that would help tell the story of the Earth’s changing [...] It was always about Marvel VS DC Comics. DC’s stern fundamentalist superheroes were framed [...] This terracotta figure, crafted by the Nok people, West Africa’s earliest known civilisation, and unearthed in Nigeria, miraculously survived intact for over 2,630 years but was shattered beyond repair after photographers for New York’s Art + Auction magazine allowed it to slip through their fingers while moving it to set up a shot. It’s not an [...] I’ve virtually given up on British films, most of which are either heritage pieces or ‘Did You Call My Pint A Poof?’-style wideboy gangland movies. When we do try to get a mainstream film right we screw it up. Working Title wasted nearly ten years developing ‘Thunderbirds’, only to get it hilariously wrong by condescending [...] Finally, a film to get excited about! As usual the summer cinemas will be awash in the amiable biff-bang-codswallop of superhero movies and and talking animal flicks for the attention-challenged, so when I saw this poster my dark heart leapt. Brad Anderson is one of my favourite directors. Let’s forgive him the misstep of ‘Vanishing On [...] A lot of wonderful character actors came out of US movies in the seventies. William Finley was the star of ‘Phantom of the Paradise’ and ‘Sisters’ (retitled in the UK, ‘Blood Sisters’) and appeared in Tobe Hooper’s ‘The Funhouse’ as a failed magician. His hopelessly credulous but slightly forlorn face made him perfect as an [...] *No Spoilers* Destined to be adored by postmodernist critics, this horror/fantasy film was widely tipped to be the next game changer, just as Wes Craven’s first ‘Scream’ film remoulded tired slashers, I went along with more than an open mind – having sat through so many appalling ‘stoned obnoxious teens in a van’ movies in the [...] The Independent reports that scientists at Cornell University have created a computer program to break down the formula behind some of cinema catchphrases. Computer scientist Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil (possibly bothered by the fact that his name will never become a catchphrase) wanted to check political speeches and news bulletins to pick out the best lines, but [...] For Londoners, there are certain things that you’ve seen all your life. The Mousetrap. The Queen in residence. The traffic on Charing Cross Road. And Time Out. I bought the very first issue while I was doing a course at Goldsmith’s art college, and stayed with it through every issue. Time Out was the Londoners’ bible; [...] |
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