cinema – Page 4 – All Across the Arts

A WESTERN SPAGHETTI of film nominations

As we head backwards one or more steps for every step taken forward, we’ve got some of the same issues we’ve always got with the Oscars. For every excellent nomination, every interesting piece of recognition, there’s the predictable nonsense that conned its way in.

cinema, Music

SONGS AND FILMS FROM BOTH SIDE NOW

Till’s is a story we can grasp, not of unnamed millions but of a single knowable martyr to racial hatred. The sadism of his killers, the horrific beating they inflicted on the boy still shock us today. The Till case also reminds us of our long history of racism in criminal justice, from policing all the way through trial and incarceration. His fate reminds us too that white supremacy was never just a set of ideas and opinions, but a charter for violence inflicted on living bodies.

cinema

SPIELBERG STICKS UP CINEMATIC POSTERS

the film-maker´s work is ´both accessible enough to capture the boundless imagination expected of most blockbuster directors, and artful enough to allow subtext and thematic issues to resonate beneath surface-level narrative.

cinema

RETURN TO SEOUL

Even when Freddie is at her most alienated and resistant towards her birth culture, she seems able to lose herself in the music of the country. In one memorable scene set in a casual Seoul club, she escapes the pressures of social interaction, of being defined and defining herself, to dance by herself; the scene lingers, as Freddie closes her eyes and is able to be herself.

cinema

Day four of Sidetracks And Detours´ inaugural Here´s To The Ladies in-print Festival featuring MINNIE DRIVER: ´a no-nonsense conversationalist!

I don’t think there’s actually been a better time for funny female writers, actors, directors…´

cinema, culture and tradition

TO SIR WITH LOVE, commendation and commemoration

Poitier´s 2000 memoir The Measure Of A Man, clearly shows that the actor realised his the strength of the platform his film work was building for him and from there he helped to awaken the world to the inequities of racial and colour prejudices.

cinema, Music

MUSIC IS THE THING CALLED LOVE

Peter Bogdanovitch may have made greater and more successful films than Thing Called Love, but the film and the soundtrack of that title formed a cornerstone on which stood so many of my song-writing heroes, introducing them to the UK for the first time. I have so many memories of people and places of that period of my life, and I can find them all quite easily, in a file tagged Thing Called Love. For that I will always be grateful to film producer and director Peter Bogdanovitch.