I have loved the work of René Magritte ever since I first encountered it as a teenager at the start of the 1970s; indeed, one of the very first books on art that I bought, in 1974, was Suzi Gablik’s seminal study of the Belgian’s oeuvre, published by Thames and Hudson. (It’s still on my … Continue reading This Is Not a Review: Magritte in London
Good movies about jazz or set in the jazz milieu are far from common, so if you’ve any interest in the musical form – or, needless to say, if you’re a fan of the titular pianist – you should certainly make an effort to catch Everybody Digs Bill Evans. Not that you need to love … Continue reading Bill Evans the Movie: Reasons to Dig…
My tardiness in posting a brief tribute to the late, great film producer Jeremy Thomas – who died last Friday, aged 77 – was due not only to the fact that, at the time of his death, I myself was just out of hospital and having to take it easy after a fairly serious operation; … Continue reading The Film Producer as Mensch: Remembering Jeremy Thomas
If you’re tired of superhero fantasies (and yes, I do include Nolan’s The Odyssey) and often disappointed by what now seems to pass for a substantial art-movie – think Almodóvar’s elegant, intelligent but rather lifelessly academic Bitter Christmas or Anna Cazenave Cambet’s heartfelt but underwritten and cliché-fraught Love Me Tender, neither of which moved me … Continue reading The Poetry of Film: ‘Late Fame’
I may not have written here before about Éric Rohmer, but anyone familiar with my writings for Time Out and Sight & Sound or my programming for the BFI will probably be aware that I’ve long held the late, great French writer-director in especially high esteem. Indeed, for two or three decades, until his death … Continue reading New before the New Wave: Éric Rohmer, novelist
There’s been a great deal of discussion about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, so why shouldn’t I join the fray? While I like to keep an open mind before I see a movie, in this case I suspected I’d be a sympathetic viewer, since Nolan is one of the relatively few directors working in the American … Continue reading But is it Homer? Some thoughts on ‘The Odyssey’
It is incredibly hard to write these words so soon after my remembrances of Tony Rayns and Brian Case, especially since I learned of the death of the film programmer, festival director and producer Simon Field just a few hours on the same day after hearing of Brian’s. But of the three – whose paths … Continue reading Remembering Simon Field (1946-26): programmer, producer and dear, dear friend
I’ve arrived, sadly but inevitably, at that age where one keeps hearing that friends and former colleagues have passed on. Just a week or two ago, it was Tony Rayns; now, another person I encountered during my years at Time Out, and another terrific writer: Brian Case. (In many ways these two men could not … Continue reading Man of music (movies, and much more): in memoriam Brian Case (1937-2026)
It was with great sadness that I learned yesterday of the recent death of Tony Rayns, one of the most important, insightful and influential figures in international film culture during the last half-century. For me, as for many others, he was not only a hugely valued colleague but a friend and, to some degree, something … Continue reading Tony Rayns (1948-2026): A Supreme Cinephile Remembered
Almost exactly a year ago, I posted a piece about the (to me still unfamiliar but) utterly exhilarating experience I’d just had in singing the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth with a local choir, the Queen’s Park Singers – an ode to joy indeed, given that I’d only joined them a few months before, with … Continue reading Singing the Schumanns (and a bit more Brahms)
