These days, each and every year I get to thinking that the state of the world can’t get any worse, then something comes along to prove me wrong. I needn’t give examples here; suffice to say that, for me at least, the arts have become ever more important as a solace and distraction, above and … Continue reading My best movies, music, books, etc of 2025
December again. For some years, I've posted recommendations for recent BluRay/DVD releases, CDs and books that might be of use for anyone wondering what Christmas gifts to buy. (I find choosing presents very difficult, so am myself always open to ideas from friends.) So here we go once more. I hope some of the suggestions … Continue reading Movies, music and books for Christmas – and beyond…
Until the recent release of a three-disc BluRay set on Criterion’s ‘Eclipse’ series, most of the films by the late, very great Iranian writer-director Abbas Kiarostami made before his 1986 breakthrough feature Where Is the Friend’s House? have been almost impossible to see, surfacing only at occasional retrospectives around the world. With the sole exception … Continue reading Kiarostami at Kanoon: Early Jewels from a Cinematic Giant
To return, or not to return, that is the question… More than half a century ago, as a teenage classicist at Northampton Grammar School, I recall (if memory still serves) being taught not only that the ‘Elgin Marbles’ were extraordinary sculptures that I should go and see at the British Museum should I get the … Continue reading The Marbles: a new doc about an old controversy
I have always failed to understand why the films of the Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have seldom attained the box-office success they’ve deserved in the UK. I had been totally knocked out by the first film of theirs I saw – La Promesse - when it played in the 1996 London Film Festival, … Continue reading Modest but Masterly: the Dardennes’ Brilliant ‘Young Mothers’
I was very saddened indeed to hear today of the passing of Terence Stamp. I met him just a few times, and certainly didn't know him at all well. But like (it seems) all or most others who encountered him, I was utterly charmed by his down-to-earth demeanour, his quiet intelligence, his modesty, his warm … Continue reading Meetings with a Remarkable Man: Terence Stamp remembered
If you have any interest at all in the extraordinary work of the Quay Brothers, you should certainly be sure to visit the exhibition Dormitorium - The Film Décors of The Quay Brothers, currently at Bloomsbury’s Swedenborg House until Friday 4 April. But even if you’ve never heard of the Pennsylvania-born, London-based, Central-and-Eastern-Europe-obsessed twins and … Continue reading Impossible Worlds Made Real: The Quay Brothers in Bloomsbury
While little contemporary American filmmaking is to my taste – most of it’s not made for people of my age – there are a number of dependably rewarding directors whose new movies I always make a point of catching; one such, undoubtedly, is the prolific Steven Soderbergh. Since I first saw sex, lies and videotape back … Continue reading Black Bag and Steven Soderbergh: a talent to treasure
notes and observations by Geoff Andrew 