'Bridge of Spies' - Film review

Bridge of Spies is a cold-war period drama/political thriller directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Tom Hanks and Mark Rylance. It tells the story of a New York insurance lawyer encumbered with defending a Soviet spy as a formality, a representation of democracy when the death sentence is a foregone conclusion. However, Tom Hanks, being the paragon of justice that he is, decides, hang-on-a-minute, this man does deserve fair representation, and his pursuance of justice takes him to D.C. and eventually beyond to the Soviet East Berlin to a politically charged prisoner negotiation.

Found a tagline better than 'the stakes have never been higher'

The first impressive feat of Bridge of Spies is world-building. This may be a surprising accolade seeing as it's based on a true story, but the past very often seems like a different world - not just the past of a no-longer extant country like the GDR, but even the past of a place more familiar like the US. One of the film's many tag lines was 'the stakes have never been higher' and Spielberg does an excellent job of presenting this alien, polarised world. Nowadays we live in a (largely) international world, Bridge of Spies comes with the stark reminder that less than half a century ago this was a hugely different case.

'Taxi Tehran' (Discover Tuesdays) - Film review

My local Picturehouse cinema is a nice little building on the quay called Harbour Lights. Along with every other cinema in the Picturehouse franchise they run a weekly event called Discover Tuesdays, which is basically giving screening to arty/foreign/eye-opening films which aren't on the new release ordinary programme, as a chance of experiencing something different. It's basically right up my street in terms of what I'm trying to achieve this year, though a little steep, I highly recommend it.

Including a poster with other peoples' reviews on it, scandalous.

Taxi Tehran is a Life in a Day-style rolling-camera film from Iranian director Jafar Panahi. The premise is that Panahi has somehow procured a taxi (in the Iranian capital Tehran), with almost the entirety of the film's footage coming from an 'anti-theft' camera he installed on the dashboard, recording the conversations and interactions he has with the various friends, family and customers he picks up over the course of a few hours. The action feels so real it's risky saying it merely 'feels' real and wasn't in fact just candid-camera recording, though one of the first passengers plants the suggestion that at least some of the action is scripted and staged by asking (in Persian) 'I'm in a film aren't I?'

'The Hateful Eight' - Film review

The Hateful Eight is Quentin Tarantino's eighth movie, starring Samuel L Jackson, that guy from Lie to Me and Channing Tatum. It tells the story… well that's a little bit complicated actually.

What's cooler than being cool?

What makes a synopsis so difficult is this film is very, very long - almost 3 hours in fact. To sum it up in any sort of concise fashion: it's two bounty hunters (one of whom is a black Unionist cavalier) taking a wanted murder (Daisy Domergue) alive to Red Rock, an outpost in Wyoming some time after the American Civil War, when a blizzard descends and they have to seek shelter. On the way they pick up a Confederate captain (who proudly calls himself a rebel warrior) who claims to have been called on to be sherif of Red Rock. The troop of 4, that's 4/8, find shelter in the form of a haberdashery, where the other 4/8 are also sheltered, including a Confederate general and a travelling hangman, who happens to be due to hang Domergue when the bounty hunters and sherif bring her to Red Rock. However, with the 8 shuttered in against a storm, a spat of murders makes the bounty hunters realise that transporting Domergue may have more complications than expected… As you can see, it's hard to sum up.

'Reservoir Dogs' - Film review

Reservoir Dogs was Quentin Tarantino's directorial debut in 1992, and I'm basically watching it because I'm going to see The Hateful Eight today so needed to get in the right mood for it. It's on Netflix, something I noticed when I was searching for my Netflix film to watch this week and thought it made sense considering my plan of action today - so basically if you're in the UK and have Netflix you can go and stream it too.

Reservoir Dogs tells the story of a group of career criminals caught up in the aftermath of a botched heist, trying to figure out who set them up in a secluded warehouse. Besides the prologue with Tarantino's signature brilliantly natural and ever-engaging dialogue writing, the film plays to something that would be a staple throughout Tarantino's career (or at least the ones I've seen: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and The Hateful Eight), the non-linear storytelling beginning in medias res, in this case with a high speed getaway with a bleeding co-thief in the backseat - heart-racing stuff right from the get go. This film is bloody brilliant, and I hugely enjoyed it. There wasn't a single moment when the energy dropped or when things were uninteresting.

New Year's Resolutions

New Year, new…

No hang on, I'm still me. In the millisecond between 2015 and 2016 nothing really changed - a few cells may have died here and there, some other may have meiotically or mitotically divided, and some nerve impulses strained against the alcohol littering their phospholipid to get the image of the 00 on whatever London building it was to my conscious mind. Apart from that, the only thing that's changed is the date.

There was a soppy-woppy Facebook status at some point on the 31st of December 2015, however, which said something important, an artificial change. Nothing changes on new year's, nothing except that which we change for ourselves, and for what better reason than none at all? For what better reason than a number on a clock dragging humanity one year farther from our Palaeolithic caves and limping somewhat reluctantly into our past's future? Other than destiny, the future is just the change we make for ourselves.