Category: Film

The danger of anything goes

An editorial by Geoff Sifrin. SHOULD IT BE morally permissible for a film to be made, portraying Hitler as a clown, where constant salutes to him of “Heil Hitler” are a joke? Is comedy an appropriate medium for portraying the Nazis, 80 years after the Holocaust, when their […]

Broken promises from the Wizard of Oz

JUDY GARLAND. THE words themselves smack of red glittery stuff and evoke the sparkle and passion of the career of arguably American showbiz’s greatest, who began as a precocious toddler, sung some of the western world’s most beautiful recognisable standards and was wasted by the realities of her […]

Drunken sailors (and what to do with them)

IF YOU ARE tired of all the spiteful whims, silly platitudes and bald one-upmanships that our social-media-inflamed world has become heir to, Fisherman’s Friends directed by Chris Foggin is a tonic with which to start the year. Featuring the inimitable David Hayman and the completely seductive landscape of […]

Two to tango

WHEN A PLOT grabs you by key emotions and then twists and turns and slips and escapes your ability to predict its nuances, you get completely caught in what it has to offer. Bill Condon’s film The Good Liar, featuring stellar performers Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren, is […]

Loss’s remedy

WHAT IF YOUR most treasured relative didn’t even know they were yours? The premises of Steven Woutelood’s magnificent work, My extraordinary summer with Tess, a Dutch-language film with English subtitles and magnificent sprinklings of salsa will take you through the whole gamut of holiday romance tropes, down to […]

In love with the Big Apple

SAY THE NAME “Woody Allen” and if you’re able to remember a time before this filmmaker was branded as a sexual predator who had an affair with – among others – the child that he and his then wife, Mia Farrow adopted, you will think of the proverbial […]