“It’s very nostalgic – will people like it?” A little film. Not sure whether you might have heard of it yet? Damien Chazelle has followed up his astonishingly proficient “Whiplash” – my top film of 2015 – with a sure-fire theatre-filler in “La La Land”. The old-fashioned musical extravaganza is back, and back with style! … Read more
In the Coen Brothers latest “Hail Caesar!” we have exactly the same Hollywood-based mix of communist writers and Hedda Hopper-style gossip columnists as recently seem in “Trumbo”: but the films could hardly be more different. “Hail Caesar!” is the film within the film: the latest Victor Mature style ‘God and Sandals’ epic for Capitol Pictures, … Read more
Oscar Isaac portrays the titular Llewyn Davis in the latest film from Ethan and Joel Coen: surely creating one of celluloid’s most memorable losers. This is a joyfully melancholic film, if that makes any sense. Set in 1961 in Greenwich village in New York, Llewyn walks through a series of Dylan album covers, beautifully rendered … Read more