Film

The best religious films aren’t always the obvious ones, featuring either clerics or bible stories (though there are some good movies of both kinds – and an awful lot of terrible ones). Rather, some of the best capture Christianity sideways, expressing the numinous or the fundamentals of faith through a human story or through a portrait of a way of life. This being Holy Week, when we’re right in the middle of The Greatest Story Ever Told (one to watch), it’s a good time to explore how film reflects religion, straight or infused. The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson, 2004 It’s hard to imagine how even Mel Gibson got

Joe Mankiewicz’s classic Olivier/Caine two-handed mystery thriller Sleuth will mark its 50th anniversary later this year, fortuitously in time for the release of Knives Out 2, which promises to be a similarly intriguing whodunnit – at least on the basis of 2019’s initial movie. Based on Anthony Shaffer’s Tony award-winning play, Sleuth depicts a battle of wits between snobbish mystery writer Andrew Wyke (Laurence Olivier) and hairdressing salon owner Milo Tindle/Tindolini (Michael Caine). Despite Wyke’s self-description as an ‘Olympic sexual athlete,’ his wife Marguerite has left him for the younger charms of Tindle, dubbed variously as ‘a jumped-up pantry boy’ and a ‘snivelling, dago clown’ by the cuckolded author, who is keen to

The sad news that Bruce Willis is ‘stepping away’ from acting due to an aphasia diagnosis came as a surprise to fans, but the film industry has been rife with rumours about his possible medical problems over recent years. The slew of cheap straight-to-DVD action thrillers (with relatively little screen time) he starred in since 2014 made observers wonder whether Willis was making as much money as he could to ensure both care in his retirement and a decent inheritance for his family. The fact that the famously motor mouthed actor of Moonlighting and his long run of hit movies opted for increasingly taciturn roles led insiders to wonder whether something

This August will see the 50th anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic crime drama The Godfather. The picture and its 1974 sequel raised the cinematic depiction of The Mob from being crowd-pleasing shoot ‘em ups to a subject worthy of serious filmmakers and subsequent movies in the genre made explicit comparisons between organised crime and wider society, specifically government. Indeed, thanks to The Godfather, the mobster movie has become a permanent Hollywood fixture – a genre that top directors seek to reference, if not wholeheartedly embrace, at some point in their careers. 2022 is no exception: this month sees the release of Graham Moore’s The Outfit. Mark Rylance plays an English tailor who finds himself making suits for a

I don’t know about you but I’m a rather a fan of Batman or The Batman, if you prefer to give him the definite article as the new film does. It’s also rather heartening to see so many fine British actors earning a pretty penny portraying him – Robert Pattinson dons the cowl in the new film, hot on the heels of Christian Bale. And it’s not just Gotham’s bone crushing vigilante that our acting schools are clearly adept at preparing actors for: Brits Tom Holland Andrew Garfield have both slung webs as Spider-man and of course Henry Cavill has done the blue leotard proud playing Superman four times. As

Jane Campion’s BAFTA-winning western The Power of the Dog is distinguished by both great acting and a surprising ending, which I won’t reveal. The strength of the picture’s denouement is that it doesn’t come across as an M. Night Shyamalan-style contrivance, rather as a logical development of the characters. Of course, twist endings are nothing new; witness the likes of Psycho (1960), The Planet of the Apes (1968), Soylent Green (1972 – Heston again), The Wicker Man (1973), The Parallax View (1974) and more recently Se7en (1995). The Power of the Dog is a relative rarity in being a cowboy movie with an unexpected conclusion; the device is usually employed

The tragic ongoing events in Ukraine have highlighted the plight of refugees, with over 2m people (mainly women and children) fleeing the country since Russia invaded on 24 February 2022. Sadly, refugee crises have been occurring since the dawn of what may ironically be called ‘civilisation’, most notably the Biblical Exodus from Egypt and Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, which began when the Swiss Helvetii confederation, under pressure of Germanic tribes, sought to cross into Roman territory on their westward journey to safety. Movies concerning refugees range from the past (Exodus: Gods & Kings) to the dystopian future (Children of Men) and are international in scope, including the UK (Limbo), Bosnia and Herzegovina

With an added ‘The’ for extra gravitas, Matt Reeves’ fresh take on The Batman is picking up generally favourable notices both for the movie and Robert Pattinson’s interpretation of the character, which apparently makes Christian Bale’s dour Bruce Wayne a happy-go-lucky scamp in comparison. The Spectator’s Deborah Ross wasn’t convinced by yet another dark twist on the superhero but elsewhere the film has received solid reviews. The Caped Crusader has seen many iterations on film, the most recent being Ben Affleck’s constipated billionaire, which never really caught on with audiences. Christopher Nolan’s three motion pictures (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises) raised the bar for both Batman films and

The trope of a loner, either new in town or returning from years away, who is forced to confront the corruption and violence of the bad guys now in charge, is a familiar storyline in both film and TV. Westerns such as Shane (1953) and the classic TV series Kung Fu (1972-75) revolved around this scenario, but it also plays out in a variety of other settings ranging from Ancient Rome (Gladiator, 2000) to outer space (Soldier, 1998). And all points between. Amazon’s Jack Reacher adaptation is only the latest in this long line of wrong-righting protagonists and has been picking up positive reviews for beefy star Alan Ritchson’s depiction of the

Every now and then you watch something that makes you realise how much the likes of Netflix have skewed our viewing habits. While the kings of streaming may have injected more money into Hollywood than ever before, they’ve also stacked the deck yet further in favour of the celebrity blockbuster, the big and the bombastic. Quieter, subtler films all too often disappear into the ether. You can understand Netflix’s position. What better way to attract the fleeting attention of the scrolling viewer than with a glimpse of the likes of Leonardo Di Caprio or Benedict Cumberbatch? Throw in a big, juicy concept – like an imminent asteroid collision – and