Film

By Wyndham Hacket Pain  Maud Lewis remains one of Canada’s best known folk artists. Despite suffering from rheumatoid arthritis that restricted her movement she still managed to produce her much loved paintings. At one point her fame grew to the extent that she was featured in magazines and on television, and even sold a painting to the then Vice-President Richard Nixon. Maudie opens in provincial Nova Scotia during the 1930s, where Maud Dowley (Sally Hawkins) is frustrated at the lack of...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain  Stories about the Second World War are so ingrained in our minds and daily practice that it can seem as if there is nothing to add to the discourse of this period. As a result, it is always a pleasure for a story to separate itself from the pantheon of films, books, and tales that have tried to cover the period before and perhaps even more exciting when someone tries to challenge the preconceptions we have about...

Dunkirk is almost a silent film. Dunkirk is a film that is a master class in the art of ‘show it, don’t say it’. Dunkirk, demands that you feel like you are on the front line with the soldiers. The audience is used as another stranded Tommy on the beach, forming an orderly queue, waiting to be rescued. Dunkirk is an unapologetically British film. There isn’t an ancillary, and unnecessary, tale of love and romance to "cheer up", and degrade...

A group of shady individuals accumulate in an abandoned Boston warehouse to size up and complete an arms deal. However, when some bad blood infiltrates the proceedings, the deal swiftly falls south, and the guns which were going to be used for other nefarious purposes are now being utilised a little earlier than expected. That’s it. Looking for anything else? You’re in the wrong place. Free Fire isn’t a film of complexity. There’s not that much to it. But there’s...

A rare Casablanca poster has sold for a world record $478,000 (£365K). The poster is the only surviving example of an Italian issue advert for the movie and is the most valuable Casablanca poster ever. Measuring 55.5 by 78.25 inches, the 1946 Casablanca Italian 4 Fogli poster beat the world record for the most valuable movie poster ever sold at public auction. It sold on Saturday for a record $478,000 at a public auction of vintage movie posters held by...

There are in truth only a handful of magazines, newspapers and websites that are actually worth one's time on a consistent basis. Naturally I consider The London Economic to be one of them (Flattery will get you everywhere – Ed.) for its over-all consistency of writing, broad range of subjects and a willingness to state a fact-based opinion and stick to it. For much the same reasons I enjoy The New Yorker, The Guardian, and The Times even though I...

By Michael McNulty “Whad-da-ya hear, whad-da-say, ” Warner Brother’s 1939 gangster offering saw James Cagney earn the first Oscar nomination of his career. Directed by Michael Curtiz, Angels with Dirty Faces is a gangster film that’s morally conscious. The film opens as a young Rocky Sullivan and friend, Jerry, hang on the steps of a ramshackle building in a poverty stricken neighbourhood. The two, without a penny to their name and nothing to do, decide to knock off a goods...

After a recent run of lacklustre form, the Judd Apatow brand has finally found its mojo again thanks to this tenderly handled rom-com from stand-up comedian Michael Showalter. While in recent years the output of Apatow’s production company – Trainwreck, This is 40, The Five-Year Engagement – has become synonymous with overlong runtimes and an unhealthy commitment to narrative convention, here’s a film that triumphs in staying true to the producer’s bittersweet spirit, whilst also subverting the genre’s formula with...

By Michael McNulty Let’s be honest, independent film has become a term that’s murkier than an unattended fish tank. But, hey, forget that noise and leave that conversation for another time – perhaps after having watched one these films. To celebrate the release of US Indie Comedy The Big Sick - here are 5 of the best comedies independent cinema has to offer. 1. Slacker Richard Linklater’s 1991 film, Slacker, helped to propel independent film making in the nineties and...