Perfectly adapted to the hour-long soap-opera structure, produced by an impressive team of writers and directors, featuring acting of the highest quality as well as a brilliant soundtrack, Deadwood has truly revolutionised not only the western, but also the TV series in general, and all this despite the casting of Lovejoy as the main character.
Review by Paul Huckerby
One of the greatest French filmmakers if not one of the best known, Henri-Georges Clouzot made 11 films between 1942 and 1968. His two most famous works, Le Salaire de la Peur (The Wages of Fear), winner of the Grand Prize at Cannes, and Les Diaboliques (1955) established his reputation as the ‘French Hitchcock’, a comparison based on his mastery of suspense as well as their shared pessimistic world view.
Review by Paul Huckerby
Pressure was financed by the BFI (a very small budget too) but then shelved for two years due to the controversial depiction of police brutality. It tells the story of a British-born teenager, Tony (Herbert Norville), who leaves school with good ‘O’ levels (‘the star of the class’ according to his friend) but meets with thinly veiled racism and rejection when he tries to get a job. He is left to find his own way between his friends’ petty criminality (shop-lifting tinned food) and his brother Colin’s involvement with Black Power politics.
Review by Paul Huckerby
The heavy stylisation is perfectly matched by Vincent Price’s wonderfully hammy performance – spouting lines like, ‘the knowledge of terror is vouchsafed only to the precious few’ as only he can.
Review by Paul Huckerby
This Is England is Shane Meadows’ fifth proper feature film and his first period ‘costume’ drama (albeit skinheads in the 1980s) and perhaps he is treading over the same ground and themes (same people just shorter hair and bigger boots) but, unlike Calverton Colliery, there’s plenty more coal in this mine.
Review by Paul Huckerby
There are so many myths and stories about the film’s troubled production (and after-effects) that it is hard to know what to believe. Did James Fox (Chas) take his performance too far and become involved with real gangsters before becoming a born-again Christian?
Review by Paul Huckerby
After Un Chien Andalou (1928), L’Age d’Or (1930) and Land Without Bread in 1932 Luis Buí±uel didn’t direct another film until 1947. A period dubbing American films into Spanish and producing mainstream films was followed by the disruption of two wars and a move to America, where he worked briefly managing the film programme at MoMA.
Review by Paul Huckerby