Category Archives: Film

Past lives; Brother

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Houyhnhnm

Past lives One of the very best films I’ve seen this year – perhaps the best. A perfectly handled love-triangle, where the perfection lies in nothing changing: the existing relationships remain as they are – no marriages ruined, no friendships … Continue reading →

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Afire; Passages

Posted on September 7, 2023 by Houyhnhnm

Afire A German film about a writer on a writing retreat by the Baltic. He’s not a very pleasant person, so his relationships don’t work out – people don’t like him very much. As his story develops there’s a parallel … Continue reading →

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Asteroid City; L’Immensità

Posted on August 17, 2023 by Houyhnhnm

Asteroid City My first solo film of the Curzon cult membership; the day after Barbie with a group: good feelings.

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Oppenheimer; Barbie: Frankenheimer?

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Houyhnhnm

Bit of a cliché this, but… How they are related Both films construct worlds – Barbieland and Los Alamos. So Oppenheimer is Ruth Handler; for Barbie is as much her story as anyone else’s. Both are about the discovery of … Continue reading →

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les miserables and die hard

Posted on January 19, 2019 by Houyhnhnm

les miserables what is it about les mis? four brilliant tunes, an epic plot rattled through at 200 novel-pages a minute, a series of injustices and pathetic deaths ending in those of the protagonists: the baddy jumping off a bridge, … Continue reading →

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a fish called wanda and brief answers to the big questions by stephen hawking

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Houyhnhnm

a fish called wanda some great moments, but overall disappointing; (‘sir’) michael palin’s stutter is always a little painful, but it was the (to modern eyes) slow editing which got me – and the sexism – both made it seem … Continue reading →

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the song of the sea & bohemian rhapsody

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Houyhnhnm

the song of the sea a chunkily animated irish folk-tale cartoon about a lighthouse-keeper, his selkie (seal-mermaid) lover, and their children; set in modern ireland, the story tells of children discovering their parents’, and their own, identities it’s beautiful to … Continue reading →

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the ape that understood the universe by steve stewart-williams and the dallas buyers guide

Posted on December 29, 2018 by Houyhnhnm

the ape that understood the universe by steve stewart-williams long-windedly and irritatingly covers the ground: first Darwinian natural selection of GENES, taking an explicitly and alternately triumphant and apologetic counter-zeitgeist stance that more of human nature is biological, genetic, than … Continue reading →

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they shall not grow old & troilus and cressida

Posted on December 11, 2018 by Houyhnhnm

they shall not grow old a project where technical brilliance is the direct explanation of emotional power: peter jackson’s restoration of the imperial war museum’s footage is, more than his shaping of the story and the effect of the oral-history … Continue reading →

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denial & shaun of the dead

Posted on October 25, 2018 by Houyhnhnm

denial timothy spall’s brilliant portrayal of hitler-admiring and holocaust-denier david irving, tom wilkinson’s patrician barrister, andrew scott’s arch lawyer, and rachel weisz’s deborah lipstadt: all reasons to remember this film it’s about holocaust-denial, of course, but in terms of genre … Continue reading →

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