Review: Patton [1970] - dir. Franklin J. Schaffner

As General George S. Patton, George C. Scott is an actor playing another consumate actor. The television age birthed a new kind of media-savvy soldier, one who becomes, by appearing as a character on the six o'clock news, emblematic of freedom (Colin Powell or Norman Schwarzkopf are more recent examples). In WWII, few commanders were willing to put on a show like Patton; he was, in this regard, either ahead of his time or a throwback to the flamboyant rabble-rousers of bygone eras.

Patton the movie establishes Patton the serviceman's Hollywood tendencies in a show-stopping prologue. Dwarfed by a stars-and-stripes backdrop, Patton stands on a stage and motivates an audience of troops with a charged and entertaining sermon.

Review: Clubbed [2009] - dir. Neil Thompson

THERE’S a dubious morality surrounding the events of Clubbed, a supposedly true story based on the autobiographical novel Watch My Back by author Geoff Thompson. On the one hand, it seeks to empower the individual by overcoming fear (especially of violence), but on the other it seems to celebrate brutality and even involves one character getting away with murder (albeit with mitigating circumstances, so we’re told).

Review: Intolerable Cruelty [2003] - dir. Joel & Ethan Coen

The writer/director team of brothers Joel and Ethan Coen seems to have been sent from their strange planet to this earth to bring a message of delirious joy through the medium of film. Their singular vision of bungling criminals, hopeless misfits and doomed romantics, all supported by a grotesque menagerie of secondary characters, has proved to be a winning vehicle for some of the most memorably idiosyncratic movies of the last two decades. An absurdist outlook on life and a keen ear for the nuances of vernacular register have reserved for the Coen brothers a special place, located somewhere between arthouse and mainstream, where their eccentric, intelligent films manage also to be popular.

Review: An Englishman in New York [2009] - dir. Richard Laxton

Directed by Richard Laxton and written by Brian Fillis, An Englishman in New York attempts to cover the latter part of the legendary Denis Charles Pratt aka Quentin Crisp's life from his new found fame (following the release of the original TV drama covering his early life, The Naked Civil Servant) and his timely move to New York in 1980 at the age of 72 until his death two decades later. What makes this a truly special filmic event is the return of BAFTA award winner John Hurt playing Crisp once again (33 years on from when he first played him)and allowing the rare chance for an actor to realise the opportunity to play a complete personal history of one character through the years.

Press Release: An Englishman in New York

BAFTA Award winner John Hurt (Alien, Outlander, V for Vendetta) delivers an outstanding, award-winning performance as he transforms himself once again to portray the outrageous and flamboyant Quentin Crisp in
AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK, released on DVD by Momentum Pictures on 28 December.

Picking up where the BAFTA Award winning classic The Naked Civil Servant left off, AN ENGLISHMAN IN NEW YORK tells the compelling and moving story of the latter part of Crisp’s life dealing with the fame and notoriety that the aforementioned film brought. The musician Sting was inspired by Crisp to write a song about his life in America resulting in the hit single An Englishman in New York and thus the title for the film. 

Special features on the DVD include a „behind the scenes‟ look at the making of the film and an interview with „John Hurt discussing playing Quentin‟.