“How lucky, to be comprehensively bereaved at birth. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”
Continue readingMothering Sunday (2021)
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Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022)
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A panacea for Downton fans, Downton Abbey: A New Era is as insubstantial as a cucumber sandwich with the crusts cut off.
Continue readingSisters with Transistors (2020)
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An interesting documentary about the female pioneers of electronic music that succeeds in elevating their names without necessarily providing a context for their work within the wider genre or their impact on contemporary music.
Continue readingMayor (2020)
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This is a beautifully-made documentary that carries us close beside the mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, Musa Hadid, as he goes about his day, dealing with everything from fountains to Israeli aggression.
Continue readingWomen Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema (2019)
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With a run-time of 14 hours, this is a documentary to own so that you can dip in and out when you have the time. I was expecting a chronological exploration of female directors but this is something much more universal. Breaking the art of film-making down into 41 chapters, each technique and approach is illustrated only by clips from films made by women.
Continue readingCoded Bias (2020)
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At first, this look at the inherent bias of algorithms in our daily lives made me uneasy and tempted to ditch all my technology. I stuck with it, though it nearly had me nodding off with its ambling pace, and was rewarded with some third act gems,
Continue readingPerfect 10 (2019)
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There is nothing epic about this film; it tells a small story of a teenage girl struggling to survive abandonment but it feels real and universal.
Continue readingDay 21: My guilty pleasure film
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The Decoy Bride (2011)
The definition of guilty pleasure is “something that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard.” I have a trousseau of romcoms that would fit this brief and one of my favourites is this British gem starring Kelly Macdonald and David Tennant.
Continue readingDay 20: My favourite film when I was a kid
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Bugsy Malone (1976)
As a teen, I loved Grease (1978), Star Wars (1977) and The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) but at age 11, I discovered cinema and my life was never the same.
Continue readingLast Christmas (2019)
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Image via http://www.empireonline.com
I went in expecting an over-sugared gingerbread house of a romantic comedy but forgot this was British and written by Emma Thompson and partner Greg Wise. It’s fun and witty and the Christmas theme is front and centre, as is the always delightful music of George Michael that weaves a spell throughout. Continue reading
