When you’re deep asleep and not dreaming, where the fuck are you? There’s total blackness, it’s nothing, right? So I’m hoping that’s what death is, that it’s all gonna go. I don’t want to deal with any consciousness afterward. – Harry Dean Stanton (1926-2017)
Jim Eaton-Terry looks at Dying Laughing, a new documentary on the life of the stand-up comic
There’s always something odd about an extended conversation with a really great stand up. Inevitably there’s the tension of waiting for a gag that never comes, which often distracts from the conversation. Comics are clearly aware of this, and the weaker ones will defuse the tension with a crowd-pleasing riff or two, but the best conversations strip away the humour and show how the world looks from the stage.
The newest Criterion Collection Blu-Ray, Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men, hits the shelves in the UK on 15th May. Fiona Pleasance joins the jury.
The premise of 12 Angry Men could hardly be simpler. Almost all of the film takes place in a single room in a New York City courthouse in the mid-1950s, where the members of a jury deliberate on the trial of a young man accused of murdering his father.
Ahead of this weekend’s Oscars, Laura Morgan laments a lack of recognition for Hugh Grant and celebrates some of his fellow secret stars of other people’s films.
Continue reading You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Film Is About You
Ricky Young looks at Paul Schrader’s latest offering, and tries not to get skeeved out as he does so.
Continue reading Dog Eat Dog
Fiona Pleasance assesses the cinematic oeuvre of Ryan Gosling.
Philip Concannon on a new Blu-ray edition of the complete Buster Keaton short films, on general release today.
Continue reading Silents Is Golden: The Complete Buster Keaton Shorts
Following the news that Natalie Portman will be playing the former first lady in Jackie, Laura Morgan celebrates the good, the bad and the ugly of celebrity casting.
Ricky Young wades deep into the subgenre known only as Big Liam Films, and tries to avoid a damn good punching to the face as he does so.
Mortdecai is released on DVD and Blu-Ray today. Ricky Young has watched it, so you sure as fuck don’t have to.
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