Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975) 6/10
Penn's ambiguous neo-noir thriller is neither Raymond Chandler nor quite Ross Macdonald. However, it has that striking 1970s glow when movies were cool and detectives were kinda grimy, hopeless and sad. Harry Moseby (Gene Hackman) is a former star football player turned private eye. His wife (Susan Clark) is having an affair and instead of confronting her he turns up at the house of her lover (Harris Yulin) for a chat. A faded B-movie…
Massacre in Rome (George Pan Cosmatos, 1973) 5/10
The voice. Its what one notices first. And the perfect diction. True for every film with Richard Burton. He stars in the true story about a terrible reprisal carried out in Rome by the occupying Germans in 1944. Partisans ambushed, attacked and killed 33 German SS policemen. As per instructions of the German Armed Forces Commandant (Leo McKern) the commander of the Security Police in Rome (Richard Burton) is ordered to round…
La dentelliére / The Lacemaker (Claude Goretta, 1977) 9/10
Sad, gentle, heartbreaking fable about a relationship destroying a tender heart. A shy lonely girl (Isabelle Huppert) working in a beauty salon meets a shy bourgeoise student and they move in together - he studies while she passively looks after the apartment going about her dull job. She has no ambition, hardly talks and her dull presence causes the man to break off the affair leading to her breakdown. This is…
Tubelight (Kabir Khan, 2017) 3/10
Jingoistic propaganda piece that takes back Hindi cinema several decades. It must be extremely difficult to be a movie superstar in India during these times AND be a Muslim in a country populated predominantly by Hindus and having to face the fanatic political junta. The three "Khan" superstars - Aamir, Shah Rukh and Salman - all face this dilemma on a daily basis. To appease the "authorities" the public gets to see films of this…
