First Man is a Chazellian study of obsession that is keen to understand the inner workings of Neil Armstrong. Ryan Gosling’s Armstrong is caught between his own personal dilemmas and the international space race during this sombre re-telling of the 1969 moon landing. Damien Chazelle’s intimate biopic puts American patriotism to one side as we […]
ryan gosling
Flagging First Man: Cinema’s loose relationship with history
It doesn’t feel like a hyperbole to state that the controversy regarding First Man’s American flag moment has caused something of a media circus. Damien Chazelle’s most recent film, after his continuing success with Whiplash and La La Land, follows the lead-up and eventual landing of the Apollo 11 mission. He makes the choice to […]
Director Spotlight – Nicolas Winding Refn
“That’s when you know you have made great cinema: when half love it and half hate it” So said Danish auteur Nicolas Winding Refn, following the deeply-divided reception to Only God Forgives after its prestigious premiere at Cannes. Whether he meant what he said, or whether it was self-defence to an unexpected reaction, this quote […]
Review: The Big Short
Nobody likes bankers. Nobody likes bankers, but most of us don’t really understand why. Look at your most basic broadcast journalist vox pop experiment, and you’ll be bombarded with murmurs of bonuses, bail-outs, and fraud. They’re little more than buzz words, really. For the vast majority of the public, both here and across the Atlantic, the financial […]