At the start of Nanni Moretti’s wonderful rich and glorious new movie the College of Cardinals are shuttered away in the Vatican to go through the traditional ritual of choosing a new Pope in great secrecy now that the last one has shuffled off his mortal coil. As the camera scans down the long line … Continue reading
The opening scene of this film is a ceremony where Uriel Shkolnik is being honored as a new member of the prestigious Israeli Academy, and the camera stays completely focused on Eliezer his father who sits in the audience totally stony-faced even when Uriel is lavishly praising him. It neatly sets the whole timbre of … Continue reading
It may be the present day in Albania where even the rural teenagers text each other on cellphones every day, but some of the customs that still dictate how families must conduct themselves date back centuries. The older generation accepts this willingly but it’s tougher on young people who are full of life and energy … Continue reading
The kid in the title is 11-year-old Cyril and the bike is his means to whiz around the small Belgian town desperately looking for his father who abandoned him in a Children’s Home and who has never bothered coming back even to visit. Cyril breaks out of the Home one day with the Social Workers … Continue reading
A new Winterbottom movie is always something that I really look forward too with great anticipation, partly because it’s almost impossible to predict what genre he will choose let alone the subject matter. After last year’s wonderfully funny ‘The Trip’ Mr Winterbottom, one of the UK‘s most versatile and prolific directors, has gone back to the … Continue reading