timgowen.com

  If the last few years has taught us anything it’s that uninformed conspiracy theories on the internet are a genuine danger to life. And when you think about conspiracy theorists through history, before the popularity of the web and social media, these people are nuts, right? They obsessively go over things that most of us have put right out of our minds. Nobody wants to be a nutter on the internet or anywhere… right? Well since Oliver Stone’s peerless film about the Kennedy Assassination and the only man to attempt to prosecute it, attitudes to the killing have changed. More documents were de-classified as a consequence of interest in the case. But historians rose to challenge its central thesis: that Kennedy was assassinated because he wanted to end the Vietnam war. He spoke of universal peace and this flew in the face of those who wanted to perpetuate warfare. This is the Military-Industrial Complex that we are warned of in the movie right at the beginning, through a real spee...

  What’s interesting about this film is… well, there’s a lot, but it’s a racially fascinating film that would make Quentin Tarantino gape. Yes it’s a classic revenge story and it begins with a brutal murder of Nat Love’s parents in front of him, the bad Rufus ( Idris Elba )—who isn’t fully revealed until much later, when his own gang rescue him as he’s transported across the country in a cell on a train.  The train hijack is stylish. So stylish. From the sight of a horse on the line to the brakes of the train and execution of the driver, the tension rises and falls. There’s also a saloon bar in a beautifully realised western town: the kind of place where well-to-do folk will stand around watching a fight. The violence is uncompromising but not explicit as it is in Django Unchained which has been mentioned in the same sentence—although that film never had “A White Town”. This movie has a script that’s wears its wit as matter-of-factly as the stylishly dressed adversaries. And t...

The musical Tick tick… boom was written by Jonathan Larson right before Rent, and Rent is the phenomenon of a musical that Larson didn’t live to see flourish. And so, a story of a songwriter who seemingly couldn’t stop himself writing songs—and really very good ones too, with a variety of influences including Billy Joel—is a great companion piece to Rent as well as being a celebration of a beloved talent who died tragically young. And it’s extra poignant that the musical is brought to the screen in a directorial debut from Lin-Manuel Miranda. Miranda is a beloved figure in musical theatre and animated movie musicals, and you can draw lines from Hamilton back to Rent. Both shows brought in fans at the ground level with lotteries: you didn’t have to have hundreds of dollars, you just queued up daily to enter the lottery, and it was this that grew the Rent community in New York. It didn’t quite take off in London, and I wouldn’t say that Rent is for me, but I admire it and many of the ...

  This is a post-apocalyptic drama which was made for the cinema but ended up on Apple TV+. And there’s a theme within it about avoiding people, which is a reason why I still haven’t returned to the cinema. It is a pretty standard story of a man who is surviving following the decline of the climate and breakdown of civilisation. And the someone, the titular Finch, is Tom Hanks—who has survived on an island with a basketball before. And he creates a robot carer, specifically because he feels as though he isn’t going to live long and he needs something to look after his dog. In the interest of not being triggering, the dog is fine. Because when you break it down this story it is about a man who has lost everything except the dog and he is clinging on to him (the dog’s name is Goodyear and he is played by a terrier called Seamus). The film begins with Finch working to accumulate as much information as he can prior to making a road trip to San Francisco in an 80s RV. We see him dealing...

It’s a simple premise, and it’s not really a part of Cold War movies or even spy movies: Learning that we are fundamentally the same in spite of political difference is the take that’s most compelling in Dominic Cooke’s enjoyable espionage drama. British businessman Greville Wynne ( Benedict Cumberbatch —on fine form) was recruited in 1960 by the British Intelligence Services to make contact with Oleg Pentovsky ( Merab Ninidze ), who as we’ve seen is doubting the sanity of Khrushchev and thinking about ways to avert nuclear war—even as he sees how traitors are dealt with. The movie is at its best when Pentovsky and Wynne are together. They seem to match each other from their separate world-views and it’s not long before Wynne is questioning the ruthless amorality of MI6, with Angus Wright playing spy-handler Dickie Francis with joyful stiff-upper lip. His CIA aide ( Rachel Brosnahan ) is more passionate and possibly has the most conventional cinematic moments: in one scene she expl...

Richard Curtis films present a joyous and widely exportable vision of Britain: everything gleaming and not much grit, and the suffering is normally of a romantic kind. The effect is to send the audience back into the world satisfied that the dream of happy life and love is just a few plot-twists away. Sometimes, as with About Time , Curtis tarries with very light sci-fi notions, which is topical. Director  Danny Boyle has confronted the yearning for happiness in a number of ways: sometimes through intravenous injection of hard drugs ; winning the lottery; winning the Indian Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and getting Freida Pinto; cutting your arm off to free yourself after being trapped by a boulder… Oh, and ruling Apple with single-minded and evil self-belief… So when you hear that Richard Curtis and Danny Boyle have made a film about a Britain where only one man can remember the songs of The Beatles, you know it’s bound to be fascinating and maybe also crazy. The Beatles dom...

T he ticket was bought before Covid-19 was a thing, and the preparation and the worry about doing the ordinary things turned into a determination to get there and back safely. Andrew Lloyd Webber has faced critics since the beginning of his career, and perhaps nothing surpasses Jesus Christ Superstar in terms of his work. The man who’s brought people to the theatre in their billions went up against the rules controlling the pandemic and was determined somehow to put Cinderella on. And although it is a shame to have to wear masks and see, and hear, only half an audience, it is an undoubted joy to see live theatre again. The ancient tale of the poor girl, the shoe, the prince and the fairytale ending has been twisted and turned by Academy Award winning writer Emerald Fennel. This is not a bloodthirsty tale like some of the versions, but it’s plenty sassy and sarcastic. Here Cinderella (Carrie Hope Fletcher) is dressed in black, with black hair and Doc Marten’s boots: ensconced in the hou...