Film

After I had packed in full-time work to write for a living, I was convinced it would only be a matter of time before I was plucked from obscurity. So the World Cup book had failed, so what? I had my new novel to fall back on, and I was submitting things left, right and centre. I had a little job at the local hospital, and was getting free CDs whenever I wanted them.

Basically, I was carving a writing career as if I was an eternal student. I was writing but not networking, taking all of those ‘exposure’ jobs that somebody living with their parents would be more than happy with. Except I was twenty-six, living in a flat above a butcher’s shop in an increasingly fractious relationship. So what could be better for my future than taking another job where I got paid only in what I reviewed, but something where I had to sit in one place and concentrate? Why, yes, I’ll review your films!

I only reviewed for a site called Cinedelica. They asked me to submit a sample review, included below, and then every now and again I would be asked if I wanted to review particular things. I always said yes, and consequently watched some absolute shit. As you can tell by the handful of reviews below from the several dozen I received, Cinedelica wasn’t interested in Citizen Kane, but that doesn’t mean they wanted trash.

It also doesn’t mean I gave it to them. I had never been a film critic and never considered myself to be one, but I researched, read the press releases, watched the films and the extras, and did my best. It was always doomed to be a slight failure because I don’t have film in my soul the way that proper movie critics do, but it was a strange diversion and quite fun while it lasted. I’m not sure I’ve ever watched any of these films (bar La Haine and Funny Games) again. 

La Haine/Funny Games (test review, previously unpublished)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"We Don't Want to Give Anybody Sleepless Nights": Revisiting 'Ghostwatch'

Image
Lights explode and the studio is plunged into demonic darkness. The souls manning the telephone lines have long since vanished, leaving only  Mike Smith ’s panicked requests after his wife's welfare. Papers whip across the screen, caught in a maelstrom of malevolence. Watches attached to wrists hundreds of miles away have come to a dead stop, and there have been multiple reports of inanimate objects tearing themselves from surfaces and throwing themselves across rooms all across the land. The people of Great Britain watch entranced as Michael Parkinson , controlled by some force that earlier in the evening he’d foolishly dismissed, sleepwalks beyond the camera’s lens, muttering a nursery rhyme. Yes, the BBC has paid heavily for messing with the supernatural alright, and on Hallowe’en , of all nights. Samhain ; the night the divide between the living and the dead is gossamer thin. Sarah Greene has passed through a doorway of her own, until this night just a cupboard beneath the sta
Read more

My Christmas Presents, 1991-99

Image
With it being Christmas Day tomorrow, and with the two years we’ve all had, nostalgia might well be the key ingredient gracing the dinner table in people’s houses. Christmas is a time for creating memories, good or bad, and you can guarantee that whatever the weather there will be smiles, tears, arguments and people going over the top about that Nando’s gift set which will be next seen in the window of the local Blue Cross . After having a lovely memory of Christmas 1990 published in Museum Of Jerseys , it dusted off a few memories of the next few Yuletides, and so I thought I’d put all my nineties Christmases together to see if there was a thread - a Christmas ribbon, if you will. If you won’t, well, sod you - you’re the one reading when you ought to be wrapping. Enjoy! 1991 - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Action Figures I think I grew up in the Golden Age of action figures. At the age of ten I had caught the tail-end of Star Wars merchandising, which was such a big money-spinner
Read more

Mad As Hell

Image
So, welcome back to my world. It’s debatable whether or not it’s better than the real world, but trust me, I wouldn’t have voted for him, so there’s that. People use the phrase “in a perfect world”, but it seems like 2016 was fuckin’ Nirvana compared to the shitshow this year is looking to be. Naturally, I’m back online to spread a little sunshine on proceedings, because my Smiths blog went really well (sample review: ‘you’re talking shit’). There are people better qualified and give a toss more than me about international politics. The Falklands Conflict was memorably described by Jorge Luis Borges as being “like two bald men fighting over a comb”, and the world has become a more spiteful and petulant place since the chilliest days of the Cold War. All I can say is that historically you don’t know you’ve lived through a crisis until you see it on a documentary. I watched some Channel 5 thing about 1990 the other day; turns out it was full of barricades, resignations and civil d
Read more