Thursday, May 31, 2012

Radio Reviews: Edinburgh International Film Festival, The Angels' Share, & Death Watch


Today I appeared on BBC Movie Café to review the week's releases with Paul Gallagher and host Janice Forsyth.

We covered the launch and programme of the 66th Edinburgh International Film Festival, reviewed Ken Loach and Paul Laverty's latest film The Angels' Share, and chatted about Bertrand Tavernier's re-release of Glasgow-set Death Watch.

Listen in by streaming on the BBC Radio Scotland website, or download the BBC Movie Café Podcast here.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

DVD Review: Coriolanus


After the enormous success of The Deathly Hallows, Ralph Fiennes made the leap from one beloved British author's oeuvre (albeit a franchise) to another. Taking on a little known Shakespearean tragedy in Coriolanus, Finnes' ambitious directorial debut takes the form of a modern-day adaptation not at all reminiscent of Baz Luhrmann. 

Penned by John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator), Fiennes himself co-stars opposite Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, and the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain to bring the bard's all but forgotten soldiers and sworn enemies to all their vengeful, back-stabbing glory in "a place that calls itself Rome". 

Its measured language throughout brings a sense of stability and pace to what is otherwise visually similar to most middle eastern war footage of the current day. Using TV footage that is at once surprisingly prescient and strangely familiar to draw out allegory, it's a solid if somewhat inaccessible work bringing bard to screen in all its deprivation and none of its grandeur. 

A darkly refreshing early summer DVD.


Read more: Disgrace Book Review; Wild Bill Review.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Book Review: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee


If not for book club, I don't think I'd have ever picked up another J.M. Coetzee book.


In my first year at uni we read Waiting for the Barbarians. I'm not sure that I ever finished it but I remember there being a sort-of treacle-like, entrapping quality about his writing that I didn't enjoy. With book club being book club, though, I set that aside and gave his dark world another shot.


Coetzee digs deep into his themes of sexual shame and rape in this short book, but never in a particularly direct or shocking manner. His brooding, male, 50-something protagonist, David, is something of a womaniser, though not in the Nick Cave, Bunny Munro sense. There's a pervading sense of patriarchy to his conquests which, rather than political, feel uncomfortably fatherly in a literal way.


Outside of the sexual undertones and overtones, there's still a little slack around his brooding male protagonist. His actions feel realistic and rightly oblivious at times, and although narrated in third person there is often a feeling on the part of the reader, a nagging to look beyond his point of view. Like an unreliable narrator in third person, we never glimpse upon the minds of other characters. There are some beautiful sections in which he is writing an opera that intertwines with his story of romance, but as a metaphor for the entire book I didn't feel that it worked.


Coetzee's female characters aren't particularly well-drawn, sounding like overly philosophical academics rather than living, breathing, human women. While this adds to the sense of David's alienation from women and amplifies his inability to get close to them, their words are stilted with mathematic precision that comes out sounding illogical. But I suppose that's all part of the intention.


Generally though, the frequent bursts of poetic prose befitting of his protagonist's interests elevate Coetzee's prose above the standard broody middle-aged male fare that I had expected and into more literary territory. Laid against the backdrop of apartheid South Africa, there's lots more to learn for the uninitiated (like myself), but this definitely proved itself to be a worthwhile read. The more I think about it, the more I feel I get it.

Read more mini book reviews on the Uncultured Critic 52 Books page. You can also follow me on Goodreads.


Read more: World Book Night 2012; Salmon Fishing in the Yemen Film Review (Podcast).

Friday, May 25, 2012

Books Blogging

I know things have been quiet around here, but I've secretly been working on my books page.

Head over to the 52 Books page to see mini-reviews of everything I've been reading so far in 2012.

What have you been reading lately?
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