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Donald Clarke

Whingeing about cinema and real life since 2009

Monthly Archives: October 2010

David Thomson is back

For all his disgusting slobbering over Nicole Kidman (I speak metaphorically, m’lud), David Thomson remains one of the key film writers of our age. The latest edition of his masterwork, the New Biographical Dictionary of Film, has just dropped through …

On the Guardian’s list and lists in general.

One of the selling points of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity was the author’s investigation of the contemporaneous urban male’s obsession with best-of lists . Fifteen years after that book emerged, the observation seems so banal it is hardly worth articulating. …

Apichatpong Weerasethakul and the humbly named Donald Clarke
  • Cannes
  • October 20, 2010, 22:07

The mighty Apichatpong Weerasethakul was at the Irish Film Institute tonight for a screening of his extraordinary new film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Afterwards, he ambled on stage for a chat with this writer. Happily, the …

Thoughts on the London Film Festival (and others).

The hierarchy of film festivals remains a peculiar business. For all the bitching, nobody doubts that Cannes remains the most significant of the bunch. Even in a slow year — such as 2010 — the  French event still attracts as …

Red faces at Hogwarts.

In what must be regarded as a hugely embarrassing move, Warner Brothers has, with just a month to go before release, announced that the studio will not, as previously promised, be delivering Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I …

I like sneering facetiously at well-meaning posters. Do you?

Okay, let’s get the preliminaries out of the way first. I delight in the changes that immigration has brought to Irish society.  Ireland of the 1980s looks ever more like a monocultural backwater when set beside the diverse country it …

Screenwriter is One!

Yes, indeed. It’s been a year of fuming about 3-D, speculating on the Oscars, compiling best-of lists, giving out about re-makes, speculating on the Oscars, making fun of Robin Williams, speculating on the Oscars, making fun of Russell Crowe, stomping …