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Film Reviews – Edinburgh International Film Festival, The Angels’ Share, & Death Watch

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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.

DVD Review: Coriolanus

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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.

Film Reviews – Marley & Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

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This week on the BBC Movié Cafe: Kevin Macdonald’s epic Bob Marley documentary, Marley, and Ewan Macgregor in the adaptation of Paul Torday’s best-selling novel Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

Listen to Jamie Dunn and I review both films with the ever-brilliant Janice Forsyth.

The show is available to stream here until Thursday, and you can download the podcast anytime over here.

Marley and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen are out in UK cinemas now.