Author: Ed Rowe
Three films about Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease is a ‘worthy’ issue and such issues don’t often make for great films. Even the most successful have their moment of exposure and then fade away like memories. That said, Alzheimer’s is an issue with inbuilt dramatic thrust. What could be more scary than a disappearing self? I’ve a special interest in dementia,…
Death is Not the End: Big Hero 6 and the Big Cheat
This is not so much a film review or article, but a beginning, an initial exploration. I’m fascinated by how technology and the fear of death are becoming increasingly entwined in Western culture. There are no easy lessons to draw, but I wanted to write something about how mainstream cinema interacts and deals with such…
Switching on to Reality: Byamba Sakhya’s ‘Remote Control’
A teenager runs away from the drunkenness and poverty of his rural home and moves into the city. It’s not an uncommon story, sadly, but in the hands of Mongolian director Byamba Sakhya, Remote Control becomes both a survival story and an exploration of the line between fantasy and reality. Tsog bivouacs himself on the…
Rethinking Birdman: Buddha comes to Broadway
The first frame in Birdman has Michael Keaton levitating in mid-air, in a meditational posture. At other times the camera lingers on a golden head of the Buddha. What is going on? Is Birdman, as some have claimed, a Buddhist film? There is other evidence for this. In the midst of his panic and egoistic…
My Film Hero: Dave Godin (1936-2004)
Not all film heroes are tough guys. My film hero is a small, bearded man with a twisted back and a chain-smoking habit. Dave Godin gave me my one and only “break in film”, as the barman at a small independent cinema, the Anvil, in Sheffield. This was back in the 1980s when things like…