Alessandro Algardi
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"She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad” and that's important you know.
Stories (42)
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Why The Piano is the greatest film directed by a woman
In 1993, Jane Campion made history when she became the first woman (and the first New Zealander) to receive the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Her haunting period romance The Piano shared the award with Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine, but in BBC Culture’s critics’ poll of the 100 greatest films by women, Campion doesn’t have to share the prize a second time: The Piano was chosen as the number one film in a remarkable list that showcases more than 100 years of female filmmaking.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
Will disabled people ever get the stories they deserve?
Diversity has become a buzzword in the entertainment industries – and if there’s still debate about how much things are really changing, or if moves towards greater representation are too often mere lip service or box ticking, the diversity conversation is at least being had. Do badly, and it will get called out. And there genuinely do seem to be signs of change, whether that’s British theatre embracing gender-fluid casting, or Hollywood learning the lessons of Black Panther and Crazy Rich Asians, that ethnically diverse casting and storytelling can help the industry reach new audiences – and net new profits.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
1917: Five stars for ‘dazzling and profoundly moving’ film
The baby-faced soldier running toward the camera in 1917 perfectly captures what was so heart-breaking and haunting about World War One – all that innocence sent into battle, all those futures destroyed. Perhaps no film can capture the enormity of that war, which left around 17 million dead, and generations to grieve. Director Sam Mendes wisely takes the opposite approach, personalising the experience through two young British soldiers sent on a harrowing, high-stakes, night-long mission, he creates a film that is tense, exhilarating and profoundly moving.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
Film review: Two stars for comic-book movie Birds of Prey
This is a first: a Hollywood superhero movie written and directed by women, featuring a multi-racial female cast, with no male sidekicks or love interests, and a theme about learning to live without a man. It’s groundbreaking, it’s long overdue, and it’s bound to inspire a generation of girls. But does any of that mean that the film in question is any good? The best way to answer that is to glance at its title, Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. If you think that title is fabulous – or, indeed, fantabulous – you may well think the same about the film. But if you think it is exhaustingly laboured and twee, you should probably watch something else.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
From Sonic the Hedgehog to Star Wars, are fans too entitled?
In the spring of 2019, director Jeff Fowler announced that the titular character of his new film, the live-action adaptation of Sonic the Hedgehog, would be totally redesigned in the wake of fan backlash to its debut trailer. “Thank you for the support. And the criticism,” he tweeted. “The message is loud and clear... you aren’t happy with the design and you want changes. It's going to happen.” And it did.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
Is Melancholia the greatest film about depression ever made?
In cinema, the bar for what passes as mental-health representation has always been low. Whether depression or something more serious, mental illness has typically been portrayed in a way that is either exploitative, stigmatising or both: most reprehensibly, perhaps, it is still often used as a catalyst for violence, such as in Todd Phillips' recent Joker (2019). But, amid all these problematic portrayals, arguably no film has been more profoundly compassionate in its depiction of a mental crisis than Lars von Trier's 2011 film Melancholia.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
The Woman in the Window and film's most cursed productions
Amy Adams' new mystery thriller, The Woman In The Window, may be adapted from a Gone Girl / The Girl On The Train-type thriller novel, but it's not always easy to lose yourself in its twisty-turny plot. Partly, that's because the revelations are so silly that you're more likely to laugh at them than be engrossed. And partly, it's because the acting, editing and camerawork are so hectic that it feels as if you're reading a book in the middle of a rugby scrum. But another factor is that the story on screen is less compelling than the story of what went on behind the scenes. In the three years since the film was announced, it has suffered so many delays, reshoots and scandals that it now has the unfortunate reputation of being a "troubled production". And, as so many notorious examples have shown, it's difficult for any film to shake that reputation off.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
Why Berlanga is Spain's greatest film director
There's some debate over how it happened. It might have been after the screening of The Executioner, which satirised capital punishment in Spain, at the Venice Film Festival in September 1963 – or it might have been after Welcome, Mr Marshall! (1953) lampooned Spanish hopes for a slice of the US money destined to rebuild Europe after World War Two. In any case, one of the ministers of Spain's then dictatorship reported the latest irritation from the director Luis García Berlanga with the words: "Of course, Berlanga is a communist." To which the dictator Francisco Franco replied, "No, he's something worse: he's a bad Spaniard."
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
How The Velvet Underground film reclaims the past
There's a brief moment in Todd Haynes' new documentary The Velvet Underground where a handheld 16mm camera swings woozily around a downtown New York hangout of the mid-1960s. The band themselves, black-clad and ineffably cool, bang away at a rendition of their song Heroin while a swirling wall of psychedelic lights are projected over them, rendering them half-invisible.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
UK police use computer algorithm EBIT to increase the efficiency of crime investigations by about a factor of 1
Kent police in southeast England, are experimenting with computer algorithms to improve the efficiency of case processing. Such algorithms can assist in determining which cases are more effectively solvable. Police forces using this algorithm have roughly doubled the efficiency of their investigations, saving significant time and money.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in FYI
Spencer and the ever-transfixing mystery of Princess Diana Share using Email Share on Twitter Share on Facebook
"A fable from a true tragedy," reads a title card in the dawning moments of Pablo Larraín's Spencer (2021): an early signpost, perhaps, of the fantastical twists and turns to come. This may ostensibly be a film about Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, née Spencer, but it is not, by any measure of conventional wisdom, the sort of period biopic generally en vogue in Hollywood cinema.
By Alessandro Algardi3 years ago in Geeks
