Category: Culture archive

  • Black Gold movie review

    Black Gold movie review

    Although this documentary is about coffee, it doesn’t give you tips on brewing the perfect cuppa. No, it tries to clarify and add meaning to those well-intentioned but largely opaque phrases like “trade not aid”. The film focuses on Tadesse Meskela, the manager of a farmers’ co-op in Ethiopia, who tirelessly brokers deals with coffee […]

  • The Namesake movie review

    The Namesake movie review

    The immigrant story often goes something like this: in a foreign land, they work their (in this case Bengali) balls off so their kids won’t endure the hardships they’ve encountered. Then, if said offspring are raised particularly well, they’ll shun their parents and dive — hook, line and sinker — into the culture of the […]

  • The Pursuit Of Happyness movie review

    The Pursuit Of Happyness movie review

    This rag-to-riches tale (vaguely “inspired by a true story”) features an unexpectedly sensitive (and Oscar-nominated) turn by Will Smith who plays a struggling salesman of bone-density scanners, a near-defunct device that no right-thinking medic wants. That, unfortunately, is only the start of his woes after his wife (Thandie Newton) leaves him with mounting debts and […]

  • This Is England movie review

    This Is England movie review

    Shane Meadows’ semi-autobiographical effort explains how the sharp clothing of the ska-loving skin ‘ead could possibly mutate into the conspicuous uniform of the far right. Against the backdrop of the Falkland’s War and Thatcher’s divided Britain, this Eighties-set drama revolves around 12-year-old Shaun, a cheeky misfit who’s taken into the bosom of a gang. For […]