Films
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Reviewed: Slade in Flame
It has been called the Citizen Kane of Rock and Roll movies, although, 5o years ago, when it was first released, it was received in a far less reverential way. Now, it has been re-released, and, on Wednesday I went to see what Slade in Flame was all about. I have to say, I absolutely loved it. It is not a cheery pop movie in the vein of ‘A Hard Day’s Night‘ or ‘The Young Ones’, instead, you get a dirty, gritty 1970’s film that has far more in common with the brilliant David Essex film ‘Stardust’. This is about how the music industry can pick up and then spit…
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Love From A Stranger (1937)
Love from a Stranger is an early (1937), film adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s short stories, Philomel Cottage. The short story told of a woman who wins quite a large amount of money on a French lottery. Intending to travel, she puts her flat up for rent, and is promptly swept off her feet by the handsome stranger who is interested in renting her flat. They marry and move to a idyllic cottage in the middle of nowhere, seemingly to live ‘happily ever after’ in a life of bliss. But her new husband is not all he seems, and has a few shocking secrets of his own. The film…
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Stylish Films: Maria (2025)
Maria is a film telling the story of the last week in the life of the ultimate opera diva Maria Callas. Living in Paris, Maria is a living legend, but one that has lost her health, her voice, and the love of her life, Aristotle Onassis. Now she lives in a world that is fogged by ghosts and hallucinations brought on by her reliance on Mandrex and other pills, pills that allow her to believe that she is being interviewed for a documentary about her life (by a reporter called Mandrex no less) as it draws to a premature end. We start the film on September 16th 1977, the day…
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Stylish Television: Death On The Nile (2004)
Death on the Nile is one of the most iconic of all Agatha Christie novels, the deadly love triangle featuring a beautiful heiress, a handsome but penniless husband, and his jilted lover as all the ingredients that make the very best of murder mysteries. It has been filmed twice for the silver screen, both of the films being star studded affairs that feature great performances, beautiful settings and exquisite costumes. I have blogged about both of these other versions in a series of reviews (you can find the posts here, and here.) Today I turn my attention to the small screen version which featured David Suchet as Poirot, and actually…
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Stylish Films: Murder In Three Acts
Peter Ustinov is one of my favourite Poirot’s, and his first two Poirot films, Death on the Nile and Evil Under the Sun, are probably my favourite Agatha Christie film adaptations, and are traditional Christmas viewing in my house. It is a less known fact, however, that there were further Ustinov as Poirot adaptations during the 1980’s. These included Appointment with Death, a Michael Winner film, and also the TV movies, Dead Man’s Folly, Thirteen at Dinner, and Murder in Three Acts. Yesterday I finally got to watch Murder in Three Acts and rather enjoyed it. Murder in Three Acts is better known as Three Act Tragedy, and is a…
