Tag Archive: Golshifteh Farahani


Driven to Extraction

EXTRACTION directed by Sam Hargrave (USA, 2020)

extraction_282020_film29Whereas most action movies have plot holes, this one has giant craters. The filmmakers work on the quite reasonable assumption that most viewers are not expecting social-realism or profound insights into the human condition.

Normally, I’d pass on a film as mind-numbing as this but during this lockdown period the options available on Netflix are getting slimmer and slimmer. A good part of the streaming service’s content is tailored for ‘Young Adults’  I am increasingly struck by how few seem to have ‘Old Adults’ like me as their target audience.  ‘Extraction’ is aimed at  ‘ok, if there’s nothing better to watch’ market. Continue reading

The poetry of Paterson

PATERSON directed by Jim Jarmusch (USA, 2016)
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What does take to be a poet? A way with words and a keen eye helps. Then you need time, both to think and to write. The Welsh poet, W.H. Davies wrote “A poor life this is if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare”, the first lines of ‘Leisure’ published in 1911.

The title of Jim Jarmusch’s gentle and warm-hearted movie has three main points of reference: Paterson, the city in New Jersey, the title of an epic poem by William Carlos Williams and the name of a conscientious bus driver.

The location is the birthplace of Lou Costello of Abbot & Costello fame and it is also where a triple homicide took place that led to the wrongful arrest of Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter in 1966. Continue reading