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| The Guardian - Culture: Film | | | | Almost Liverpool 8 review – portrait of a postcode searches for the Toxteth spirit | | by Phil Hoad Aug 31, 2021 | | This celebratory documentary captures the spirit of a strongly multicultural community but avoids probing the unrest of 1981 As a community organiser says at the start of this documentary, the name Toxteth – apparently hardly used in the area pre-1981 – has become synonymous with riots. Directors Daniel Draper and Allan Melia set out to show otherwise in this artfully shot but only loosely structured documentary; less an oral history of the L8 postcode than a contemporary social snapshot with a neighbourly penchant for doorstep chats in search of the Toxteth spirit. “There’s a lot going on,” observes a Nigerian-Russian-Spanish-Jewish beautician. It’s Toxteth’s multiculturalism and tolerant ethos, on streets once occupied by dock workers, that Almost Liverpool 8 is most at pains to show. We encounter Jamaican beekeepers, Yemeni newsagents, Arab rotisserie workers. The area is home to what may be the UK’s oldest black community and Draper and Melia include a short section on how Toxteth mobilised for Black Lives Matter. But it’s here that their celebratory approach shows its limits: refusing to delve into the 1981 unrest allows us to glean only an indirect understanding of the community’s underlying concerns and its long-term politics. Continue reading... | | | | | Notorious Nick review – warm-hearted biopic of one-armed wrestler | | by Phil Hoad Aug 31, 2021 | | The story of the congenitally amputated Nick Newell reconstructs the fights efficiently but overrides his real struggles with a sub-Rocky storyline This mixed martial arts-based flick goes one further than kung-fu classic One-Armed Swordsman in being based on real events: the improbable rise of “Notorious” Nick Newell, who had a congenital amputation of the left arm, to his winning the Xtreme Fighting Championship (XFC) belt in 2012. Cody Christian, a little digital shimmer occasionally showing on his VFX-severed limb, puts in a committed shift as Newell in a brisk biopic that is a bit over-planed but can hardly fail to inspire. Encouraged by his mother, Stacey (Elisabeth Röhm), Newell joins his school wrestling squad, where he is nicknamed “Elbow” by students high on the douchebag scale. But it is only when bosom buddy Abi (Cameron James Matthews) is killed in a motorbike accident, while the pair are battling through local MMA qualifying rounds, that Newell gains enough self-belief to make a career of combat. As he climbs through the XFC rankings, he hits an even bigger obstacle than his disability: other fighters’ unwillingness to step into the ring with him in the belief that it’s a lose-lose situation. Win, and it’s a victory over a one-armed man; get beaten, and the same applies. Continue reading... | | | | | Victim at 60: the heartbreaking gay drama that pushed boundaries | | by Guy Lodge Aug 31, 2021 | | Dirk Bogarde’s magnificent performance as a man hiding his sexuality is the strongest note in a difficult, and groundbreaking, film that challenged censors Twenty seven minutes into Victim, after some circuitous beating around the bush, the word is dropped into the dialogue – an unprecedented bombshell on screen at the time, and if it no longer shocks today, you can still sense the film bracing for impact. It’s not a slur, or a profanity, but it was enough to make audiences wince and censors bristle: in 1961, the simple word “homosexual” was more dangerous than an idle swear. Its blunt appearance in Victim ensured the British film initially fell foul of US censors. The British Board of Film Censors let it squeak by with an X rating, though objected to a different scrap of innocuous dialogue, when one man says of another, “I wanted him.” Sixty years ago, the love that dared not speak its name began – as discreetly and politely as possible while maintaining some level of candour – to mutter it. Related: Body Heat at 40: the sexiest and sweatiest film of the 80s Continue reading... | | | | | |
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