The opening round nominees for the Goodreads Choice Awards have been announced. More than a dozen have previously appeared on Fanfare. Within each category, the nominees are sorted here to approximate very roughly how many Goodreads users have read the…
Mulholland Drive at 20: David Lynch’s audacious puzzle remains a mystery
The daring film-maker’s 2001 Hollywood-set thriller is as dazzling, and unknowably ambiguous, as everThe greatest films are often the ones that we don’t completely know, that tease the mind with question marks and ambiguities, and leave you circling ba…
Ah, Mr Bond. I was expecting you – to entertain me | David Mitchell
Don’t get me wrong – I enjoyed the new Bond film – but it has a rather fundamental flawSpoiler alert! This column is about the new James Bond film and reveals some big things that happen in it. If you haven’t seen it but plan to, don’t read on.The main…
The French Connection at 50: one of the greatest New York movies ever
William Friedkin peaked in 1971 with his thrilling crime drama, known for its show-stopping car chase, but elevated by so much moreThe advantage of shooting on location is that fiction films can have the texture of a documentary, preserving forever a s…
Robert Richardson obituary
Crime writer who drew on his experience as a Fleet Street journalist to colour his thrillersThe crime writer Robert Richardson, who has died aged 80, started out as the inventor of Gus (Augustus) Maltravers, an erudite playwright and classic amateur sl…
‘I eat greasy fried eggs at least once a week’: Daniel Craig on Bond, being buff and crying at British Gas ads
With his final turn as James Bond in No Time to Die filling cinemas, the actor takes questions from readers and fellow actors about the role, from being smacked around his nether regions to getting over his fear of heightsMost movie stars look tiny up …
‘I’ve been waiting so long’: 007 fans await first public screening – at midnight
Filmgoers are excited to be among first in world to see 25th Bond film, No Time to Die, in BirminghamFor a film spanning 163 minutes – the longest James Bond movie ever made – it takes serious dedication to watch it at a midweek midnight showing.But th…
No Time to Die review: Daniel Craig dispatches James Bond with panache, rage – and cuddles
The long-awaited 25th outing for Ian Fleming’s superspy is a weird and self-aware epic with audacious surprises up its sleeveThe standard bearer of British soft power is back, in a film yanked from cinemas back in the time of the toilet roll shortage, …
It’s No Time to Die: but is it time to revoke James Bond’s licence to kill?
In the 1960s, 007 was a glamorous antidote to postwar austerity, but now he’s more laughable than heroic. Can the Bond brand survive, post-Brexit?These blithering women,” said James Bond, “who thought they could do a man’s work? Why the hell couldn’t t…
Intrusion review – Netflix home invasion thriller passes muster
A vacant performance from Freida Pinto can’t quite sink a mostly enjoyable, if mostly familiar, domestic mysteryThere’s an adequately scattered trail of breadcrumbs running throughout the brisk Netflix thriller Intrusion that starts us off in one subge…