David Parkinson

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Latest articles from David Parkinson

Flawless, Rivalsand Julia

The older he gets, the more Michael Caine seems to be happier with nostalgia than novelty. He featured in Sylvester Stallone’s dismal remake of Get Carter, assumed the Laurence Olivier role in Kenneth Branagh's wholly unnecessary reworking of Sleuth and spoofed his Harry Palmer spy persona in Austin Powers in Goldmember. He’s even butled for Batman. But nowhere has Caine seemed more comfortable of late than as the janitor planning a diamond heist in Michael Radford’s period romp, Flawless.

Somers Town. Zero: An Investigation into 9/11

Having skirted the issue of post-9/11 attitudes to Islam by setting This Is England in the 1980s, Shane Meadows similarly ducks the true realities of being a Polish immigrant in New Labour London in Somers Town. However, the lack of socio-political depth is more justifiable in this genial, if slight saga, as neglected 15-year-old Piotr Jagiello and runaway orphan Thomas Turgoose are so untutored in the ways of life that any agit-prop agenda would be wholly inappropriate.

The Cool School, A Walk into the Sea, Black and White + Gray, and Little Box of Sweets

The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London has teamed with Revolver Entertainment to premiere a trio of highbrow documentaries that will transfer to DVD at the end of August. Given that the school holidays have increasingly become a dumping ground for crass comedies and mediocre melodramas that the despondant shruggingly patronise after being turned away from a sold-out blockbuster, it's refreshing to find films of such serious intent restoring a little intellectual credibility to the summer schedule.

Blindsight, Man on Wire, Berlin and A Letter to True

Not a Friday seems to go by without another impressive documentary receiving a theatrical release. The four on offer this week are a decidedly mixed bunch. But there's more to intrigue here than the sorry summer dross emanating from Hollywood.

Paris, Quiet City, Crazy Love and Out of Shame

When not teaching cinema, Cédric Klapisch makes engaging ensemble dramas that bear the seemingly incompatible influence of his favourite directors, Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese and Maurice Pialat. Since first making an impact in this country with When the Cats Away (1995), Klapisch has demonstrated a facility for the well-drawn characters, smart dialogue and credible situations that made Un Air de Famille (1996), Pot Luck (2002) and its sequel Russian Dolls (2005) so moreish.

Terror's Advocate, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? and RFK Must Die,

Jacques Vergés is an enigma shrouded by mystery inside a conspiracy. An anti-colonialist since his childhood, Vergés was a student friend of Pol Pot, the future dictator of Cambodia. He made his name defending Algerian heroine (and future wife) Djamila Bouhired and earned instant notoriety for agreeing to represent the Nazi Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie. Then, having disappeared for eight years that have still to be satisfactorily accounted for, he returned to take on such insalubrious clients as Carlos the Jackal, whose wife, Magdalena Kopp, became a close personal friend.

Honeydripper, Un Secret and I Served the King of England

Screen history is pocked with African-American musicals showcasing stars who were rarely allowed to exhibit their talents in mainstream pictures. Indeed, on the rare occasions when the likes of Lena Horne, Bill Bojangles' Robinson or the Nicholas Brothers were accorded guest slots in prestigious studio pictures, their numbers were invariably cut from prints destined for the Deep South for fear of offending supremacist audiences.

THE LAST MISTRESS, THE BANQUET, THE 39 STEPS

Catherine Breillat is one of France's most consistently controversial film-makers. However, she reins in her genius for provocation in The Last Mistress, a handsome adaptation of a novel by Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly that ventured into the Dangerous Liaison territory of Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. In the vein of Jacques Rivette's recent Don't Touch the Axe, this meticulous picture combines a period aesthetic with a contemporary acuity to provide fascinating insights into both human nature and French society now and in the 1830s.

My Brother is an Only Child, Beaufort, The Book of Revelation and I'm a Cyborg But That's OK

In the 2003 epic, Best of Youth, screenwriters Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli produced a chronicle of post-war Italian life that merited comparison with the German masterpiece Heimat. The duo revisits many of the same themes in Daniele Luchetti's My Brother Is an Only Child, a study of the political divisions of the 1960s and 70s that centres on two siblings in love with the same girl. This is more a domestic dramedy than an analytical snapshot of the times. However, its suggestion that conviction is merely a disposable lifestyle accessory is particularly apt for our own era of pick'n'mix values and soundbite ideologies.