2013-10-01 | MovieSteve

Bloody Kids

2023-10-302013-10-01 by Steve

This 1979 collaboration between two of the UK’s brighter rising talents – writer Stephen Poliakoff and director Stephen Frears – is a strange affair. Set in a slightly slipped-reality version of faded seaside Southend, it follows two 12-year-old pranksters (Peter Clark and Richard Thomas) who stage a sham knife fight – just for something to do, or so it seems at first – which ends up with one of them in hospital. What follows is a drab odyssey through all the public spaces the era offered – football ground, shopping precinct, disco, underground car park, Chinese restaurant, cop shop, hospital, caff – as Leo (Clark) is quizzed in hospital by the police, keen to know … Read more

Duck Soup

2023-10-302013-10-01 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 2 October Groucho Mark born, 1890 On this day in 1890, Julius Henry Marx, one of the 20th century’s most distinctive comedians was born, in New York City. He started off in a vaudeville singing troupe with various members of the family, including his mother at one point. When pure singing didn’t work for them, the Marx brothers started to include comedy in their act, losing non family members on the way and eventually settling down to be the four brothers, Julius, Adolph, Leonard and Milton (aka Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Gummo). Gummo decided to leave and Zeppo, considered the funniest … Read more