June 2014 | MovieSteve

The Queen of Versailles

2023-10-272014-06-04 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 5 June John Maynard Keynes born, 1883 On this day in the 1883, the economist John Maynard Keynes was born, in Cambridge, to an economist father and a social reformer mother. A mathematics prodigy as a child, he won a scholarship to Eton College, then went to King’s College, Cambridge, where he studied mathematics on a scholarship, graduating in 1904. After a short career as a clerk in the India Office, Keynes resigned and returned to Cambridge, where he started studying economics. By 1909 he had published his first article on economics. By 1911 he was editor of The Economic Journal. … Read more

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

2023-10-272014-06-03 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 4 June Tiananmen Square Massacre, 1989 On this day in the 1989, one of the most recognisable images of recent decades flashed around the world as Type 59 tanks marched in single file through Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, while facing them stood a lone figure – “Tank Man”. Protest had been gathering pace since April, when students had first gathered to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, a liberal reformer. The mourning developed into a call for political and economic reform, more accountability, freedom of expression and democratic rights, and at first the government tolerated the protests. By May the … Read more

Teeth

2022-11-152014-06-02 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 3 June Valerie Solanas tries to kill Andy Warhol, 1968 On this day in the 1968, the feminist writer Valerie Solanas went to the Factory, artist Andy Warhol’s studio in New York, and fired three shots at him from a gun she had just bought. Two missed and one wounded him. She also shot the art critic Mario Amaya and attempted to shoot Warhol’s manager, Fred Hughes, but the gun jammed. She then turned herself in to the police. Solanas had in fact set out to shoot Maurice Girodias, owner of the Olympia Press – who had offered to publish her … Read more

2 June 2014-06-02

2022-11-152014-06-01 by Steve

Jared Leto and Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyers Club

Out in the UK This Week Dallas Buyers Club (E One, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD) He literally rides bulls, the hero of this refreshingly unsentimental Aids drama – comedy? – about a rampantly heterosexual Texas guy who discovers he’s HIV+. That’ll be the meth and hookers parties we see him indulging in. The hero of this film is its script – a taut, tight example of economical writing that arrives in each scene as late as possible, tells us just enough of what we need to know, before moving on. There’s no backstories either – bane of so many films these days. So notice how many characters in this film, people with speaking roles and everything, … Read more

Rome, Open City

2023-10-272014-06-01 by Steve

A movie for every day of the year – a good one 2 June The sack of Rome, AD455 On this day in the 455th year of the Christian or Common Era, Rome was sacked. Actually, this is a touch ambiguous, because Rome had already been pillaged twice before, in 390BC by the Gauls fighting the Roman in the Battle of the Allia; and in AD410, in the attack of the Visigoths led by Alaric. In AD455 it was the Vandal king Genseric who marched on Rome, claiming a peace treaty between himself and Emperor Valentinian III had been violated when Emperor Petronius Maximus had usurped Valentinian and seized the throne. Out of … Read more