John Baker’s Blog

Equus, Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play, tells the story of a psychiatrist who attempts to treat a young man convicted of blinding six horses.
Over the weekend we were lucky enough to catch the touring version at Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre. The play opened at the National Theatre in 1973 and was subsequently performed all over the [...]

William Kowalski at the Globe & Mail makes the case for Fitzgerald’s Gatsby:
Gatsby the man is a complete fiction, as he admits to narrator Nick Carraway: Just as the United States was carved from the wilderness, he fashioned himself an identity as a wealthy, Oxford-educated gentleman, sustaining it through sheer determination and bravado - that [...]

The bad news first: the film is far too long. It should have been cut from its present running time of 135 minutes to around 90. On the other hand, didn’t Dylan himself once make a film that ran for 5 hours?
The film, by Director Todd Haynes, is a rumination inspired by the various lives [...]

A nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), is caring for a famous actress, Elizabeth (Liv Ullman), who became dumb during a performance of Electra and has not spoken since. The doctor tells Elizabeth she is using her silence as a form of protest. The two women, Alma and Elizabeth, are loaned the use of the doctor’s seaside [...]