Ken Loach

The Angels' Share

Loach and Laverty's latest suffers from attempts to attract all-comers

23 May 2012

Here persists the noble quest of Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty to create accessible, populist films about the lives of the UK’s so-called underclass. Unfortunately, The Angels’ Share is straining so hard to be accessible and populist that it…

Ken Loach's Route Irish doesn't shy away from asking some tough questions

Mark Womack and John Bishop in Paul Laverty-penned Iraq drama

10 Mar 2011

(15) 104min You can almost feel Ken Loach and Paul Laverty bracing themselves for another critical onslaught by the establishment. It happened to the director/screenwriter duo with their Irish civil war drama The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and it’s…

The search for truth: Paul Laverty on Route Irish

The screenwriter discusss his latest Ken Loach-directed project, an Iraq-based drama

2 Mar 2011

Waterboarding. A barbaric act of intolerable cruelty that should have stayed in the middle ages or a justifiable military tool in extricating information from the sworn enemy? Given what we now know of western forces’ sometimes inhumane tactics in Iraq…

Looking For Eric

Ken Loach does love, delusion and footballers

4 Aug 2009

Last chance to catch Ken Loach’s pleasing comedy of love, delusion and platitude-quoting retired footballers on the big screen. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 7-Mon 10 Aug.

Looking for Eric

11 Jun 2009

COMEDY/DRAMA Could Ken Loach finally be mellowing in his eighth decade? For years the socialist director has been British cinema’s most consistently political filmmaker, illuminating how the dreams of his working class characters are inevitably…

Raymond Mearns

22 Jan 2009

STAND-UP If you’ve only witnessed Raymond Mearns on roistering compering duty, then you’ve barely experienced the burly Glaswegian’s skill with a well-spun anecdote. ‘I feel I can get a lot better if I get the opportunity to do longer sets,’ he says…

Porn in the movies

13 Nov 2008

Platonic friends Zack and Miri one day decide that in the current economic climate the only way to diminish their respective personal debts is to make a pornographic film together, but the world of amateur porno filmmaking is not as easy as it seems. So…

DVD Round-up

6 Sep 2007

The stand-alone DVD rental and retail markets have been buzzing over what turned out to be a perfect summer for home entertainment. As we move into September, the box-set heavyweights move in to fill the hole in those darkening nights. You really can’t…