Left Field Cinema

Tom Hooper's masterful mini series John Adams catalogues the highs and lows of the American revolution from the perspective of the nation's second President.

Written and presented by Mike Dawson.

Peter Fonda "blew it" with the western masterpiece that never found an audience.  The Hired Hand is an underrated hypnotic film about the love between a man and his wife and between two best friends.

Written by Wilson McLachlan.  Additions by Mike Dawson.

Presented by Mike Dawson.

Coming inbetween Annie Hall and Manhattan, Interiors is an often overlooked, incredibly bleak film homage to Ignmar Bergman from director Woody Allen.  Perhaps the most serious drama of his directorial career.

Written by Wilson McLachlan. Additions written by Mike Dawson.

Presented by Mike Dawson.

The best film of 2011 reviewed, writer/director Malick's most ambitious and unorthodox film to date demonstrates that the highest standards of artistic excellence can still be found in American cinema. 

Written and presented by Mike Dawson.

Find out which films make numbers 5-1 of the Left Field Cinema Top Ten of 2011.

Written and presented by Mike Dawson.

Find out which films made numbers 10-6 of the top ten films of 2011.

Written and presented by Mike Dawson.

Part two of two.  Looking ahead to the films of 2012 with reviews of Bela Tarr's final film The Turin Horse; the latest offering from the Romanian New Wave Adrian Sitaru's Best Intentions; Ed Gass-Donnelly's original Canadian thriller Small Town Murder Songs; Olias Barco's blacker than black comedy Kill Me Please and Paula Markovitch's charming drama The Prize.

Written and presented by Mike Dawson. 

Part one of two.  Looking ahead to films that will hopefully get UK cinema releases in the next twelve months, Steve McQueen's dissapointing Shame; Claudio Cupellini's Italian gangster flick A Quiet Life; Koen Mortier's purgatorial thriller 22nd of May; Rick Alverson's second American feature film New Jerusalem; and Valerie Massadian's slice of natural life Nana.

Written and presented by Mike Dawson.

The first episode in a new Left Field Cinema series examining the constituent elements of film, starting with that most historically embedded of guides - music.

Written and presented by Mike Dawson.

Barry Norman and I seem to be the only two human beings on the planet who rather like Mimi Leder's The Peacemaker (1997).  It might be a by-the-numbers action thriller, Nicole Kidman might have terrible hair and George Clooney might just be playing Doug Ross with a gun.  But it does what it does with a uniquely mean spirted edge. 

Written and presented by Mike Dawson.