Articles By Peter Whittle
May 2013
All-too-predictable sci-fi and tired post-modern campery imply that original cinematic ideas are rare
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April 2013
The cult of the auteur lets Steven Soderbergh and Danny Boyle get away with self-indulgence
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March 2013
Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty deserve awards, Hitchcock is dull and Les Miserables in unbearable
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March 2013
'British comedy has gone from laughing with to laughing at: comedians no longer try to endear themselves to their audiences'
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January/February 2013
A glut of superb performances in 2012 reflects a rising general standard in the actor’s craft
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December 2012
Thomas Vinterberg's chilling new movie questions our assumptions about youthful innocence
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November 2012
Great acting cannot save Paul Thomas Anderson's ponderous new Scientology movie, The Master
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October 2012
Joe Wright's Karenina is well-scripted but too stagey and his Anna lacks depth
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September 2012
The attempt by the Left to present the nation's pride as a new, "post-imperial", patriotism, after the olympics just highlights their hypocrisy and opportunism
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September 2012
Vertigo is now the "Greatest Film Of All Time". Like Citizen Kane, it excites more admiration than love
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July/August 2012
Anti-patriotic liberals tell us that the BNP has hijacked the Union Jack but they are the only ones that make the connection between the flag and bigotry
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July/August 2012
In Cosmopolis, Robert Pattinson is aiming for mainstream leading man territory
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June 2012
Tim Burton serves up the same old tosh, but Sacha Baron Cohen still skewers dictators and liberals
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May 2012
Can you remember when you last heard a cinema audience laugh together at the same joke?
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April 2012
John Madden’s cinematic saga of late-life self-discovery in India is rightly a popular triumph
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April 2012
Culture has never been in better shape, boasts our leading arts broadcaster — but only if you focus on soap operas and sport
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March 2012
The arts have failed to respond adequately to 9/11. Stephen Daldry’s new film is no exception
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January/February 2012
The Iron Lady does its subject and her legacy proud—but I hope Lady Thatcher never sees it
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December 2011
If the French satirical magazine firebombed by Islamists had been British, our officials would have said nothing
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December 2011
Justin Kurzel’s tale of a suburban serial killer in Australia is grim, gruelling and all too believable
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November 2011
‘Forty years after the 1971 Immigration Act, the numbers arriving are unprecedented. We need a breathing space’
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November 2011
Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion is stylish and plausible, but its lack of spectacle means it won’t go viral
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October 2011
Woody Allen’s latest film requires a level of cultural knowledge rarely demanded by Hollywood
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September 2011
Pedro Almodóvar may be revered for his beautiful kitsch but this latest offering is just too shallow
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September 2011
For forty years multiculturalism enabled the authorities to ignore the effects of immigration in Woolwich. The riots have changed all that
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July/August 2011
Two new documentaries offer predictable views of nuclear weapons and financial meltdown
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June 2011
Emilio Estévez’s tedious movie about “finding oneself” loses its way en route to Santiago de Compostela
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May 2011
Failing arts organisations backed by taxpayers' money do not deserve an unlimited supply of hand-outs
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May 2011
Re-releases of two 1970s classics give modern audiences access to a real cinematic experience
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April 2011
Woody Allen’s new movie shows that his era is long since over
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April 2011
The soon-to-be Princess Catherine has shown she has the temperament and background to be an invaluable addition to the royal family
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April 2011
France's First Lady lives a pampered, cloistered existence and regularly abuses her privileged position
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March 2011
The young stars of Never Let Me Go do as well as they can in a movie that goes nowhere very slowly
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January/February 2011
Films like The King’s Speech can help to remedy the failure of our schools to teach history
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December 2010
The once-reviled Peeping Tom has been re-released into a world where torture and porn barely register
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November 2010
David Fincher’s movie about the rise of social networking is skilful, but the human touch is lacking
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November 2010
The British screenwriter's coarse emotionalism has seen his latest effort blow up in his face
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November 2010
The contribution of the creator of Yes, Minister to the debate over the future of the BBC is considered and convincing
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October 2010
Seeing Julia Roberts’s new cult movie in California was a less than edifying experience
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September 2010
Now on DVD, Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island is a diamond amid the seasonal rubbish
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July/August 2010
Woody Allen's new film revisits his old haunts on the Upper West Side. But it's a bit of a let-down
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June 2010
Films about psychoanalysis are ten a penny. Despite Kevin Spacey, this one doesn't raise a laugh
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June 2010
Though her role is poorly understood, the monarch has preserved the constitution for almost 60 years
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May 2010
Another new movie pokes fun at our fear of jihadists. But suicide bombers are not Dad’s Army
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May 2010
The liberal establishment maintains a shameful silence over widespread intolerance of homosexuality among Muslims
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April 2010
David Baddiel's new film, The Infidel, proves Ayatollah Khomeini was right: there is no humour in (or about) Islam
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March 2010
We are being bombarded by a legion of apocalyptic movies. Be afraid, be very afraid
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January/February 2010
Tom Ford’s moving adaptation of Isherwood’s novel avoids all the usual homosexual film clichés
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December 2009
The liberals don't like them, but films about vigilantism — like Law Abiding Citizen — are a huge success
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November 2009
There was one crucial thing missing at this year's Conservative Party Conference: the blue-rinse brigade
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November 2009
An award-winning art-house movie about a German feudal village is unexpectedly worthwhile
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October 2009
May '68 was supposed to be the start of something new in France. But why did it all go so wrong?
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September 2009
Dorian Gray may be easy on the eye but it fails to create a frisson
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July/August 2009
Lars von Trier’s latest exercise in nihilism may illuminate his own depression, but it isn’t art
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July/August 2009
‘Have you, like me, secretly felt in certain locales that you have been parachuted behind enemy lines?’
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June 2009
The film of Dan Brown's best-seller Angels and Demons is pure hokum
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May 2009
The type of journalist played by Russell Crowe in State of Play may already be history
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May 2009
Austerity and Abundance Special:
Compared to the squalor of the high street, shopping centres offer a comfortable refuge in hard times
Compared to the squalor of the high street, shopping centres offer a comfortable refuge in hard times
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April 2009
Bill Maher's anti-religious satire, Religulous, makes even an agnostic root for the other side
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March 2009
Eastwood's Gran Torino ticks all the boxes of a stereotypical immigration-is-good film
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February 2009
Being a victim of a "speciality offence" only reaffirmed my views about police PR
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February 2009
Valkyrie is a triumph for Tom Cruise, but The Reader disappoints
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January 2009
As Hollywood prepares for the annual Oscar bash, the signs are it isn't going to be a vintage year
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January 2009
There's not much to laugh at these days - especially if you're working class
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December 2008
The faultlines in the plot of Blindness, a new movie adaptation of a classic novel, make it somewhat absurd
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November 2008
A new German movie strips away the myths surrounding the Baader-Meinhof gang
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October 2008
The new movie version of Waugh's classic fails to match either the novel or the TV series
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September 2008
This sumptuous, confident telling of an 18th-century duchess's story may spark some welcome interest in our British history
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September 2008
When I tried to confront anti-social behaviour, nobody dared to back me up. So what's wrong with us?
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August 2008
This summer, we’ve seen the release of two more leftwing documentaries. Isn’t it about time the other side said its piece?
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July 2008
Far from sending out subliminal religious messages, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is an uncomplicated adaptation of a children's classic
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June 2008
Most of us, thankfully, still have relatively little direct experience of violent crime, although everyone but the most sheltered now suffers death by a thousand anti-social cuts, and the implicit threat they carry.
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June 2008
The latest literary biopic, The Edge of Love, presents Dylan Thomas as a dreary boorish philanderer, not a great writer
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About Peter Whittle
Peter Whittle is director of the New Culture Forum and author of Look at Me: Celebrating the Self in Modern Britain, Private Views: Voices from the Front Line of British Culture, Monarchy Matters and, most recently, Being British: What's Wrong With It? (Biteback).
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