You’re not alone if you don’t know much—or anything, for that matter—about the Peterloo Massacre of August 16th, 1819, when a confrontation between protestors in Manchester, England and the British cavalry turned violent. Peasants and tradespeople descended on a Manchester square to air their grievances, only to be met with armed resistance that resulted in well over a dozen deaths and hundreds of ... more >
ARCHIVES
Mike Leigh tells us the story of “Peterloo”
Now playing
Rory Kinnear, Maxine Peake and Neil Bell
Directed by Mike Leigh
Another year
Right out of the Cannes Festival lineup
Jim Broadbent, Ruth Sheen and Lesley Manville
Directed by Mike Leigh
How the mind wanders. I was getting ready to write about the latest Mike Leigh (pictured) movie since Another Year is coming out in December and it’s a film that deserves to be talked about. I saw it in good company at the Cannes Festival, and what a charming Year that was. In it, two colleagues have haphazardly managed to keep a friendship going for two decades. Thing is, they’re very ... more >
Happy-go-lucky
The new Mike Leigh is here!
Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman and Samuel Roukin
Directed by Mike Leigh
Nobody does color like the Brits (making up for the grayness of the skies, eh?). Just look at their clothes, their walls, their rose bushes, their glam rockers, their buses, their phone booths, their designers... And noone uses all that color to better effect than sweet Poppy in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky--her clashing outfits will make your eyes pop. To make the reds even redder and the ... more >
Secrets And Lies
A Mike Leigh classic
Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn and Phyllis Logan
Directed by Mike Leigh
Recently IFC began broadcasting Mike Leigh's "Secrets And Lies" (1996) again, giving us an opportunity at a second (or third, or fourth) look. Hortense Cumberbatch (Marianne Jean Baptiste) is a successful thirtysomething who longs for something--she's never met her biological mother (played by Brenda Blethyn) and was put up for adoption just after birth. Sometimes after the death of her adoptive ... more >