The Review - AT THE MOVIES with DAN CARRIER Published: 27 November 2008
Pick of the Indies
ROLL UP, roll up! This is your chance to book a ticket for a sneak preview of the fantastic new Daniel Craig film Defiance – and chip in a few quid for a good cause at the same time.
Craig, who has made a splash as 007, leads in this new film about Jewish Resistance fighters who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland for life in the Belarussian forests.
Here they established a community, saving more than 1,200 Jews, and taking the fight to the Germans. Craig is superb and the story deeply moving.
The screening, at the Swiss Cottage Odeon on January 8, is in aid of the Anna Freud Centre in Hampstead, which looks after the emotional wellbeing of children. For more information call 020 7794 2313, or go to www.annafreud.org.
Meanwhile, I suggest heading to the Kilburn Tricycle on December 9. There is a preview of the forthcoming documentary on the life and times of Hunter S Thompson, with a question and answer session with artist Ralph Steadman, a good friend of the Doctor. The film, Gonzo, is narrated by Johnny Depp and is packed with unseen footage, writings, interviews with friends and enemies, and is a general pow-wow on the brilliance of the much-lamented writer.
Director Alex Gibney made the superb Taxi To The Dark Side, the exposé of American servicemen’s behaviour in Afghanistan, and has done a good job here too.
I caught Gonzo at the London Film Festival and it brought back to life the hero of alternative journalism. It made me wish we had Hunter around today, to pick the flesh of the carcass of George W Bush and run the rule over Barack Obama’s election success.
For more information, call 020 7328 1000.