Compartment No. 6 (2021)
Where’s it on? Cinemas nationwide, including BFI Southbank
Unexpected romance plays out to the languorous rhythms of a long-distance train journey in this arthouse charmer. A Finnish archaeology student studying in Moscow sets off on her own on the epic journey to Murmansk, in the far north-west of Russia. She wants to check out some ancient petroglyphs – something the boorish miner sharing her compartment openly sniggers at. He doesn’t seem like romance material, but the charm of Juho Kuosmanen’s Linklater-ish brief-encounter drama is how it slowly opens the door to just that.
Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood (2022)
Where’s it on? Netflix
Speaking of Linklater, his latest snuck onto Netflix last week without due fanfare and to some middling reviews. You can safely ignore the latter: inspired by his own late-1960s boyhood growing up in Houston at the time of the space race, this pop culture and local history-soaked autobiographical fantasia is as captivating as his best. It makes use of the same rotoscope animation technique, involving tracing over real footage, that he used on Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006).
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Where’s it on? BFI Player
A space rocket crash lands in an English field, bringing who knows what with it, in this classic British sci-fi horror. The story is from the unrivalled imagination of screenwriter Nigel Kneale, first dramatised as a BBC serial before Hammer Films picked it up for a big-screen treatment – launching their reputation for chills in the process. It’s been added to BFI Player this week alongside Quatermass 2, the first ever numbered sequel, and the Kneale-scripted The Abominable Snowman (both 1957).
In Cold Blood (1967)
Where’s it on? Blu-ray
During a bungled robbery in a Kansas farming community in 1959, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock killed a family of four. In 1966, Truman Capote wrote a book about it. And the following year, Richard Brooks directed this dramatised version – a milestone of the true crime genre on screen, told with documentary-like rigour and chilling frankness. One of those late 60s Hollywood films that pushed the envelope in terms of adult themes, it’s gripping drama, beautifully shot in black and white by the legendary Conrad Hall.
Easter Parade (1948)
Where’s it on? BBC2, Sunday, 12.20pm
Unlike the industrial machine that is the Christmas film genre, precious few feature films have an Easter focus unless they’re tackling the Christ story. That gives this Fred Astaire-Judy Garland musical from MGM an assured place in the schedules at this time of year. Set in 1912, the action is sandwiched between two Easter Day parades, with Astaire as Broadway dancing star and Garland as his new protégé. Filling it out are some of Irving Berlin’s greatest songs, including ‘Stepping out with My Baby’ and ‘We’re a Couple of Swells’.
