Mark Kermode on… Kathryn Bigelow, a stylish ruffler of feathers

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From vampire noir to Bin Laden, Point Break to Detroit, the first woman to win an Oscar for best director has never pulled her punches Watching new Jeff Nichols release The Bikeriders , starring Austin Butler and Tom Hardy as 60s Chicago greasers, I was reminded of two other movies: László Benedek’s 1953 Marlon Brando vehicle The Wild One , explicitly cited as an inspiration, and The Loveless , the 1981 feature debut of Kathryn Bigelow , the American film-maker (b.1951) who would go on to become the first woman to win a best director Oscar with her 2008 war drama The Hurt Locker . A symphony of leather-clad posing (with just a touch of Kenneth Anger ), The Loveless was a staple of the late-night circuit in the 80s, often on a double bill with David Lynch’s Eraserhead . Sharing directing credits with Monty Montgomery, Bigelow playfully deconstructed masculinity and machismo in a manner that was one part wry to two parts relish. I remember seeing The Loveless at the Phoenix in East
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Polite Society review – inventive action comedy soars, then falters

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Sundance film festival: We Are Lady Parts creator Nida Manzoor’s initially refreshing film follows two sisters torn apart by impending marriage but a big swing is taken that sinks what follows

Polite Society, the feature debut from British writer-director Nida Manzoor, traffics in several familiar lanes: the coming-of-age high school comedy, a Bollywood movie, the light gravity-bending and slo-mo shots of a martial arts flick. Its particular flavor, however, is immediately distinctive and winning – at least at first. The 104-minute film from the creator of the TV series We Are Lady Parts has one of the most refreshing first halves of a comedy that I’ve seen, with a promising set-up: genuine sibling concern over what an older sister’s engagement means for their bond and creative dreams, crossed with a teenage girl’s capacity for self-centered fantasies.

The younger sister in question is Ria Khan, played by delightful newcomer Priya Kansara, a London-based Pakistani Muslim girl who dreams of becoming one of Britain’s top stuntwoman (in one of the film’s more successful bits, Priya’s unanswered feelings-dump emails to Britain’s actual top stuntwoman double as both voiceover and diary.) She’s close to Lena (Umbrella Academy’s Ritu Arya) in the spiky, secret-language way of two sisters against the world – Lena, recently returned home after dropping out of art school, will protest and spar with Ria but ultimately still films the amateur stunt videos for Ria’s YouTube channel, to the gentle chagrin of their more traditional career-seeking parents (Shobu Kapoor and Jeff Mirza).

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