Dead Souls review – Alex Cox rides into sunset with anti-Trump spaghetti western

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Rotterdam film festival The Repo Man director relocates Gogol’s surreal novella to the old west in what he says will be his final film English film-maker Alex Cox comes riding into town with this jauntily odd and surreal western which he has indicated will be his swansong, shot on the rugged plains of Almeria in Spain and also Arizona. Cox himself is the star – an elegant, dapper presence – and his co-writer is veteran spaghetti western actor Gianni Garko. The story has obvious relevance to contemporary America, and a flash-forward makes some of this clear. But it is also inspired by the classic novella of the same name by Nikolai Gogol, a mysterious parable of greed and vanity about a man who travels around offering to buy the souls of dead serfs on various estates in pre-revolutionary Russia so landowners can lower their tax bills, but plans to claim that they are still alive and therefore pass himself off as a wealthy man. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://i...
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From White Mischief to Bill & Ted, Joss Ackland was an actor of rare poise, range and pathos

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Many will remember Ackland best on the big screen as plummy defenders of the realm, but this supremely polished star could also handle action, comedy – and a lot of cold war Soviets

Joss Ackland’s elegant bearing, natural aplomb and English theatrical training meant that he never lacked for work on stage or screen, largely playing authority and establishment figures — although these movie roles were a bit ironised and sent up in the parts he got offered in the 90s and 00s (to his reported chagrin).

But growing up, I was aware of him only via that rich, mellifluous voice of his, like melted butterscotch, in an inordinate number of TV ads: his tones were received pronunciation with a dash of naughtiness and insinuation, that of a TV newsreader or bishop who loved to savour a fine wine, or a decent cigar.

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