Still blazing after all these years: Mel Brooks at 100

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The director of The Producers hits his century as a uniquely beloved entertainer who embodies his conviction that ‘comedy is the opposite of death’ Mel Brooks’ story is that of the US and Jews and American Jewish comedy. He was born on the kitchen table of a tenement in Brooklyn a century ago in the same month Marilyn Monroe made her own entrance on the opposite coast. The son of European immigrants, Brooks was brought up by his mother after his father died when Melvin was just two years old. He was a small, sickly child and the youngest of four brothers, perhaps an explanation for an almost pathological desire for attention. In the words of his colleague Larry Gelbart : “Mel thought when he got slapped in the ass by the doctor who delivered him that was applause, and he has not stopped performing since.” In his youth, Brooks’ preferred method of making a noise was playing the drums and he was actually taught the instrument by Buddy Rich. Neither could possibly have known at the time t...
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Steel Life review – a journey through the poisoned majesty of Peru

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This vivid documentary follows a train from the Andes to Port of Callao on the Pacific coast, capturing rich life and toxic industrial legacies along the way

Carrying more than 1,000 tonnes of metal, a freight train heads down the Peruvian Central Railway, a route that stretches from the Andean city of Cerro de Pasco, one of the highest in the world, to the Port of Callao on the Pacific coast. Structured around this journey, Manuel Bauer’s documentary debut weaves a vivid tapestry of experiences that captures the complex sociopolitical fabric of contemporary Peru.

Dominating these intimate anecdotes, which are spread across regions, is the influence of the mining industry. Manuel, a middle-aged native of Cerro de Pasco, speaks of how his friends and relatives have either died of lead poisoning or chosen to migrate to other towns. Health concerns trouble not only the older population of Peru, but also the children who grow up amid contamination. Here disease and early death are more than facts of life: they emerge as a disturbing kind of intergenerational inheritance.

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