Phil Hoad

Deviant obsessions: how David Lynch predicted our fragmented times

His work is freaky and frightening, yet today the Twin Peaks director cuts an almost cosy figure. As he turns 77 – a number of significance – we explore how real life caught up with his dark visions eyond his holiness Saint Keanu, if there is another…

‘I want to show France who we are’: the slum influencer with his sights on parliament

Influence is not a word readily associated with St Jacques, the Gypsy quarter of the city of Perpignan. Yet, on a recent chilly night shortly before 8pm, the ineffable hand of influence is behind an outbreak of street theatre on the plane tree-lined…

Cat and Mouse

With dozens of felines turning up dead around London, a pair of pet detectives set out to prove it was the work of a serial killer. By Phil Hoad “You have to look!” Johnnie Walker commanded. “Closing your eyes isn’t going to change anything.…

'People are caught up in magical thinking': was the oldest woman in the world a fraud?

If time makes fools of us all, you couldn’t blame André-François Raffray for taking it more personally than most. In 1965, Raffray, a lawyer in the southern French city of Arles, thought he had hit on the real-estate version of a sure thing. The…

The soul of Perpignan: how a Gypsy community halted the bulldozers

Never schedule a demolition in St Jacques for the afternoon. Nothing much stirs in the morning in this mainly Gypsy neighbourhood of Perpignan, south-west France, but by 4pm on 27 July last year, when the diggers turned up at Place du Puig, the…

'They didn't look old enough': who filled a French art gallery with fakes?

Odette Traby was dying. It was the summer of 2016 and the sun baked the terracotta roofs of her hometown, Elne, in the south of France, as she lay in bed. Weeks earlier, the 78-year-old had been diagnosed with stage IV cancer. This grande dame of…

Corrupt, dangerous and brutal to its poor – but is Marseille the future of France?

Mehdi Remadnia was number one. Cut down by 15 bullets on 7 February, out on the western edge of Marseille, the 34-year-old became the first casualty of the city’s drug wars in 2017. Known as the “Bear of Font Vert” (Font Vert being the cité, or…

After The Maltese Falcon: how film noir took flight

“I’m so tired. So tired of lying, making up lies, not knowing what is a lie, and what is the truth.” There, in 10 seconds of The Maltese Falcon – Mary Astor still gaming as she “comes clean” to Humphrey Bogart, he swooping in to kiss those lying…

Barry Lyndon, Euro-cynic

Web exclusive The BFI’s re-release of Barry Lyndon arrives most fortuitously – with the UK, as at the start of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, “in a state of great excitement”. That is thanks of course to our freshly signed divorce from Europe, rather…

Whatever happened to Hollywood's really evil villains?

Time was when the movie villain was stuck in second fiddle. Their primary role: to devise over-elaborate – and ultimately unsuccessful – ways to kill the hero. But then, somewhere along the line, the bad guys won. Last Christmas, Vader fanboy Kylo…

Premiere on a plane: how Nollywood is aiming mile-high

Nollywood’s arrival has been delayed. Our black Peugeot tries to muscle its way into the three gridlocked lanes of tetchy Lagos traffic leading to the airport terminal. It has taken us nearly two hours to travel 3km to the venue for the premiere of…

Meet China's La Peikang, the movie world's most powerful man

“I am a member of that legendary species: the nouveau riche. Before, you had the Japanese, the Saudis, the Russians. And now it’s me.” The Chinese banker with the line in Boris Johnson buffoonery has the room falling about with laughter, but his game…

Welcome to the naked city: sun, swingers and very little shoplifting

We were born naked, but no one shows you the way back. I’ve just paid my €8 and walked through the pedestrian gate at Cap d’Agde’s world-famous naturist resort in the south of France. What now? A stark forecourt stretches out imposingly ahead. Is…

'Acting's stupid: I'm going hunting!' – filming Theeb, the first Bedouin western

One of Arabic cinema’s brightest new hopes could have ended up a bleached skeleton on a dune. British-born Jordanian Naji Abu Nowar, preparing for his debut film, had been learning Bedouin ways in the southern Jordan desert. “I got pretty arrogant a…

Mission impenetrable: are Hollywood blockbusters losing the plot?

Forty-five minutes into the seventh Fast & Furious movie, Vin Diesel drives towards a huge precipice. The audience have only the faintest idea why he’s there. Ditto why they have paraglided their cars into Azerbaijan. Is it Azerbaijan? It’s probably…

From Watch Dogs to GTA V, why 'video games are going to reshape our cities'

On 16 November 2009, police found the distended body of a 60-year-old man in the Chicago river. It was Michael Scott, president of the Chicago Board of Education. A single, close-range gunshot to the left temple suggested foul play. That is, until a…

The Portugal surf lodge riding a new wave

There comes a time in every surfer's life when he still thinks he's (legendary former world champ) Kelly Slater, but it's actually all gone a bit Nigel Slater. This thought occurs to me as I'm hoisting the bodyboard-sized caramel twirl off the top of…

Dubai may be one of the wealthiest parts of the world, but it's never had a film industry - until now. Phil Hoad reports on the production of its first ever big budget movie

"Are you fucking crazy?" A whole film crew looks aghast as its producer sprints alone up a section of empty motorway, waving his arms and screaming. It's 11pm, and someone is drooping. The crane arm of a cherry-picker platform tilts nonchalantlyover…

The age of gods and princes on the silver screen has passed, as we turn instead to fleeting celebrity and digital thrills. Phil Hoad tells of how we conspired to kill the stars

After he assailed Oprah Winfrey's couch in May 2005, you have to hope Tom Cruise mused on the meaning of change. When he imagined his outbreak of zaniness, maybe it played in his head like a bar scene from Cocktail; but the derision with which the…

The Russians are coming!

It's the apocalypse, and I'm drunk. A howling wind machine is chucking chairs and food down the room like passengers down the deck of James Cameron's Titanic, and threatening to do the same to the scrum of extras in front of…