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For as long as I can remember, I have loved superhero movies. It is a love that has exhausted me and my wallet over recent years, and left me jaded despite films like Black Panther attempting to take the genre in new directions. Just a few days ago I would have been hesitant to say […]
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We return to Middle Earth one last time for the finale of Peter Jackson’s second epic trilogy.
Continue ReadingThe latest high-octane installment to the Fast and Furious series sees Vin Diesel return alongside his crew to battle new menace Owen Shaw, and proves the films are not yet out of gears. Since the release of The Fast and the Furious twelve years ago, the franchise has amassed a strong fan-base. While certainly successful, […]
Continue ReadingIn his third directorial outing, Jeff Nichols takes things back to the Arkansas of his childhood and his directorial début, Shotgun Stories. The nostalgia dial that they have in Hollywood production suites – the one that makes everything dappled and golden and just a little shaky – is set to eleven as the fourteen year-old […]
Continue ReadingAs we’ve all been told a thousand times before, you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. I’m So Excited, the latest film from Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, The Skin I Live In) also suggests that you can’t judge a film by its trailer. The Spanish title, Los Amantes Pasajeros, a pun meaning both […]
Continue ReadingSam Raimi once described his original The Evil Dead as The Three Stooges but with gore instead of custard pies. The 1981 version is the locus classicus of a myriad of horror tropes and clichés that have since been used and abused to death. Many horror films that have come since owe their hallmarks to […]
Continue ReadingSoon to be released on DVD, Silver Linings Playbook tests the limits of romantic comedy with its bleak and unflinching portrayal of mental illness. Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper star as Tiffany and Pat, two unemployed twenty-somethings struggling to rebuild their lives in the drab landscape of suburban America. Pat is a manic depressive former […]
Continue ReadingGoing by the trailers that have been released for the latest movie in the Die Hard franchise, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the film is simply a long series of explosions, car crashes and machine gun fire occasionally interrupted by predictable one-liners. You’d be forgiven because that’s exactly what it is. A Good Day […]
Continue ReadingWarm Bodies is a strange film. It was billed as a ‘romzomcom’, and its various taglines suggested it would predominantly be a comedy in the vein of Zombieland. This was misleading –there is a comedy element, but it’s ultimately a generic teenage romance in a post apocalyptic setting. The comedic moments, from the relatively subtle […]
Continue ReadingThe films of British ‘master of suspense’ Alfred Hitchcock are experiencing a revival of popularity, including the screening of a full retrospective at the BFI last year. Hitchcock has also been subject to biographical attentions, first in BBC/HBO collaboration The Girl (directed by Julian Jarrold and starring Toby Jones as Hitchcock), and now in Sacha […]
Continue ReadingWatching films is very rarely a flawless experience. As any film fan will know, you either have to brave the coughs, chewing noises, popcorn rustling and obnoxious kids in the back row, or else stay home and settle for a screen that seems pea-sized by comparison. The experience often doesn’t do justice to the movie […]
Continue ReadingOn Friday, in a fit of cinematic excess, I saw two films – first, Kathryn Bigelow’s gritty, controversial Zero Dark Thirty, followed by Ang Lee’s joyous adaptation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi. The two films, although tonally and visually at opposite ends of the spectrum, share several characteristics. Both are long: they clear two […]
Continue ReadingWhat Saw has become for “’torture porn”, Paranormal Activity has become for found footage. Both made a mark because they put a unique twist on the horror film (the former has a serial killer who never killed, and the latter used a Internet campaign that built hype and actually asked audiences to demand its release), […]
Continue ReadingIt’s rare that the conclusion of a film is completely encapsulated in its theatrical poster, and perhaps even rarer so for horror films, in which the suspense is most of the fun. Not so for Scott Derrickson’s new movie, Sinister, however. The same goes for the trailer: viewing this will pretty much reduce watching Sinister […]
Continue ReadingIf you go into Wallflower with low expectations you could be pleasantly surprised. It may not be a classic, but neither is it the debacle you might have expected from Emma Watson’s latest feature. This is true despite Watson’s non-performance; the film features continuous, poignant shots of her quirky hair, and even though these drag, […]
Continue ReadingSavage critique of the American Ideal? Instant classic? Yes, and very nearly. Killing Them Softly has the feel of a film on a mission. The opening scenes are filled with carefully arranged shots of New Orleans’ barren landscape, the dialogue sparse, the project’s biggest star nowhere to be seen. Like Napoleon (bear with me, I […]
Continue ReadingFor a film franchise like the Bourne trilogy, any variation on such a successful formula could be considered a risk. Getting rid of the character who gave his name to the entire franchise was a brave move by Universal. As a massive fan of those first three films, accustomed to the faces of Matt Damon […]
Continue ReadingPixar’s latest release, the Scottish themed fantasy adventure Brave, is unlikely to disappoint any of the fans of the studio who have grown up with such classics as Finding Nemo and Toy Story; it is amply endowed with all the qualities that audiences look for in a family movie. Its humor is never cutting and […]
Continue ReadingIt occurs to me that I have spent a lot of my life – over five hours of it in fact – in cinemas watching Nicholas Cage play a demonic character tooling about on a fast vehicle, first in 2007’s pretty bad Ghost Rider, then in last year’s not so bad Drive Angry, and now, […]
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