A Year in Film: 2017

I keep doing this, apparently. I'd thought I hadn't watched much this year, but apparently I saw quite a few movies despite all the other shenanigans I got up to, and I am going to inflict my meagre opinions on you. Firstly: yes, (and spoiler-free) I have seen The Last Jedi. I am of the camp that liked it (and divisive films has been […]

Silver Screen 2016 edition

Well crap, I did not get to see many films this year, owing to authorial and familial commitments, and so this is of a necessity a bit of a shotgun review. I did get to see a couple of Marvel films, about which I've been positive, and positive I remain. I speak of course of Captain America: Civil War and Doctor Strange. I agree […]

2015: A Year in (the very few) Film(s I actually got to see).

The dread condition known as "being a parent and having two jobs" continues to cramp my film watching style. Although there weren't that many films I desperately wanted to see that I didn't get a chance to. Perhaps "The Lobster". Although I I may have misunderstood what it's about. Certainly the scene with the giant lobster destroying Chicago didn't seem […]

Mad For Max

Mad Max: Fury Road is hands down my favourite film so far this year, and it's set a high bar to get over for the remaining six months. I have a somewhat odd record with the previous 3 films — the original film didn't interest me all that much — it lacks the gonzo post-apocalypse elements of the later […]

A Year in Film

Well I did this last year. That makes it a Tradition (1). This is going to be short, though. Looking back over 2014's cinema releases provokes the two unavoidable conclusions that, firstly, I really didn't get to see many films, and secondly, most of those were with my son, ergo pitched towards a certain demographic. What I didn't get to […]

Heterotrumpetry, part 2

…does not sound any better than the original. Anyway: Five Things that  they haven't filmed yet, but should Not necessarily Things from this year, admittedly, and my heart has been gladdened by news that Lauren Beukes' Zoo City is actually getting attention in this way, as is Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (and supposedly the rights […]

Mars, Hunger, Rice

… sounds like an avant garde sequel to Eat, Drink, Man, Woman but anyway. John Carter is good if not great. Beautiful visuals, definitely liking the Tharks (Willem Dafoe's (voicing of) Tars Tarkas in particular). Too much earth stuff at the beginning (there's a whole horse-chase bit that surely could have been cut) and the need […]

Crossed fingers for the red planet

Next Friday, John Carter opens in cinemas (in the UK anyway). There has been a lot of scuttlebutt (1) circulating about the PR for this film, or lack of same, much of it placing the blame on Disney who are releasing it(2). Certainly, although it's a project that various filmy sort of people have been talking about […]

Films v Games

Thieves later, films now. Or: not film. This is just something that I've started noticing, and it's hard to ignore. There's a lot of fuss at the moment about computer games eating into the profits of the film industry — just the same fuss, as MovieBob has pointed out in his Studio System set of articles, as […]

Conan 2, Hyperborean boogaloo

… anyway … Hmm, Ok, so I wasn't unqualifiedly in love with the movie, but Bob "Movie Bob" Chipman, whose opinions I normally chime with, says here: "Nobody really seems to give a damn about Conan the Barbarian" which would be a terrible thing to be true. It would be the death of a lot of potential fantasy films in […]