Category: Opinion

I am not, nor will I ever likely be, a professional film critic. I doubt you’ll see my name on the aggregation sites or listed in catchy grabs on film posters, and frankly that’s probably as okay with me as it might be for you. For a tick over a decade, however, I’ve been writing film reviews in a semi-serious manner on this blog here, which has morphed and changed throughout the period to become my escape from daily routine into an outlet for my thoughts on the films I…

Read More

When 2017’s second DC film release, Justice League, flopped hard (by blockbuster standards, that is) in cinemas, met with scathing criticism and an inbuilt laugh-track surrounding Henry Cavill’s digitally removed moustache, the embers of hope for the floundering DCEU lit by Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman appeared extinguished. Competing studio Marvel, meanwhile, obliterated almost every record known to man with the February release of Black Panther, arguably its most successful film to-date (until next month’s Avengers: Infinity War slaughters all before it) and reaffirming it as the template by which all…

Read More

This past weekend was a particularly horrific one for Hollywood’s image as an artist’s playground. Off the back of the #MeToo movement involving countless female actresses and participants in Hollywood’s uprising against not only sexual inequality but sexual aggression by men in positions of power, Kill Bill star Uma Thurman let loose in a scorched earth interview with the New York Times and recounted numerous times she was harassed and abused by producer Harvey Weinstein, and forced to endure physical and mental torture at the hands of superstar director Quentin…

Read More

Studios spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year letting us know about their upcoming film projects. Every year they try to lure us into the darkened cineplexes to watch their latest stuff, with everything from major tentpole blockbusters to low-budget indie dramas finding themselves the subject of the one thing nobody can resist watching: the film trailer. Sure, posters and cast interviews and weird websites can offer interest and intrigue as to the quality of a film, but by far the most finely tuned and well honed artform in…

Read More

Rumours have been swirling in recent weeks about the possible, impending, on-again-off-again buyout of Rupert Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox film studio to the massive Disney Corporation. At the time of publication I’ve read opinions that the deal is practically done, nowhere near done, might happen and then again might not, and at least one film critic suggesting the world would be swallowed into a black hole of corporate oblivion should it eventuate. Whether the deal is, isn’t or might be done isn’t the point of this article; rather it’s a…

Read More

Most of the time, Twitter is a painful, ghastly experience filled with hideous people and rancid opinions. Sometimes, though, there’s a moment where clarity breaks through the sheen of populist banter and a moment of pure wistful joy peeks through. It’s a fleeting moment, but one worth pursuing. It struck me as I was scrolling through my feed that there are people out there, right now as you’re reading this, who are watching an iconic film for the very first time. Strange as it may seem, not everyone is born…

Read More