The ‘heroes’ of ‘Attack the Block’ barely warrant the label. They are a gang of South London street thugs, each one capable of generating hysterical headlines in the tabloid press. At the very start of the film, they harass a nurse called Sam (Jodie Whittaker) and relieve her of her jewellery at knife point. Little [...]
The writing partnership of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais is among the finest this country has ever produced. On television their impressive credentials include such classics as ‘The Likely Lads’, ‘Porridge’ and ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’. They have also created screenplays for the cinema, including two hugely entertaining films about the music business, ‘The Commitments’ [...]
If you are a committed urbanite who is edgy at just the thought of a trip into the countryside, then ‘Wake Wood’ should give you the shivers. The film is set in one of those backwater villages, plentiful in horror fiction, where the inhabitants have just a passing knowledge of modernity and strong links to [...]
With the conclusion of the ‘Twilight’ saga not far off, there is a whole audience of teens out there who will soon be facing a gaping void in their lives. What will these youngsters do when R-Patz finally hangs up his fangs and heads off in search of more adult roles? The makers of ‘I [...]
When compared to his first two films, ‘Rabbit Hole’ appears to be an unlikely choice for the director, John Cameron Mitchell. Both his previous efforts, ‘Shortbus’ and ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch,’ were outrageous and off the wall, not the sort of thing that you would take your mother to see unless she happens to [...]
I must love this job. Why else would I get up at 8.00 am on a chilly Sunday in December to attend a film preview in the company of hundreds of overexcited children? As I hid behind my 3D specs and shrunk into my cinema seat, the little tykes played hide and seek in the [...]
Outside of America, the Green Hornet is not as familiar a figure as other masked heroes such as the Lone Ranger who, like the Hornet, also began life on radio in the 1930s. Yet, the Hornet has since cropped up in a variety of media, from movie serials to comic books and even a short-lived [...]
How is this for an unlikely story? A working class Massachusetts woman, married with two kids, sees her brother sentenced to life imprisonment for a murder she is sure he did not commit. Despite having once dropped out of college, our heroine virtually abandons her domestic set-up, goes back to school and gains a law [...]
“There is also one of the most original and bizarrely happy deaths that I have ever seen in a film, one involving an awful lot of cream cakes.” ‘Loose Cannons’ is a comedy from Italy which is as light and frothy as the foam on a cappuccino and, ultimately, just as insubstantial. Any pleasure that [...]
‘Outcast’ is an attempt to blend the supernatural themes of myth, magic and monsters within a contemporary urban setting. It’s a tricky business to mix the extraordinary with the everyday and make it seem convincing. ‘Outcast’ just about pulls it off providing that you do not think about it for too long. Otherwise, you might [...]
