The Director of Quantum of Solace – Marc Foster – brings us a zombie apocalypse movie that seems all to familiar, and all to different at the same time. Zombie films tend to follow the same narrative pattern; a virus breaks and an epidemic ensues, the major cities fall first, the supermarkets get ransacked and […]
When Blue Valentine came out in 2010, it was a very impressive piece of work and established an ‘almost’ classic contemporary version of Americana indie film-making and made whatever Derek Cianfrance did next a real centrepiece of attention. In his latest slice of pastel America, The Place Beyond the Pines, he is shifting and even […]
When the making of this film came to my attention, I first queried would the same basic idea work again? And more importantly is this guy really that unlucky? The past has seen some fantastic sequels like The Godfather 2 and The Empire Strike’s Back which have really been much bigger and bolder than […]
Anyone who has ever had a problem with rats in their home will tell you that it can be a pretty terrifying experience. Many nights spent lying awake in the dark (if you are brave enough to switch the light off that is) listening to scuttling, scratching and gnawing from an unseen invader. Horrible! So […]
When you think of the 1970s which images pop into your head? Glittery disco balls or flared trousers and tank tops, perhaps? There is a flipside to such rose-tinted recollections as the Seventies were also a time of drab brown interiors, too-tight suits and poorly chosen hair-cuts. All these latter items pop up in […]
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’ […]
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 […]
