Film

Imagine The Inbetweeners if they were an aspiring jangly rock quintet living in Manchester in 1990. The result would be Spike Island.The film tells the story of a gang of lads who just want to get off with girls, be in a band and meet their idols, The Stone Roses at the latter band’s Spike…

It’s easy to write about a film that was a bit more average than you’d expected; it’s much, much more difficult writing about a film like this, without making it sound like you are just gushing through a stream of superlatives between cast names and plot points. What Christopher Nolan has done with Interstellar is…

By Erica Enriquez Based on the novel by Cecelia Ahern (who also wrote P.S I Love You), Love, Rosie is a British film directed by Christian Ditter, about two best friends, Rosie Dunne (Lily Collins) and Alex Stewart (Sam Claflin), who, despite their mutual attraction for each other, go their separate ways after high school,…

Living Is Easy With Eyes Closed is a Spanish film inspired by the iconic lyrics from “Strawberry Fields Forever”. I stumbled across at the cinemas last week and attended on title alone. As a Beatles fan I wasn’t disappointed, but how about as a film fan? It just so happened that in my spontaneous choice…

The James Brown biopic, Get On Up captures the very essence of the legendary, Godfather of Soul. It is a frenzied account that goes through story arcs like some people change clean clothes. But first and foremost is the amazing music by a true vanguard and the electric and infectious performance by Chadwick Boseman (42)….

Based on a true story, it’s 1984 and mining communities across Britain are in crisis. The Thatcher government had announced mass pit closures and thousands of miners would lose their jobs. As a result, the miners went on a yearlong strike causing many families to struggle financially. Seeing similarities between this struggle and the one…

The last major film Keanu Reeves starred in was the abysmal 47 Ronin, a project which took Keanu out of his element and demanded from him more than he could actually give. David Leitch and Chad Stahelski’s John Wick is an entirely different story, playing to Reeves’ strengths and giving him his best role in…

Nicholas Sparks’ books – just like the film adaptions of his novels – are really only for hopeless romantics. They often require a suspension of disbelief and cynicism. But if the viewer can set these things aside then they’ll often find a pleasant yet predictable romantic drama and tearjerker. The Best Of Me is the…

In a world dominated by sensationalist news, Kill The Messenger is part biopic part political thriller part ethically charged drama, that follows the story of investigative journalist Gary Webb and his attempts at uncovering the US Government and CIA’s involvement with Nicaraguan drug cartels. Adapted from the book of the same name by Nick Schou…

This Is Where I Leave You is the new dramedy from Director Shawn Levy, who many not be a name most are familiar with, but chances are you’ve seen one of his films. Through his massive hits like Night at the Museum, Just Married, Cheaper By The Dozen, Pink Panther and their sequels, his films have…

It is 1945. WWII is coming to an end and an American army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) is leading his tank crew (Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal) through Germany. After one of their gunners is killed in battle, they are given a desk clerk named Norman (Logan Lerman) as his replacement. Terrified…

Apparently the world of jazz musicianship is particularly vicious if Whiplash is anything to go by, a “Full Metal Jacket at Julliard” type thriller that comes courtesy of producer Jason Blum, whose credits include such scarers as Insidious, Paranormal Activity and Sinister. Though it seems strange that a producer best known for his work in the horror…

When you realise South Park is on its eighteenth season, it kind of boggles the mind. Not just because it makes you feel old – but because (at least in my case) you realise that you’ve actually been watching it for the last eighteen years. A show that started out full of little more than…

“Do you suffer from optimism?”  The Wipers Times asks in its distinctly and irreverently British portrayal of the First World War and ‘The Wipers Times’, a satirical newspaper created in the trenches.  Contrasting the humour of the paper with the ugly reality of fighting in Ypres and the Somme, this unique BBC film captures the…

What would it be like to wake up each morning not knowing who you are? What if you could not recognise your loved ones? How would it feel to completely forget over a decade of your life? These are the very intriguing questions posed by the central concept of Before I Go to Sleep. This…

Australian film Son of a Gun looks at a number of different themes, primarily it’s a heist movie but it also examines the desire for a stable family life and the father/son and brother/brother relationships that can evolve in prison. Loyalty, honour and morality are all tested and questioned and all served up with a…

Liam Neeson had a career revival back in 2008 film Taken, showing the world that his scowl and straight-faced determination naturally lends itself to playing the kind of outside-the-law American hero he has now been sort of typecast in to. In Scott Frank’s A Walk Among The Tombstones, Neeson adapts to a similar role, albeit…

Melissa McCarthy is Tammy and she is having a bad day. On her way to work, she hits a deer and wrecks her car. Because she is late, her boss Keith (Falcone) fires her. She arrives home to find her husband Greg (Faxon) having a romantic meal with neighbour Missi (Collette). She leaves Greg to…

When all you’ve known is wealth and privilege, it’s a long fall from the top of the social ladder. But some do fall, and that’s exactly what happened to Jackie O’s aunt and cousin, Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale (Edie) and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale (Little Edie). The demise of two eccentric yet ultimately enigmatic…

Hector & The Search For Happiness is about a psychiatrist who sets out on an overseas journey in order to find joy. The idea is hardly a new one, especially as the self-help genre has already seen the likes of Eat Pray Love and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, among others. Unfortunately, Hector’s story…

Do a quick Google search on the sleepy French village of Bugarach and you’ll find that its economy “is based on agriculture and tourism”. Sounds pretty quaint and quiet, right? You’d be right to think so. In Sergi Cameron and Ventura Durall’s documentary, also called Bugarach, the town looks like the set of Chocolat. When word…

By Nazia Hafiz Cheerleading’s become more than some spirited encouragement from a bunch of pretty young things, waving their pom poms at football sidelines. Founders of the art form come sport, Varsity, have transformed cheerleading into the highly disciplined and competitive exercise it is today, and just to prove a point, have released a no…

By Jessica Shields If anything can be said about Kevin Smith, it’s that he’s a man of his word. Smith and long-time collaborator Scott Mosier stoner-rambled their way through an episode of their podcast, Smodcast, in which they dissected a fake Gumtree ad about a rent-free room for let in Brighton, UK. The only conditions…

There have been plenty of movies made about the infamous character of Dracula, most of which centre around his blood-sucking, bat shape shifting, and supernatural ways. There have been less films made that focus on his beginnings and how he came to be this villainous monster, and even less that have some grain of truth…

The handsome, throwback supernatural-horror that made The Conjuring such a big hit last year was expected to translate well into spin-off Annabelle, with the ground work laid nice and smooth from the doll’s appearance in the critically acclaimed James Wan film. What Wan did with The Conjuring last year was nothing short of incredible, with…

Writing a review for Gone Girl without spoiling the film in some way feels nearly impossible. So before I continue, I’d like to take this moment to issue a public service announcement: if you have neither read the book, nor seen the film, do not read this review. Do not read any reviews. Just run,…

Based off the acclaimed webisode series written and directed by Kit Williamson, Eastsiders, follows the ups and downs of gay couple Cal and Thom’s relationship, which has been rocked by Thom’s recent infidelity. The dark comedy set and filmed in Silverlake California chooses to shy away from the couple’s orientation as a major plot driver,…

Billy Kent’s latest offering HairBrained, is a take on the college admission coming-of-age tale. It stars Brendan Fraser as self-confessed ‘late bloomer’, Leo Searly and Alex Wolff (from Nickelodeon’s Naked Brothers Band) as child prodigy Eli Pettifog. The title refers to Eli’s extraordinary mass of hair that he claims, “protects his brain.” It is a…

While not exactly a superhero film, The Equalizer plays close to common caricatures which have made these genre movies some of the most loved forms of escapism in cinema history. Denzel Washington’s character Robert McCall is a man of seemingly modest living by day, and by night (the majority of the film takes place after…

La Petite Mort translated as The Little Death, is a French euphemism for orgasm, referring to the post-orgasmic state of consciousness some people go through after a sexual experience. Josh Lawson’s (Any Questions for Ben?, Anchorman 2) low budget directorial debut based on this intriguing concept, is an extension of a short film he’d put…