Steven Spielberg is, without a doubt, one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. His CV is littered with great movies, and he’s been at the top of his game ever since his debut feature, Duel, back in 1971. What gets people excited is his sci-fi films, after such monster smashes as Close Encounters of…
Tag: drama
Tuner
It’s not that often you see a film like Tuner. A cross-genre drama that is part romance, part heist movie, with more than a whiff of 70s paranoia thriller about it. It takes a simple yet effective premise and allows both the scenario and the character development to flesh out. At the same time, it…
Backrooms
It’s not often that a major film studio would hand over a $10 million movie to a 19-year-old director fresh out of high school. Yet that is exactly what A24 have done with Backrooms, based on a YouTube series by director Kane Parsons. It seems to have paid off, as this intriguing, often uncomfortable cross-genre…
The Christophers
Given that director Steven Soderbergh announced his retirement from filmmaking in 2013, he has not worked since. In the past year, he has made four films: the creepy horror Presence, the underrated and underseen Black Bag, and, still to come, a documentary, John Lennon: The Last Interview. His latest, The Christophers, is probably his quietest…
The Devil Wears Prada 2
Some films don’t have sequels for a reason. The original works as a standalone, and it doesn’t need another film. In most cases, the sequel brings nothing to the table and thus causes a small backlash to the film that first captured everyone’s imagination. I can safely say that The Devil Wears Prada, a mid-budget…
Michael
There have been many biopics about musicians over the years. Some have worked, others haven’t. The likes of Rocketman, the story of Elton John, worked because, although it was part fantasy, it wasn’t afraid to go to the darker places in John’s life. The same can be said of Better Man, the Robbie Williams story,…
California Schemin’
James McAvoy has established himself as a reliable actor, whose credits have included The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, Atonement and Split. Now he’s taking on his next challenge, behind the camera as director of California Schemin’, based on the incredible true story of how two Dundee lads took on the record industry. Based…
The Drama
Could film-makers please stop making anxiety-ridden, packed movies, as my nerves cannot cope anymore. With films like Marty Supreme and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You out in the world, I often leave the cinema frazzled. Now we can add The Drama to the collection. It was certainly the worst of the group, starting…
The Magic Faraway Tree
Can we say all hail, Simon Farnaby? The performer and writer who started life in Horrible Histories and went on to co-write the BBC comedy Ghosts has taken the family film and breathed no life into it. Having co-written Paddington 2 and Wonka, he has now taken a beloved series of books by Enid Blyton,…
Project Hail Mary
Sci-fi is a hard genre to crack. They can be just silly, as proven with this year’s Mercy, or far too cerebral, as with Interstellar. Thankfully, writer Andy Weir has found that balance of science and fun. His previous film outing for one of his novels, The Martian, turned out to be Ridley Scott’s lightest…
Mother’s Pride
If there is a sub-genre that we have become very good at, it’s the feel-good comedy/drama. A film that takes a traditionally British story, throws in a bunch of likeable characters, a sprinkle of issues and incidents, then stirs them up in a pot and sees what sticks. It started, I guess, with films like…
How To Make A Killing
The Coen Brothers made one massive misstep in their career: remaking the Ealing comedy The Ladykillers. Trying to capture the warmth and the darkness of the classic 1952 movie was impossible, even for experienced filmmakers. Which is why going into How To Make a Killing was done with trepidation, because even though this is not…
Stu Loves Film 