I was listening to an introduction to Wild Horse Nine, where the presenter discussed the connection between Martin McDonagh and The Coen Brothers. Having watched this excellent comedy thriller, I can understand what he was saying. McDonagh, who gave us the brilliant In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin, has…
Tag: reviews
Wicker
It is a week for the bizarre. We have I Love Boosters out at the same time as Wicker, another film that defines description. This British comedy is as strange as it gets and could be described as a mature equivalent of Pinocchio. Filled with top names, it goes back to those days when bawdy…
Street Fighter
Back in 1994, a memorably bad big-screen version of the video game Street Fighter starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue. It was an all-time low in adaptations that turned the arcade games we grew up with into movies. The major issue was that it didn’t look anything like the game, but more like a…
Heart Of The Beast
Movies that involve dogs usually give me shivers. They are often sickly sentimental with an obvious full-on emotional ending, or just plain annoying. Cujo was an exception, but that was a dog with rabies, and Channing Tatum’s 2022 Dog managed to avoid the usual potholes. Now we have Heart of the Beast, a survival movie…
Shaun The Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom
50 years ago, Aardman Animations burst onto screens in 1976 when a plastacine character named Morph appeared on the art programme Take Hart. Since then, the studio has grown, not only in size but in reputation, with creations like Wallace and Gromit, winning Oscars and hitting the big screen with movies like Chicken Run. One…
One Night Only
In Hollywood, a web platform lets writers submit their work for executives to vote on the best unproduced screenplays. In the past, films like Juno and The Imitation Game topped the site, so we are looking at quality work that eventually was made. I have a question. How did One Night Only get to be…
Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma
The slasher horrors of the 80s are often easy targets to ridicule due to the ridiculousness of their premises, particularly the Friday the 13th series. Yet no one has ever approached the popular horrors as a way to deal with the nature of the films, the sexual chaos of the franchise or even how they…
Scary Movie
The legendary film critic Barry Norman once said of a movie, “Laugh? I thought I’d never start!” That is exactly how I felt about this sixth instalment of the spoof comedy (?) that I thought had died a death after number 5 back in 2013. Now the Wayans, who made the first two films, are…
The Sheep Detectives
Never judge a book by its cover. When you hear of a title like The Sheep Detectives, you may think that it is going to be dire, another kids’ movie that adults will have to endure to keep their little ones quiet. Well, think again. The Sheep Detectives is one of the big surprises this…
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…
The Testament Of Ann Lee
One of the things about watching movies is that you do get to learn quite a bit about lives you had no idea about. Take The Testament of Ann Lee, the new film from the husband and wife team behind The Brutalist. They have taken the story of a woman who founded a religious group…
The Secret Agent
Movies can deliver a straightforward plot with very little in terms of themes or storytelling experimentation, while others go all out to make the experience worthwhile. The Secret Agent, a near-on three hour Brazilian movie from writer and director Kleber Mendonça Filho, does the latter. You think it is one thing, then it throws in…
