Comedy
Blinded By The Light
For the uninitiated the music of Bruce Springsteen could easily be adapted into any number of films. Pick a random Springsteen song and chances are it will tell a narrative. Of guys in cars, love lost, highways that disappear i...
Mid90s
Mid90s is labelled as a comedy from Jonah Hill. So you know what you’re going to get, right? Dick-jokes delivered by freaks and geeks, right? Wrong. It’s easy to sell Mid90s off the back of Hill’s success as an actor but as a f...
Come Back To The 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean
In a Woolworth’s, in a small town not far from where film star James Dean shot Giant, his fan club reunite for an Altman-esque exploration of life, love, hope, and fear. The film is based on a Ed Graczyk’s 1976 stage-pl...
Fighting With My Family
Professional Wrestling, all fake right? For the love of The Rock never say that to a wrestling fan. But while we’re at it, let’s make it clear, movies are fake as well. You still take endless enjoyment and entertainment out of ...
Kind Hearts & Coronets
Kind Hearts & Coronets is often cited as the perfect Ealing Comedy but it’s also the most atypical. Director Robert Hamer, who co-wrote much of the script, expressed his intention to make a film “not noticeably similar to a...
Ralph Breaks The Internet
Why have Disney brought up every major franchise going? From Marvel to LucasFilm Disney have swallowed them all up, why? Yes, well done to make more money, but based on this evidence to also allow all those products occupy, dom...
Blindspotting
Blindspotting is that optical illusion of looking at an image long enough to find it morphs into something else. You know the ones, is it two faces or a vase, is it a duck or a rabbit? Like those illusions the film incarnation ...
TAG
For one month every year, five highly-competitive friends hit the ground running in a no-holds barred game of tag that they’ve been playing since the first grade—risking their necks, their jobs, and their relationships to take ...
King Of Hearts
There’s something wonderfully whimsical about King of Heats. While the film was a flop on its initial release in 1966, its combination of anti-authoritarian humour, and its feel-good vibe, quickly gained it cult status. During ...
Game Night
Time was that Hollywood loved anything high concept. The basic idea of high concept is the ‘what if’ scenario. So, what if there’s a bomb on a bus, what if a shark terrorised a sea-side town, what if toys had lives of their own...
Lady Bird
There is a scene early on in Lady Bird which sees the titular character and her mother shopping in a thrift store looking for a dress for a school dance. They bicker, they snipe at each other and then they find the perfect dres...
It Came From The Desert
There’s a point, about ten minutes into It Came From The Desert when you’re gonna think ‘Ok I’m calling it’. But before your reach for the remote, just give it ten more minutes. Admittedly, if you’re no longer 14-years-old, it’...
Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Before seeing Kingsman: The Golden Circle you should know two things. One; the violence is toned down, a little. Two; the innuendos and crass humour have been turned up. With that in mind though it’s fair to say Kingsman: The G...
Logan Lucky
Logan Lucky is the film that tempted Steven Soderbergh out of retirement. It’s only fitting therefore that the film that convinced him be one that is firmly anti-establishment. Think Ocean’s Eleven written by The Coens with the...
The Big Sick
Remember 1995’s While You Were Sleeping? It started Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman being oh so Hollywood cute. Now imagine that with a bit of diversity and a warm, mushy heart at its centre and an often brutally honest look at...
Free Fire
You never quite know what you’re going to get from Free Fire director Ben Wheatley. From the kitchen sink drama of Down Terrace, the hallucinogenic A Field In England, the nightmarish Kill List and the social commentary of High...
The LEGO Batman Movie
Remember the best thing about The LEGO Movie? No, not Everything Is Awesome (but, yes, that was awesome) but the real scene stealer? Chris Pratt did an able job of carrying the movie it was Will Arnett’s perfect gravel voiced p...
La La Land
From its seven Oscar, and then six when it turned out Bonnie & Clyde had nearly robbed Moonlight, La La Land remained the true darling of this year’s awards season. Many sighted it was because Hollywood didn’t make musicals...
The Edge of Seventeen
Being a teenager sucks. It doesn’t matter whether you are a jock, a nerd, the overachiever or the kid in the back no one will talk to because they smell a little bit. It’s something John Hughes taught us with simple and honest ...
Fright Night
Revisiting films that you saw as a teenager is always an unnerving experience. Until you press play, the film exists in a hazy nostalgic hinterland. Was it really as good as you remember? Or will it turn out to be just so much...
