REVIEW: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets makes imagination boring

The space opera is well on its way to becoming my least favourite genre; romcoms included.

Embracing a gaudily frenetic aesthetic may make for a great splash panel in a comic book but it rarely leads to satisfying cinema. Case in point: Luc Besson’s latest, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.…

REVIEW: The Big Sick – a relationship comedy where one party is out for the count

It’s been said that comedy is a natural response to tragedy; indeed, humour is proven to speed recovery.[none]Patch Adams can still fuck off, though.[/note]

Even so, taking perhaps the worst period of your life and turning it into a romcom, that most disposable of genres, is certainly a bold move.…

REVIEW: Dunkirk; or my thoughts on time & tide in Nolan’s masterpiece of immediacy and magnitude

Christopher Nolan is arguably the foremost British director of his generation, certainly when it comes to visionary blockbusters.

As such, it seems strange that he should follow the – literal – universality of 2014’s Interstellar with a film that seems, on the face of it, so self-contained; parochial even.…

PODCAST: Spider-Man: Homecoming [Electric Shadows]

Episode 26 of The Electric Shadows Podcast is a chat of two halves.

First up, Rob Daniel & myself discuss Spider-Man: Homecoming, everyone’s favourite webslinger’s first full feature in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Overall, we’re impressed, though there are a couple of sticky moments with the film, and we’re not just talking about Spidey’s web…

Next up, our intrepid ramblers in movies discuss the best films of 2017… so far.…

REVIEW: War for The Planet of the Apes is a hugely ambitious genre-jumping blockbuster

Is there anything more perfectly, absurdly cinematic than an ape riding on horseback through the snow?

“If man evolved from a monkey then why are there still monkey?” Reportedly a favoured argument of creationists, the answer to this question is relatively simple in layman’s terms: we went one way; they went another.…

RETROSPECTIVE: The Battle of Algiers, or The Revolution Will Not Be Simplified (Christopher Nolan Presents @ BFI)

The Battle of Algiers is perhaps the timeliest film about terrorism ever produced – from half a century ago.

When it was first released back in 1966, Gillo Pontecorvo’s depiction of the eponymous conflict was both praised and condemned for its scrupulously balanced presentation of terrorist and government atrocities during the French occupation of Algiers.…

REVIEW: Scribe is a well-made but slightly rote conspiracy thriller

Scribe (French: The Eavesdropper) is a classic conspiracy thriller in ambition if not in atmosphere.

François Cluzet plays Duval, a conscientious, middle-aged office worker who suffers a drink-exacerbated breakdown.

Out of work for two years and abandoned by his wife, he seeks not only an income but a framework to his life.…

REVIEW: The Beguiled (2017) replaces melodrama with subtle, sultry power play

We open on black, as we know all important films must.

When we fade in, it’s on a little girl in a checked skirt, wandering beneath the hanging moss of a long dark tunnel of oak trees. When she gently picks mushrooms from the dirt, we can almost hear their stalks part; so quiet and eerie is the locale.…

REVIEW: Spider-Man: Homecoming is a triumphant return for the now-adolescent wall-crawler

After taking on joint parenting duties with Sony, Marvel has gifted Spider-Man a new lease of life.

Set immediately after the events of last year’s Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming drops over-enthusiastic fifteen-year-old Peter Parker (Tom Holland) back into high school.…

PODCAST: Oliver Stone’s JFK – 25th Anniversary [Electric Shadows]

Six months in the making, Episode 25 of The Electric Shadows Podcast is a special looking at Oliver Stone’s 1991 classic, JFK.

Over an epic running time almost matching the duration of the film itself, myself, Rob Daniel, and special guest Ian Bird dissect the merits and legacy of Stone’s controversial movie.…