There’s something about the technology-driven dystopias of JG Ballard that appeal to a certain breed of director.
Steven Spielberg’s mainstream adaptation of Empire of the Sun is ironically something of an oddity of an oeuvre encapsulated by the steely paraphilia of David Cronenberg’s Crash.…
Here’s the latest installment of the Electric Shadows podcast, which is hosted by myself and the wonderful Mr. Rob Daniel. There’s a link to his site, the titular Electric Shadows, in the toolbar to the right. This week we’re discussing the unsurprising disappointment that was Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice – Ultimate Edition – the original has, in our mutual loathing of it, probably been our most discussed film this year – and our mutual, if critical, admiration for Nicholas Winding Refn’s latest, flawed masterpiece The Neon Demon.
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Space is no longer the final frontier in cinema. In fact it’s a bit passé.
Where’s Kubrick’s star-child once evoked the wonder of journeying into the unknown, science fiction has since placed its emphasis more on the inherent risks of interstellar travel.…
How many stage magic heist films do we need?
When Now You See Me was released back in 2013, the conceit at least seemed original: a quartet of Robin Hood magicians, known as the Four Horsemen, stage (literally) a series of audacious robberies targeted at the rich and unethical.…
Has any film provoked as big a backlash before its release as the new Ghostbusters?
Sure, Batman V Superman wasn’t exactly eagerly awaited — not least on this very site (and associated podcast) — but it seemed no sooner had this film been announced than the Internet rose up and declared, “Ain’t no bitches gonna hunt no ghosts” (actual quote).…
How do you a find a new take on not one but two of the most imitated figures in modern history?
From Forrest Gump to Bubba Ho-Tep, Secret Honour to X-Men: Days of Future Past, not to mention the cavalcade of films that bear their names, Elvis Presley and Richard Nixon are probably better known to us as personas than in person; partly by design, of course. …
They’ve back, just when we might have dared to hope that we were safe the next wave of big-budget blockbusters with meaningless subtitles sweeps into cinemas.
Just as Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice failed to set the world alight by treating its material with undue reverence, Independence Day: Resurgence fails to set the world alight — while narratively doing exactly that — by treating its material with no reverence whatsoever.…
Tale of Tales is The Brothers Grimm as Terry Gilliam should have made it.
Inspired by Giambattista Basile’s Pentamerone — from which the film gets its name — and directed by Gomorrah’s Matteo Garone, it weaves together three archetypal fairytales: the jovial king (John C.
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Adult Life Skills is one of those low-key, quirky dramedies that, if executed poorly, has the potential to be be near enough unwatchable.
Fortunately, as executed by first-time writer-director Rachel Tunnard and her more than able cast, the film is instead a mopey, mirthful study of making magic out of mundanity.
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Like its predecessor, Only God Forgives, Danish director Nicholas Winding Refn’s latest, The Neon Demon, was also booed at Cannes. Unlike its predecessor, only the film’s final third might merit any such reaction.
The film starts as a glossy, lurid scrutiny of beauty and what it elicits.
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