FEATURE: My 2020 in Cinema

PSA: Unlike with this year’s roundup on the Movie Robcast, I’ve decided not to include any films that were eligible for the previous Oscars; even if they were only released in the UK in 2020.

That means no Parasite for Best Picture, or Céline Sciamma for Best Director (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), no Scarlett Johansson for Best Supporting Actress (Jojo Rabbit), or Roger Deakins for Best Cinematography (1917).

PODCAST: Birds of Prey [The Movie RobCast]

In episode 82 of The Movie Robcast, Robs Daniel and Wallis review Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn Suicide Squad spin-off.

To do full justice to the movie, its comic origins and add an important female point-of-view on this female-led movie, Rob Daniel also sits down with friend of the podcast Sarah Johnson for her take.

PODCAST: Doctor Sleep [Electric Shadows]

Episode 73 journey back to The Overlook Hotel for a discussion of Doctor Sleep, the sequel to both Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

Robs Daniel and Wallis also take this as an opportunity to review Stanley Kubrick’s classic horror film, discussing why it still has such a hold on the imagination nearly forty years later.…

CINEMATIC GRAB-BAG: Beauty And The Beast (2017) & Get Out

Beauty And The Beast (2017)

Obligatory “tale as old as time” reference.

Disney’s original Beauty And The Beast holds a special place in my heart: it was, according to my parents, the first film I ever saw in the cinema; aged just eighteen months.

CINEMATIC GRAB-BAG: T2: Trainspotting, Split, & xXx3

Trainspotting
It’s no fun growing hold. Hair migrates, weight accrues, and you find yourself stuck in bad habits.

Unlike its predecessor, T2: Trainspotting is less concerned with one particular bad habit – heroin – and more with the myriad other ways in which an older, supposedly more mature human being can self-destruct.…

Jane Got A Gun isn’t quite sure what to do with itself

 

While the social timeliness of the Western may not be what it once was — even in its most revisionist form it seems a bit old hat — the genre that once defined America seems determined to at least die with its boots on.

Son Of A Gun is a movie under the influences

 

Julius Avery’s Son Of A Gun may fall into the broad category of “crime thriller” but it’s not a neat fit: Julius Avery’s first feature evokes genre pieces as diverse as Starred Up, Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, and Drive.

The Men Who Stare At Goats is a hippy-dippy look at an unlikely New Age army training unit

Meet the Jedi Knights.

They can become invisible to the human eye, phase through solid objects, even kill you with a single touch (though it may take several decades to come into effect). And they work for the U.S. Army. This was the remit of the First Earth Battalion and they were real.

August: Osage County is an overstuffed goose of a family drama

 

August: Osage County opens amidst the hay bales of the American Midwest and with the words of T.S. Eliot – “Life is very long”.

The truest expression of this stage-play adaptation lies in the cramped confines of the Westen family’s plantation-style home and the words of W.B.…