PODCAST: Nightmare Alley [Movie Robcast]

In episode 139 of The Movie Robcast, Robs Daniel and Wallis take a walk down the dark and deadly Nightmare Alley.

The new movie from the brilliant Guillermo del Toro is based on William Lindsay Gresham’s 1946 novel, previously adapted as a film noir in 1947, and features an dazzling cast including Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Ron Perlman, Richard Jenkins, and others. …

PODCAST: Top 10 Films of 2010s [Movie RobCast]

We started back in 2016 as The Electric Shadows Podcast. We enter the ’20s as The Movie RobCast, with a gorgeous new image, courtesy of designer Bridge Fazio.

And episode 77 is a biggy, in which Robs Daniel and Wallis run through their respective Top 10s of the 2010s.

REVIEW: A Ghost Story is a meditative look at haunting and hauntedness (starring a man in a white sheet)

It seems silly, doesn’t it? The image of a man in an oversized version of the most rudimentary children’s costume: a plain white bed-sheet with eye-holes cut in it.

It’s also one that, in the context of A Ghost Story, becomes strangely haunting.…

Carol is a transcendent plea for kindness and beauty

With sapphic romantic drama Carol, Todd Haynes confirms himself as a master of forbidden love.

In 2002’s Far From Heaven, stylized as a Sirkian ‘50s melodrama, he doubled down on issues of race and sexuality. Here, however, it all comes down to a single relationship between black-bobbed shop-girl Therese (Rooney Mara) and reluctant socialite Carol (Cate Blanchett), whose eyes meet across a crowded store one busy December morning.…

Pan is a wannabe Hook for the Avatar generation

 

For kids of the ‘90s, Steven Spielberg’s Hook is something of a childhood classic.

Starring the late great Robin Williams as the jaded grown-up Peter Pan and no less than Dustin Hoffman as the dastardly, mustache-twirling Hook — not to mention Dame Maggie Smith’s elderly Wendy and Bob Hoskins’ workaday Smee — it’s pure cinematic confection.…

Trash sits somewhere in the middle of the heap

 

When you’re making a film about three street urchins taking on sleazy politicians and brutal cops in contemporary Brazil, there’s a particular onus to get it right, especially when you’re Stephen Daldry, whose filmography is composed exclusively of Best Picture nominees.