REVIEW: The Bikeriders [London Film Festival 2023]

Everyone looks cool in leathers.

This would seem to be the main ethos behind Jeff Nichols’ The Bikeriders.

Based loosely on Danny Lyon’s photo-book of the same name, compiled from 1963-’67, the film follows the Vandals, a fictionalized Midwest motorcycle club composed mostly, in this telling, of movie stars and characters actors.…

REVIEW: Venom: Let There Be Carnage

It’s weird to call a blockbuster an unexpected hit, but 2018’s Venom was a rather modest affair for a superhero movie.

Intended to spin-off Sony’s part ownership of Spider-Man into a cinematic universe of their own, Venom made more than $800 million at the global office; a sum to rival Sony’s Jumanji reboot from the year before.…

REVIEW: Capone

It’s 1946. Released from prison due to his late-stage syphilis, Al “Fonz” Capone (Tom Hardy) is convalescing at home in Palm Island, Florida.

Despite their grand, classically-styled estate, the family are broke; forced to gradually sell off their collection of paintings and statues.…

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.

PODCAST: The Dark Knight 10th Anniversary [Electric Shadows]

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Dark Knight’s theatrical release, episode 47 of The Electric Shadows Podcast has gone big.

Across four hours, Robs Daniel and Wallis and Bat-expert Ian Bird discuss Nolan’s landmark trilogy. Plus, a wider discussion of the Caped Crusader in comic books and on the small screen, both animated and live action.…

Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s latest, The Revenant, is a bit of an endurance test

Okay, so I have a problem with The Revenant.

It’s not the same issue I had with Argo back in 2012 (a decent retro thriller, not a Best Picture) or even with The Theory of Everything or American Sniper last year (good performances, not much else — also by no means indispensable).…

Legend is a monument to Tom Hardy’s acting talents

 

Looking at the poster for Brian Helgeland’s latest film, Legend, you’d be forgiven you were suffering from (a slightly inexact) double vision.

The names are the same, but the men below them aren’t. Tom Hardy stars along Tom Hardy (himself) as Reginald and Ronald Kray, the notorious twins who held Sixties London in a grip of both fear and awe.…

Mad Max: Fury Road is THE road movie

Though he’s now best known for his racist/anti-semitic/domestic abuse tendencies, sadly, Mel Gibson was once, lest we forget, a major international superstar.

An Oscar-winning actor-director with at least three iconic roles (including Scottish legend William Wallace in Braveheart and Lethal Weapons’ memorably unstable Martin Riggs) and more than a billion at the box office.

Wait for The Drop: Hardy and Gandolfini shine in this Boston crime drama (RIP, James Gandolfini)

 

Crime dramas are a dime a dozen.

It’s a popular genre with plenty of easily recyclable tropes: the discount bins runneth over with Lock, Stock ripoffs and Danny Dyer Mockney crime capers. Then again, if you’re with Dennis Lehane, foremost authority on the seedy underbelly of Boston, and Michaël R.…

Locke shows that all you need for a great film is an engine

 

The shadowy interior of a BMW, the sallow yellow glare of a streetlamp; road markings, overpasses. “You have a call waiting”.

As premises go, Locke’s is rivetingly simple: Ivan Locke, a foreman on a construction site, has had to make a last-minute trip from Birmingham down to London.…