High-concept yet made with a refreshing lack of cynicism, the 2011 should-have-been-blockbuster Real Steel operates as a slickly designed fighting-robot movie that actually pauses for a real and honest story about a father and son trying to reconnect; this is old-school Amblin territory and producer-director Shawn Levy (Stranger Things) really nailed the tone. Written by…
John McTiernan’s supremely entertaining and exceedingly stylish remake of The Thomas Crown Affair is a film that I saw multiple times in the theater, and absolutely love revisiting multiple times per year. I remember seeing this picture with my then-girlfriend-now-wife back in 1999. and the zest and sizzle that this film emits never ceases to…
Grossing $23 million worldwide and receiving mixed reviews at the time of its release, this is the type of movie that just seemed to be born as an immediate cult classic, as it’s one of those idiosyncratic efforts that can’t really be compared to too much else. Though intentionally or not, it did seem to…
I can vividly remember the opening night for Wag the Dog. It was back in 1997, I was in high school becoming a budding film lover, and I went with a group of friends to see this bitter black comedy about Hollywood and politics and I can remember being one of the few people in…
You would have to be mostly dead inside to not have a nearly immediate emotional reaction to Garth Davis’ stunning true life story Lion. I was a personal disaster all throughout this film; it hit me with blunt-force impact and I can’t stop thinking about the film and its message and how life throws insane…
When elite cyber-hacker Cipher (Charlize Theron) blackmails Dominic Toretto (Diesel) into turning against his crew, it’s up to the gang to understand what is happening to their friend and save the world from the cyber terrorists rampage with help from an unlikely ally. The movie starts out in Cuba where Dom and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez)…
Cherry 2000 is a fantastic cinematic explosion of ideas, genres, tones, and possibilities. In other words – it’s a Steve De Jarnatt picture, ahead of its time during initial release, and so ready for rediscovery by modern audiences it’s almost a joke. Feeling like an acid-tinged riff on the post-apocalyptic action narrative with shades of…
The sun is shining in Stoke on Trent and what a perfect day it was for another Stoke CON Trent. The local comic-con that brings together film, TV and comic book fans with their favourite guests from the shows they know and love. Stoke Con Trent Review It feels like many moons ago since…
Mel Gibson’s unsurprisingly savage WWII film Hacksaw Ridge delivers the fiery-action goods. I was definitely impressed by the wild stunt work and some of the individual bits of action, and it’s truly lunatic/nuts of conscientious objector Desmond Doss to have done what he did in real life. The religious angle, thankfully, isn’t hit too hard…
Starring Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham as two potential love birds whose romantic date-night is cut short thanks to the alarming notification of the end of the world (nukes have been launched…!), De Jarnatt’s exciting, heartfelt, and totally unique tale of desperate romance hits all the right notes of 80’s tonal shifts and scrappy whimsy….
I was a big fan of writer/director Rian Johnson’s debut film, Brick; his follow up, The Brothers Bloom, was a bit too precious but still demonstrated tons of style and cinematic quirk. But Looper is a heady and stylish mélange of science fiction and noir with some bloody shoot-outs, numerous narrative twists and turns, and…
Last year, people kept saying stuff like “Paul Verhoeven is BACK with Elle!,” and yes, true, he had a new movie get released last year, and it is in fact a brilliant piece of work on multiple levels, but I’d argue that he never WENT anywhere in the first place. Hollywood simply became uninterested in…
Pitching Tents from Meritage Pictures is one of those kind of movies that completely transports you back to the classic films of old with nostalgia, heart and comedy. A film made in modern time that throws you back into those feelings you had when you first saw movies like Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Jurassic…
Sightseers is most likely my favorite film from Ben Wheatley so far, and that says a lot, as I’ve enjoyed all of his work. For some reason, I just can’t stop revisiting this movie; there’s something uniquely deranged about it that speaks to me and my love for satirical black comedy. However, you should only…
A nostalgic throwback to classic 80’s Horror weaving in Kubrick and Clive Barker nods but still maintaining it’s own independent heart, spirit and terror. Written and directed by Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski The Void revolves around a group of people who find themselves under siege in a hospital with an army of white robe wearing cultists surrounding the…
The Edge of Seventeen is a funny if overly familiar story of a female high school student learning to adjust to her surroundings and hormones and the changing attitudes of the people around her. Hailee Steinfeld is unsurprisingly confident as the lead character, but for me, the real discovery of the movie was Haley Lu…
