We dive into fictional film and TV menus that should exist in the real world, let us whet your appetite with these fictional foods. When it comes to fictional restaurants from TV and film have you ever wished oh so hard that it was a real venue? For me, just watching Spongebob cook burgers or seeing…
Lucas Hedges is a force to be reckoned with in Ben is Back, the new film from his father, Peter Hedges (Dan in Real Life, Pieces of April, About a Boy. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape), who wrote the dark and introspective original screenplay, and had the creative nerve to cast his son in the lead…
The charming, offbeat indie Dave Made a Maze is one of those efforts that truly feels hand-made and the product of a filmmaker who had a very specific vision and a very specific way of realizing that vision. Directed by Bill Watterson from a script he co-wrote with Steven Sears, this quirky and unconventional piece…
This is a shamelessly entertaining film with lots of heart and a tone that bounces all over the place. Gregory Hoblit’s underrated 2000 genre-bender Frequency was a modest hit with critics and audiences at the time of its release, and while it’s hardly a great movie, it’s so much fun to watch, and it stands…
I’m not sure where we’d be in the film world right now without the erudite efforts of companies A24 and Annapurna Pictures. These two production and distribution entities have been responsible for the lion’s share of truly excellent cinema over the last 10 years, and added to that list is the film 20th Century Women,…
It’s a hard quality to have as a director, to make your films feel crazy and antic and wild, but at the same time still pay attention to mise-en-scene, performance, and technique. Rush’s 1970 effort Getting Straight is a wild beast, an anti-establishment picture made as one turbulent decade was ending and another socially questionable…
The elegiac and introspective drama Jackie is not an attempt at a traditional biopic of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and it’s all the more poignant as a result. Taking a very specific route with its narrative and presenting the story during the incredibly sad and difficult days that immediately followed her husband’s assassination, Pablo Larrain’s smart…
She Has a Name is based on real events from 2008 when on the Thai border an abandoned storage container with 121 trafficked victims were found, 54 of them dead. Starring Eugenia Yuan (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Sword of Destiny, Memoirs of A Geisha), Will Yun Lee (The Wolverine, Hawaii Five-O, New York’s Teresa Ting (Orange is the New…
Crowdfunding has become so common-place that it’s an accepted part of film funding strategy. Not only do filmmakers receive some much-needed financial support but it also enables them to gauge support for their films and galvanise their fans. This has been spectacularly successful in relation to Veronica Mars, Zach Braff and Spike Lee films. In…
Danny Boyle’s riveting and unconventional biopic Steve Jobs is a complete knock-out from start to finish, and as bracingly un-Hollywood as this sort of material is going to get. This is laser-precise filmmaking, acted with extreme gusto, written with absurd skill, and shot and cut in a manner that suggests erudite style without ever feeling…
Can you believe it’s been over ten years since The Day After Tomorrow became the 21st century’s benchmark for formulaic disaster movies? Back in the days when Jake Gyllenhaal wasn’t yet a box office headliner, Dennis Quaid was somehow still clinging on as one, and the The Rock’s transformation into a Hollywood action star had…
Director: Bharat Nalluri Starring: Peter Firth, Kit Harrington, Jennifer Ehle, Elyes Gabel If you’d never been to London and had only seen it in films, you’d probably get the impression that the entire city spends its day stood by the river, looking out pensively over the Thames whilst pondering on life’s great challenges. Spooks: The…
Director: Thomas Vinterberg Starring: Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts, Tom Sturridge, Michael Sheen Other than action veteran Jason Statham and “so hot right now” Oscar Isaacs, there has been no-one more ubiquitous than Matthias Schoenaerts in 2015 UK cinema previews. Following stellar performances in Suite Francaise and A Little Chaos, the rising Belgian star now appears…
Director: Robert Schwentke Starring: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet, Miles Teller UK Release Date: 19th March 2015 Insurgent is an unforgiving sequel and certainly no standalone piece; you’re going to be mercilessly left in the dark if you haven’t read Veronica Roth’s young adult series or seen 2014’s “Divergent”. Picking up almost exactly where…
