Film Review – Star Wars: The Force Awakens
I write this in the early hours of the morning after just returning from one of the midnight showings of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I am not going to divulge a single piece of spoiling information about the movie, but I need to say it’s good. Oh yes, it’s good. If you have even …
Album Review: Iron Maiden – The Book of Souls
Iron Maiden are back with new music in the form of The Book of Souls, a greatly anticipated double- album that’s sent metal fans into a frenzy. OK, it’s sent me into a frenzy. I may be categorically the wrong person to review this as I am a huge Maiden fan. For those of you …
Classic Film: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
What do you get if you take the hottest actor and hottest actress in late 1950s Hollywood with the most atmospheric and angst ridden of Tennessee William’s plays, and shake it all up to make a movie? You get Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Based on Tennessee William’s play of the same name, the movie …
Film Review – Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
I’ll be honest. I’m biding my time until we get Tom Cruise back with a buzz cut and in Aviator shades. I’m waiting for a second big dollop of Maverick. In the meantime, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation will have to do. Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is back with his IMF chums to try to uncover …
Film Review: Magic Mike XXL
I have never seen stripping in real life, not from either gender, despite growing up at a time when young women seeing The Chippendales seemed to be something of an aspiration and Spearmint Rhino became commonplace in city centres, so let’s just say seeing the original Magic Mike was a bit of an eye opener. …
Classic Film: Gypsy
The BBC pitched it right this Easter Monday. Instead of people venturing outside into the lovely Bank Holiday sunshine, they were watching the television for a screening of a well-loved musical, tweeting the lyrics or trying to get the fact that they’d performed a near perfect rendition of Rose’s Turn into 140 characters. Such is …
Film Review: Furious 7
The Fast and The Furious franchise has always raised a lot of questions for me. Why aren’t there more cars? Why did the fifth installment, Fast Five, resort to the word ‘five’ rather than the number? What’s the deal with Tokyo Drift? And why has the Fast been dropped for Furious 7? Trying to move …
Film Review: Wild Card
FADE IN: INT. LIVING ROOM OF TERRACED HOUSE, SHEFFIELD SMILING BOBBY is watching Neighbours on the television. The phone rings. SMILING BOBBY mutes the television and answers the phone. SMILING BOBBY Hello. EXT. HOTEL POOLSIDE, LOS ANGELES – DAY FILM EXEC Hey Smiling Bobby! How you doin’? INTERCUT PHONE CONVERSATION SMILING BOBBY Fine, fine, …
Film Review: Home
A new outing from DreamWorks Animation is always something to look forward to. They’ve brought us Kung Fu Panda, Shrek and, one of my personal favourites, the circus afro sequence in Madagascar 3. The latest addition to the DreamWorks catalogue is Home. The Boov are on the run from the Gorg and after sidelining humans …
Film Review: Cinderella
Once upon a time, around about the 1970s, there was a Ladybird book called Cinderella. This book was so beloved, not only because it recreated the story for a whole generation of children, but most notably because Cinderella attended the ball on three different evenings, wearing three different dresses, which was simply amazing. This book …