Category: Film
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Review: Spectre
Sky(fall)’s the limit. James Bond’s 24th outing reputedly had more than a few troubles in production, ranging from creative differences to total last-minute rewrites of entire sections. This happens far more often than you’d think, and often a movie can come together in spite of its problems. *Spectre*, though, isn’t so…
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Thanks, Back To The Future
In 1992, seven years after *Back To The Future* came out, I bought a guitar and a skateboard, and it was directly responsible for both. One of those lasted no more than a few weeks, gravity and gravel disrupting my dreams of hitching through Peterfield’s sleepy streets. The other, though,…
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Review: It Follows
Behind you. There’s been much discussion as to what the ever-creeping terror in *It Follows* represents – STDs, AIDS, the dangers of promiscuity, the end of puberty, the inevitable chase of death – and they’re all right, if you want them to be. That’s the beauty of this film; the…
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Review: American Ultra
Improbable as it may seem, it’s not Jessie Eisenburgs’ transformation from anxiety-stricken stoner to peerless fighting machine that causes *American Ultra* to stumble. In fact, the choreography of the fight scenes make his activation as covert CIA agent all the more brutal and believable. Where the film falls down is…
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The Problem With Bored Ghostbusters
There’s a new *Ghostbusters* movie incoming, one that fills the boots of the titular paranormal exterminators with female ankles and has *Bridesmaids* and *Spy* director Paul Feig using his comedy experience to bring it all together. None of this is a problem, of course – anyone who declares that a…
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Dak Vs The Empire
The moment all our *Star Wars* hope died. I hadn’t meant to buy Dak. I mean, who wants to buy Dak? No-one, apparently. He stood there in his tiny box, frozen next to a giant Ben Kenobi and under a grotesque Jabba. Half price, bearing the shame of a price…
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Review: X-Men: Days Of Future Past
The latest *X-Men* film is a spectacular affair, a high-budget and frequently hilarious reassertion of the franchise after the dreadful *X3: The Last Stand* and *Wolverine* movies. It features all the most popular members of the group kicking ass in glorious action sequences that might be some of the best…
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Review: Under The Skin
You can put it away now: the idea that the unnervingly attractive Scarlett Johansson only became a superstar due to the fact that she is the human embodiment of a 1940’s bomber girl. It’s easy to decide on obvious categories – something that she has undoubtedly had to fight herself – and…
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Alec Guinness and The Long Glass Corridor
I stood there, shaking, as Sir Alec Guinness moved down the long glass corridor fronting the house he built, slowly moving his bulk across two old legs and equally old cane, my lungs emptying outside as he neared the door inside. Every step forward doubled my heartbeat, legs as jelly…
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Philip Seymour Hoffman: Feeding The Addiction
This article isn’t about me, but there needs to be some context; in 1994, in front of a packed college audience, I had to deliver a monologue. The play, I think, was Brecht’s Nazi gangster parable The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, in which I’d been cast in a supporting role…
Simon Best 