Recent Features

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  • My trip to the Stanley Kubrick exhibition by Luke Whiston age 38 and a half

    Movie Feature | Luke Whiston | 3rd July 2019

    The late Stanley Kubrick is often considered to be a visionary genius filmmaker, who by all accounts was also an obsessive pain in the arse. But that didn't stop Hollywood's biggest names wanting to work with him, because he was a visionary genius filmmaker. And thank God he was such an obsessive, hoarding decades of research and correspondence, otherwise the new exhibition celebrating his films at The Design Museum in London would have been pretty barren and that would have been well embarrassing.

  • Secret Cinema Presents Casino Royale is 00-heaven, has a license to thrill, etc

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker | 20th June 2019

    Spies! Guns! Booze! Cars! Booze! If you have ever wondered what the point is of Secret Cinema’s immersive film screenings, or have ever asked yourself why anyone would ever be interested in inhabiting the world of, say, Dr Strangelove, then surely that cynicism ends for this latest 007-themed production. Because who hasn’t imagined themselves as the sharpest, sexiest superspy on the big screen? Who hasn’t wanted to indulge in the frisson of international espionage? Who hasn’t wanted to pretend-win a game of make-believe cards while sipping a themed cocktail named after an obscure Bond reference? This is exactly the kind of cinema that Secret Cinema was made to be secret about!

  • Apropos of nothing, let's revisit Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Commentary! - The Musical

    TV Feature | Matt Looker | 12th June 2019

    Now that films like La La Land and The Greatest Showman are being celebrated for inventing the musical, it’s time to reappraise the best thing to ever come singing out of the Whedonverse. No, not Once More With Feeling. And no, not Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. I’m obviously talking about Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: Commentary! – The Musical. But you knew that already. It's in the title. Come with me on a terribly niche journey...

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Ant-Man (2015)

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray, Matt Looker, Becky Suter, Ed Williamson, Luke Whiston | 8th May 2019

    This is it. This is the one where the wheels finally came off. 11 movies deep into the Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe feature, Ant-Man marks the occasion where everyone has officially lost interest in the concept, due to us being five years and ten movies out of step with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We didn't spoil the Endgame, the Endgame spoiled us.

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015)

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Luke Whiston, Ed Williamson | 10th April 2019

    We have two weeks to go until Avengers: Endgame brings about the end of an 11-year-long story arc and changes the MCU as we know it forever. So what better time to revisit an old Avengers movie from four years ago? That's right, we're back with another instalment of our less-than-semi-regular Marvel movie email discussion feature, which might even have been a better title than 'Marvel's Cine-CHATIC Universe'.

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray, Matt Looker, Becky Suter, Ed Williamson, Luke Whiston | 28th March 2019

    It's the regular feature you assumed had been quietly abandoned - but we've got nothing else going on right now! We're back with another scintillating edition of Marvel's Cine-CHATIC Universe: this week/month/quarter, we're talking about James Gunn's Guardians Of The Galaxy, but also, very much other things too.

  • Leaving Neverland and our need for chaos

    TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 8th March 2019

    In the summer of 2002 Michael Jackson came to Exeter, my hometown, where I was living again having just finished university. In a series of events that are ludicrous in hindsight, some businessmen had bought Exeter City FC out of administration and installed Uri Geller as a co-chairman. Geller duly brought Jackson and David Blaine down for a public appearance, in which they drove round the pitch in an open-topped car with a load of children.

    I didn't go. But I do remember watching it on TV, noting that, despite the hit his image had taken from the Jordy Chandler trial, he was still surrounding himself with children wherever he went. And thinking: "No one in this guy's life ever pulls him aside and says, 'Listen, Mick: maybe ease up on the kids in public, eh?'"

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Luke Whiston, Ed Williamson | 27th February 2019

    Following the low-point (both in terms of the MCU and our attempts at having an insightful discussion) that was Thor: The Dark World, we’re back on track now with Captain America’s first solo sequel. Don’t let that fool you though - we certainly haven’t stepped up our game in any way. The recurring feature of diminishing returns continues!

  • Please enjoy this, shall we say, sideways look at the 2019 Academy Awards

    Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 25th February 2019

    I didn't watch the Oscars. Might as well admit that now, right off the bat. I have kids and I'm just coming off the back of an exhausting weekend in Peppa Pig World, so staying up all night to watch Bohemian Rhapsody win the award for Best Editing wasn't particularly high on my agenda if I'm being honest, nor would it have been if I was lucid. Come to think of it, I've never stayed up to watch the Oscars. Is that weird? I just really value my sleep. Besides, I have Twitter. I have the internet. I get it. I've seen the pictures. I'm familiar with the big talking points so I'm qualified to discuss them and cast a 'wry eye' over the night's proceedings, like Alan Coren or Doonesbury or some shit.

  • Marvel's Cine-CHAT-ic Universe: Thor: The Dark World (2013)

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Becky Suter, Luke Whiston, Ed Williamson | 11th February 2019

    You wouldn't think we could be less efficient in meeting our goals re: this recurring feature, but we managed it - please enjoy this torturous discussion on Thor: The Dark World, a chat which was called "uninspired" by one of its own members while he was still discussing it.