Kathy Bates

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: The Highwaymen is your dad's new favourite film

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 11th April 2019

    I was reading an article today about the cartel leader El Chapo, who is currently in prison for murder, drug trafficking and money laundering, among other things. So beloved is El Chapo, and so cherished his image by the common folk of Mexico, he's been able to launch a fashion line from his cell. It's a curious feature of the human brain that we allow ourselves to be attracted towards these dark figures, hailing them as heroes despite the devastation their crimes have caused. I guess all it takes is a media-friendly mugshot and enough degrees of separation to empathise with someone who would do you harm if you ever crossed them. Back at the start of our modern press age, Bonnie & Clyde were like a prototype of the El Chapo phenomenon; shown a dose of forgiveness due to the romanticism associated with their escapades. The reality was they were killers who needed to be stopped - an inevitability due to the attention they'd brought upon themselves - and the job fell to two middle-aged men, sent criss-crossing endless dusty roads in an olde timey car. But just because there's nothing sexy about that story, does it mean it shouldn't be told?

  • Bad Santa 2

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 28th November 2016

    When a film is deliberately trying to outrage, does that make it more acceptable? Is bad taste really just a matter of taste? Is it problematic that the IMDB Parents Guide for Bad Santa 2 lists warnings for violence, alcohol/drugs/smoking, frightening/intense scenes and sex & nudity (“There are close-ups of genitalia featured, but they are contextually justified”), but says nothing about the overtones of misogyny, racism and whatever you call being rude about little people? Surely it’s this kind of selective oversight that makes this a world in which Trump can become president. (*evacuates the area from the topical bombshell he just dropped*)

  • The Boss

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 9th June 2016

    You probably learn more about how comedy works through watching a bad one than a good one. Not that that's much consolation when you've shelled out thirteen quid. The Boss isn't terrible, as anything with Melissa McCarthy in it would struggle to be, but it falls far enough short to be instructive.

  • The Blind Side

    Movie Review | Kirsty | 8th March 2010

    American football is a sport we don't get much information on over here; as Alan Partridge said, it's just futuristic rugby, right? But it's okay that the rules are overly confusing and we don't play it at school, because there is little to no gridiron action included in American football movie The Blind Side.

  • Revolutionary Road

    Movie Review | Anna | 3rd February 2009

    Watching Revolutionary Road is a bit like eating sprouts - you know it's good for you and worth it in the long run, but it's a bit of an ordeal. You leave the cinema feeling rather hopeless and bleak. Frank (DiCaprio) and April (Winslet) Wheeler are the perfect couple - glamorous young newlyweds with two kids and a beautiful new...

  • The Day The Earth Stood Still

    Movie Review | Ali | 14th December 2008

    And so we come to the apocalypse once more - cinemagoers are now so blas about the end of the world that even if aliens zapped Earth's landmarks tomorrow, we'd simply shrug and blog about how Michael Bay did it better. This latest space invader, a refit of the seminal '50s eco-fable, suffers from comparisons to bigger, louder a...