Woody Harrelson

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?

  • Solo: A Star Wars Story

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 24th May 2018

    Four films in four years of this newly rebooted output from a galaxy far, far away, and it’s safe to say that Star Wars fatigue might be setting in for some. While, in that time, there’s been plenty of new reasons to love and embrace and cheer on the franchise, does anyone still get the same goosebump thrill from yet another momentous money-shot moment for the Millennium Falcon? Does anyone still audibly chuckle as loudly as they used to at the mention of an obscure character thrown in the script just because? It’s ok to admit it. We’re all still fans. No one's turning to the Dark Side and there’s no hate or anger here. But is anyone else getting the sense that their enthusiasm for Star Wars is being a little... diluted?

  • War For The Planet Of The Apes

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 7th July 2017

    The Apes franchise has followed a pretty predictable release pattern thus far: they arrive with nary a fanfare smack bang in the middle of summer blockbuster season and subsequently smash the low expectations they set. Rise and Dawn were both sleeper hits, but War For The Planet Of The Apes brings with it a little too much baggage. Hung heavy with the weight of expectation, it is a largely bleak and downbeat affair: if this is to be the climactic part of the Apes saga, it feels like a graceful and dignified exit, but you can't help but think it could have gone out with more of a bang.

  • Now You See Me 2

    Movie Review | Becky Suter | 4th July 2016

    Wanna a see a magic trick? Yeah you do. Everyone loves magic. Think of a number between 1 and 5. Multiply it by 9. Add the two digits of your answer together to get a single digit. Subtract 5 from this number. If A is 1, B is 2 etc, find the letter of the alphabet that corresponds to your number. Pick a country that starts with this letter. Now think of an animal that starts with the second letter of that country. Now imagine what colour that animal usually is. By the end of this review, I shall reveal the animal and the country you were thinking of (*pauses for astonished but also mesmerised silence*). But right now, I can tell you’re thinking, "isn’t this a somewhat laboured and overlong opening paragraph for a 3 star film?" You are, aren’t you? (*waves arms*) THAT’S MAGIC (*dead dove drops from sleeve*)

  • The new Now You See Me 2 poster is bullshit and here's why

    Movie Feature | Matt Looker | 20th April 2016

    Now You See Me 2 is the pub magic trick of movie sequels. No one asked to see your mate Steve attempt to pass a £10 note through the middle of a coin, and no one really cares either way, but there's something oddly fascinating about his insistence that it's going to blow your mind. And yet it always, inevitably, disappoints. Hey, let's talk about this film poster.

  • True Detective poster validates my entire reason for being, probably

    TV Feature | Ed Williamson | 9th December 2013

    Another year draws to a close, and I hunch over the laptop and begin to put together the top 20 list. It strikes me that I have watched every episode of at least 25 shows, and I stop short of totalling up the number of hours' viewing for fear the self-analysis will leave me howling into the abyss. Have ... have I wasted my life? Then I see this poster, and watch these promos, and know beyond doubt that this is my life's work. Which is handy, because watching TV's not all that hard.

  • Harrelson, McConaughey, seemingly not stoned, to be on telly

    TV Video | Ed Williamson | 27th November 2013



    I don't know what's more surprising: the fact that two of my favourite actors are in an upcoming HBO series or that it appears they managed to hang out together for long enough to film it without ripping enough bongloads to stun a bison.

  • The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 19th November 2013

    So now we arrive at the second film of the latest mega-successful young-adult-novel-turned-movie-franchise and this is where things can get tricky. It's easy enough to come up with an initial concept - boy goes to wizard school, girl falls in love with vampire, etc - but following it up with the beginnings of an epic saga? Much harder to do. Thankfully though, this sequel manages to accomplish just that, successfully furthering the story and delving deeper into the politics and ethical quandaries laid out by its predecessor. All this despite being - for the most part - basically the same film.

  • Now You See Me

    Movie Review | Matt | 3rd July 2013

    In The Prestige, Michael Caine's Cutter posits that "every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts". You have the 'Pledge', in which the magician shows you something ordinary, the 'Turn', in which he turns that into something extraordinary and the 'Prestige', in which he makes the original item return. Now You See Me does plenty of Pledging and Turning, but fails to win over with the Prestige part. What we have here, is all the wondrous showmanship of a well-performed illusion, followed by the crushing disappointment of reality as our magician explains that it's all down to specially-built rigs and fake props. Except, here, that doesn't even make all that much sense.

  • #LFF2012: Seven Psychopaths

    Movie Review | Matt | 18th October 2012

    For a film about the perils of screenwriting, Seven Psychopaths sure could have used a few extra drafts. Far from the dognapping caper the trailers would have you believe, writer/director Martin McDonagh's follow-up to In Bruges is actually a far darker, way more ambitious meta comedy about a man trying to write a genuinely heartfelt movie in spite of the various ridiculous incidents that seem determined to inform it. That it immediately invokes unfavourable comparisons to Adaptation does not necessarily make Seven Psychopaths a failure, but you do find yourself wishing that McDonagh had the foresight to intentionally ruin his own movie with as much precision as Charlie Kaufman had.