Paul

News, Reviews & Features

Review: Glass is a fragile follow-up with wasted promise

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 17th January 2019

No one knows the importance of a good ending like M. Night Shyamalan. He has built his entire career on them. He knows that many film flaws can be forgiven along the way if, right before the credits roll, he can suddenly wow an audience so that they leave only talking about that ending. It’s a circus approach to storytelling, saving the big top narrative stunt for the final act, but it works. In the case of Split - an otherwise divisive film - it worked so well that the ending itself manifested a whole sequel. But no one should be in any doubt that it’s a cheat. A big last-minute reveal teasing a forthcoming crossover might be an original way to have a shock twist, but it doesn’t automatically make for a good ending to what came before it. Just as it doesn’t automatically make for a good beginning for what comes next.

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Caption this photo of Paul Dano immediately you cowards

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 2nd November 2018

I like Paul Dano. He is good at acting. He is what Empire called "a 27-Percenter" i.e. someone who makes a movie 27% better just by being in it. He makes great career choices. He is a compelling screen presence. He has all the makings of a great film director. And yet: he looks like a right tit in this magazine article. Join me as I attempt to make sense of this conundrum.

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Review: A Simple Favour is a fabulous new look for Paul Feig

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 22nd September 2018

Imagine being Paul Feig. You’re a talented director with a charming comedy disposition who consistently dresses like a flamboyant uncle at a wedding. Then you dare to reboot a beloved 80s franchise and cast it with actors who have one more X chromosome than the original actors. Suddenly the Horrible Part Of The Internet hates you. It doesn’t care that you made Bridesmaids, because suddenly it hates that too now, just because. Trolls make your life hell for a couple of years. They no longer find it endearing that you dress like a recently widowed old man celebrating his anniversary one last time before taking his own life to join his beloved. Instead they send you death threats because you reimagined their favourite pretend ghost hunters from 30 years ago as women. What do you do now?

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Discussion: Impossible - Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)

Movie Feature | Ali Gray, Matt Looker, Becky Suter, Ed Williamson | 1st August 2018

Look at all those colons! Our Mission: Impossible discussion has kicked into a higher gear, by which I mean we're scaling the lofty heights of Ghost Protocol, its incredible set-pieces, its rubbish villain and one very special false arm. Join us please, otherwise all this editing was pointless!

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Ant-Man And The Wasp

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 18th July 2018

How do you follow an epic tragedy in which the world’s biggest A-list stars traverse the universe facing the most dire of movie stakes? How do you continue after the bummer-cliffhanger of seeing an all-powerful despot succeed in his plan to mercilessly wipe out half of the entire universe? You bring the LOLs! It serves as welcome respite, but essentially Marvel has followed its most consequential movie with its least.

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Journeyman

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 28th March 2018

Paddy Considine delivered a heart-stopping directorial debut with Tyrannosaur in 2011, the kind of grim, unforgettable movie that left dirt under your nails and needles under your skin. His long-awaited follow-up, boxing movie Journeyman, initially feels like it pulls its punches in comparison to its predecessor's savagery, but don't be fooled; the fancy shorts and bright lights of the ring dress up an equally complex story of recovery and redemption.

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The Death Of Stalin

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 23rd October 2017

By now the central premise of Armando Iannucci's recent satirical output is clear enough, or has maybe just about been done to death: in politics, everyone's a chancer, making it up on the fly and looking out for number one. In The Death of Stalin there's an extra layer of irony, too: under Communism, there isn't supposed to be a number one to look out for. It's kind of the point.

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The LEGO Ninjago Movie

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 11th October 2017

Following the world-building original and the Batman-fronted follow-up, the LEGO brand is now so well established in cinematic terms, the spin-offs don't need an additional brand in the title. The first movie in the seemingly boundless LEGO universe without a direct connection to the others, think of The LEGO Ninjago Movie as an expansion kit from the 2014's original pack. (*marketing voice*) The LEGO Ninjago Movie contains new and exciting characters and locations, including ninja weapons, robot mechs and limited edition dragon missile thrower! (Pathos and charm required from original LEGO Movie, not sold separately).

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Pirates-related Paul McCartney puns that should have been taglines

Movie Feature | Matt Looker, Ali Gray, Ed Williamson | 28th June 2017

With all the fuss about Wonder Woman being an important step forward for feminism in cinema, and the current question of Disney curbing creative authorship on big studio projects, I really feel like some finer movie news is passing us by without enough comment. Like PAUL MCCARTNEY WAS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, GUYS.

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It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt Pepper & Beyond

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 29th May 2017

Where Ron Howard's Eight Days a Week ends, as the teenage screams die down after the last chord struck at Candlestick Park, Alan G Parker's new documentary begins. Timed to coincide with Sgt Pepper's fiftieth anniversary and hoping to catch the wave of tributes and looks-back that will go along with it, it takes us from the end of Beatlemania into the start of the studio years and through the recording of their most significant album. And it doesn't come near to doing it justice.

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