Bill Paxton
News, Reviews & Features-
The Circle
Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 4th July 2017
The tech-firm thriller seems to have supplanted the gangster movie as the modern-day American Dream story. Exploit free markets with entrepreneurial spirit, cut a few corners, hubris, rise and fall, regret, redemption. By now I thought we were past the point of techno-cautionary tales which ask whether the internet is a good or a bad thing, largely because the @dog_rates Twitter account has proved beyond all doubt that it is the former, and yet here we are.
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Nightcrawler
Movie Review | Ali Gray | 2nd November 2014
There's an uncomfortable undercurrent to Dan Gilroy's seedy thriller Nightcrawler that I didn't quite identify until after the credits had rolled and the stank had worn off. The tale of a grim opportunist named Lou Bloom (Jake Gyllenhaal) who weasels a career out of being the first lens on the crime scene, Nightcrawler is equal parts slick and sick, portraying the denizens of the neon-soaked Los Angeles nightlife as creepy-crawlies squirming under a rock. It's Gyllenhaal's unforgettable creation, however, that sticks in the memory: with bug eyes, sunken cheeks and a moral barometer on the fritz, I eventually realised that Lou Bloom is to paparazzi what Tony Montana is to gangsters - a totemic figurehead that suggests all you need to succeed is an excess of motivation and an absence of conscience. Filtered through this lens, Nightcrawler becomes the scariest movie you'll see all year.
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Million Dollar Arm
Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 26th August 2014
The movies' use of sports as a metaphor for personal growth far outstrips the idea's efficacy in real life. Your team's against-the-odds victory in the Rumbelows Cup is unlikely to inspire a realisation that you have your priorities all wrong and lead to a marriage proposal to your long-suffering girlfriend.
But there's something in it. No, watching the snooker doesn't really mimic the ups and downs of real life, but there's a real euphoria and a despondency that sports can inspire, which can convince you momentarily that your life is amazing or terrible. Translate that to the big screen, framed around a guy who's learning to be a bit less self-centred or to pull himself out of a humdrum existence, and you've got yourself the template for a sports movie. -
Edge Of Tomorrow
Movie Review | Ali Gray | 30th May 2014
"See Paris die!" In 2005, Warner Bros took a novel approach to marketing their horror remake House Of Wax: they knew audiences wanted to see the film's star, Paris Hilton, meet a grisly end, and they didn't shy away from spoiling her character's fate. You can't help but think, then, that Warners have missed a trick promoting Edge Of Tomorrow, a sci-fi time-loop thriller that sees star Tom Cruise killed in around 50 different ways, only to wake up very much alive the morning before. "See Tom die!" would get way more people into the cinema than "Live. Die. Repeat" and that's a shame, because Edge Of Tomorrow is a terrific action movie that deserves to be seen by as many people as possible. It's taut, twisted and blackly funny in ways that only movies in which Tom Cruise gets crushed under the wheels of a truck can be.
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Haywire
Movie Review | Ali | 6th January 2012
Honestly, I question whether anyone involved is really taking Haywire completely seriously. This is Steven Soderbergh in experimentation mode; an auteur director making a stripped-down, amped-up action movie, just to see if he can. It features a stellar cast, all of whom are slumming it to some degree, except of course for MMA fighter and lead actress Gina Carano, whose best is – in the nicest way possible – still some way beneath everyone else's. I'd recommend you approach Haywire with a similar air of detachment – expect nothing less than a slick, short, snappy revenge flick and you won't be disappointed.
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