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News, Reviews & Features

Review: Project Power hits the right beats but offers nothing new

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 26th August 2020

Netflix is an odd one isn't it. In order to operate they need to attract a certain amount of subscribers, so cast a wide net of shiny mid-budget fare with no pretension the films don't exist to reel in the dollars. It's pure returns-driven broad entertainment, designed to appeal to as many people as possible but that leaves little cultural footprint. Other studios do this, of course - it is a movie industry after all - but the frequency of ho hum numbers generated by Netflix does nothing for their reputation as a production line serving up gruel, and the next announcement always comes with a twinge of doubt. Anyway I just watched this new Netflix film called Project Power.

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The crushingly inevitable Star Wars group chat email thing: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Movie Feature | Ali Gray, Matthew Looker, Rebecca Suter, Luke Whiston | 28th November 2019

Itâ€™s a year with a 2 in it so you know what that means: itâ€™s time to talk about Star Wars again! With Episode IX of the Skywalker Saga on the horizon, we thought it was the perfect time to engage in the â€˜group chatâ€™ style communal analysis that has served us so well in the past (that one guy on Twitter seems to like it, and heck, itâ€™s easier than actually writing a proper feature). Over ten movies we will engage in the kind of witty banter and strict discipline that saw us complete 65% of our Marvel rewatch. Now, letâ€™s... â€˜Make it so!â€™.

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Review: Us is an iconic horror that doppelgÃ¤ngs up on our innate fears

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 25th March 2019

Of all the books I read while studying English Literature at university, there are very few that I can say really stuck with me so much that I think about them on a near-daily basis. One that did is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe called William Wilson. If youâ€™re not familiar, itâ€™s a deeply sinister tale in which the narrator describes being tormented throughout his life by infrequent run ins with his doppelgÃ¤nger, a figure that looks, acts and dresses exactly the same as him, until he is eventually driven mad. The story struck a chord mainly because my professor made a compelling case at the time for how this horror works on a psychological level, but also because he had us analyse the many thematic instances of â€˜doublesâ€™ throughout the text. This, he explained, includes William Wilsonâ€™s own alliterative initials, which are made up of two 'W's or, rather, 'double-you's. And it was at that point that I thought he was just really reaching.

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Review: Paddleton is an awkward embrace with fragile masculinity

Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 6th March 2019

SPOILER ALERT: You will die. It's just a matter of finding out when and how - and that's only if you see it coming. Many people will wake up this morning not knowing it's going to be their last day on earth. The lucky ones will have some advance notice of their expiration date, and so get a chance to take stock of their lives before deciding what to do with their remaining time. Traditional Hollywood plotting dictates this to be some kind of quest to undo past misdeeds as part of a redemption arc, before slipping away quietly surrounded by loved ones and that hot girl from college. But not in Alex Lehmann and Mark Duplass' Paddleton, in which a pair of friends go on a road trip to commit clinician-assisted suicide after one of them discovers he has terminal cancer. With a wacky setup like that they should have called this movie DEATH RIDE!

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The nine most embarrassing X-Men marketing fuck-ups

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 12th October 2018

You can always count on the X-Men for a laugh. While the Marvel marketing machine runs like a well-oiled machine and the DC marketing machine is basically a Xerox of the Marvel machine, the Fox marketing machine is more like a dodgy office printer, old and busted and producing wildly erratic and inconsistent results because no one really knows how to use it properly. The X-Men franchise is arguably the biggest name in superhero cinema - so why can't Fox ever seem to sell the movies without, excuse my language, fucking up like cack-handed twats?

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20 exciting and totally achievable ways the DC Universe can rebuild

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 17th September 2018

The DC universe is broken. Henry Cavill is done with Superman. Ben Affleck is too goth even for Batman and reportedly wants an escape route. Wonder Woman accidentally became the most successful one and now all the men at the studio have no idea what to do with her. And Aquaman... exists. Forget whatever humanitarian crises the Fake News Media are pushing on you this week: we need to focus our efforts on figuring out how to fix these adult manbaby movie franchises, and STAT. These 20 ideas to fix the DCCU by yours truly are a start, but frankly, I'm not hearing anything coming from your end. Is this thing even on?

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What if Ethan Hawke played ALL the superheroes? Huh? What happens then?

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 27th August 2018

Indie actor Ethan Hawke caused shockwaves in the nerd community this week when he dared suggest that superhero movies are not as good as Ingrid Bergman movies. So, Ethan Hawke thinks we're a group of illiterate and reactionary morons, huh? BURN ETHAN HUNT TO THE GROUND.

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This just in: Margot Robbie is wearing clothes

Movie News | Ali Gray | 7th August 2018

The first publicity shot of Margot Robbie from Quentin Tarantinoâ€˜s new movie Once Upon A Time In Hollywood is in, and I think I can safely say that, wow, that is Margot Robbie all right!

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Let's take a deep dive into the first Aquaman poster aka Finding Greebo

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 17th July 2018

I'm being forced to embrace the disjointed madness emanating from DC Headquarters right now, because while Marvel have cracked the formula and landed on a consistent tone for their cinematic universe, DC have got nothing to lose. They're playing discordant, cinematic jazz. We're fully in 'no bad ideas' territory with this insane new Aquaman poster: it's the last day of school term and the kids are running the classroom now. They're all over the fucking shop, is essentially what I'm getting at.

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Tully

Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 11th May 2018

There are no ugly people in Hollywood, and as such the idea of ugging-up a bit for a role has become a "brave" one. It puts you in the awards conversation, as though peeling off some make-up or yellowing your teeth a bit reveals depth. This involves an acknowledgement that the profound is an exception, and I suppose that the industry is therefore preoccupied by surface sheen. For actresses this proposition also suggests that to be beautiful is to be shallow, which is a bit rich, since if they aren't beautiful they aren't allowed in the door. I think Charlize Theron largely transcends this, but she remains most critically celebrated when she's made to look her least pretty.

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