The oddball music biopic seems to be a burgeoning new subgenre. There’s the Robbie Williams monkey movie and now the Lego animation Piece By Piece which recounts the life of famed musician and producer Pharrell Williams. Full disclosure, the prospect of another quirky jerky Lego movie/ product placement had me recoiling like a vampire doused with holy water but I
Read moreDisney’s Moana was a justifiable smash hit. A cute, charming and extremely visually inventive animated adventure that drew on the familiar Disney trope of the feisty but sensitive young woman going on a journey of self-discovery. It was distinguished, however, by its South Pacific island setting (the fictitious island of Motonui) and its references to Polynesian history, culture and mythology.
Read moreOften creepy and thought provoking, The Heretic is almost one of the year’s best thrillers but some loose story threads and a third act descent into cliché diminish this film’s overall impact. The set up is a familiar one in the horror/ thriller genre: unsuspecting and apparently vulnerable people unwisely enter the ominous looking home and encounter an intimidating weirdo.
Read moreWicked is the hotly anticipated cinema adaptation of the hugely successful musical theatre production of the same name. I haven’t seen the stage version and all I knew was that it was a prequel of sorts to The Wizard Of Oz that involved origin stories for the good witch Glinda and the wicked witch Elphaba. The filmmakers certainly believe in
Read moreBy the end of the 20th century, the ‘gladiator movie’ had fallen out of favour having become something of a punchline after the genre was mocked in Flying High. That abruptly changed in 2000, however, when Russell Crowe as the noble General Maximus pontificated his way to superstardom in Ridley Scott’s epic Gladiator. The success of that sword clanging extravaganza
Read moreOpening this year’s British Film Festival was the moving if uneven World War Two home front drama, Blitz from 12 Years a Slave director Steve McQueen. Blitz is at times surprising and quite radical in a way that’s guaranteed to provoke conservatives but in other ways it’s very old fashioned and reminiscent of much-loved childhood adventure stories like The Railway
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