Film

By Linda Marric @linda_marric  House of Flying Daggers director Yimou Zhang new film The Great Wall is a spectacular behemoth of a film. A fantasy which centres around one of the many mythical stories surrounding the mystery of great wall of China. The film is to this date, the biggest ever co-production between China and Hollywood and features some of the most accomplished actors and martial-arts experts in the business. It is also Yimou Zhang’s first English speaking production. The...

By Stephen Mayne @finalreel The treatment of refugees is still an ignored problem. Whether the West is directly or indirectly involved - and given the long tentacles of history, it’s usually one of the two - the fate of those left to bear the brunt of chaotic violence and repression is rarely given attention. The Longest Road is an attempt to remedy this, and while repeatedly falling prey to muddled thinking, it gamely grapples with a complex subject. Clocking it...

By Leslie Byron Pitt The output of Platinum Dunes can often be considered questionable trash. The film company either offers shiny, toothless, re-treads of horrors gone by, or, with the matter of the purge series, they deliver tight yet awkward b-movies which could offer more if finely tuned. Ouija: Origin of Evil falls into the latter category. A contrived but enjoyable possession prequel, which builds greatly upon the sloppy first feature released in 2014. Set 50 years before the original...

It is easy to get caught up in the annual awards coverage and forget that entries are films, and not just news stories. Articles surrounding Hidden Figures have placed a large emphasis on its diverse cast and how it is somehow an antidote to the failings of last year’s nominations. All this attention seems rather unfair, as it ignores the merits and qualities that are on display in this film. Set in 1960s Virginia, where racism and sexism were generally...

By Wyndham Hacket Pain With a McDonald’s seemingly in every town centre and motorway service centre in the world it’s hard to imagine a time before the fast-food chain. Whether in the small island of Réunion off Madagascar or the Negev Desert in Israel you know the familiar burger and fries is never too far away. Over the last 60 years, McDonald’s has not just become one the world’s most recognisable and ironic products, but has also come to feed...

The representation of motherhood in cinema has through the years varied from the sublime to the sometimes ridiculous. We’ve had mothers to look up to, mothers to pity and even mothers who simply don’t fit the mould. To celebrate the release of Mike Mills' 20th Century Women which stars Annette Bening in one of her best roles to date, here’s a top 5 list of the best, and worst, mothers in film through the ages.  5- Mommie Dearest (1981) Faye...

In Prevenge, Alice Lowe revisits the familiar grisly kill territory of Ben Wheatley’s brilliantly understated film Sightseers, which she co-wrote and starred in alongside Steve Oram. Directed, written and starring Lowe herself in the principle role, Prevenge is a hilarious black comedy charting the adventures of a heavily pregnant woman on a remorseless killing spree. Despite lacking the perfectionist skills of Laurie Rose’s exquisite cinematography, the film has a similar narrative tone to Sightseers and deals with similar themes of...

Set in Pittsburg in the 1950s and adapted from August Wilson’s 1983 award-winning play of the same name, Fences is the third feature from Denzel Washington in his directorial guise. The play was part of a bigger body of work titled The Pittsburgh Cycle which charters black lives across the decades of the 20th century. The film has been one the most long awaited projects of the last 30 years. After winning the Pulitzer prize in 1987, the play was...

Wyndham Hacket Pain @WyndhamHP It must be hard enough to write, direct, and star in a film at the best of times, so I can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Alice Lowe to do all these things while heavily pregnant. Prevenge has a simple but interesting premise. Ruth, a pregnant women, is convinced her unborn child is not only speaking to her, but requesting her to commit a string of murders. In between these episodes there...