Film

When George Osborne initiated sweeping austerity cuts in the wake of the financial collapse it soon became apparent that the arts would be the first on the chopping board. Unlike hospitals, policing and defence the creative sectors don’t have the immediacy or even the public sensitivity boasted by their counterparts, and so with relatively little fuss cash spent on museums, libraries, dance and music was taken away. It’s hard to quantify the effect that has had on communities. Where we...

Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War follow. Read with discretion. Avengers: Infinity War is not the film it was three months ago. In most cases, the labeling of any moviegoing experience as “an event” is a mark of excellence. Infinity War is absolutely an event film, but that’s just about all it is. Without its promises of shock and awe, the film crumbles. It’s a vapid action-adventure inspired by comics made with more zeal and more confidence, which is a damn shame considering the richness of that...

Hollywood has, from its very beginnings, been importing talent to serve both in front of and behind the cameras. John Woo had made his directorial debut in 1974 with the martial arts movie The Young Dragons (featuring action choreography by one Yuan Lung Chen, you may know him as Jackie Chan), but it was only with his 1986 film A Better Tomorrow that he came to greater international prominence. A Better Tomorrow was a film that cemented Woo’s personal style,...

In 2014, Antoine Fuqua’s screen adaptation of the popular 1980s series The Equalizer took the box office by storm and went on to break more records by making almost 4 times more than it cost to make, not least thanks to the star power of its lead actor and all around Hollywood nice guy Denzel Washington. Now back for a second outing with the unimaginatively titled Equalizer 2, Fuqua offers up pretty much more of the same action-packed vigilante themed...

In Christopher Robin, director Marc Forster presents a nostalgia-laden adaptation of A.A Milne’s cherished children’s classic, in a film that is as heartwarming in its intent, as it is a little lacklustre in its delivery. Starring Ewan McGregor as the titular character, the film introduces a clever twist on the original story by offering Christopher as an adult in the midsts of a depressive midlife crisis, attempting to reconnect with his beloved Hundred Acre Wood, where along with his friends...

Only just over three-in-10 characters in the top 50 most successful films of 2016 were played by females - with even fewer cast in lead roles

I wonder whether, without the striking poster image, its lurid tagline “This woman has just cut, chopped, broken and burned five men beyond recognition… But no jury in America would convict her!” and with writer/director Meir Zarchi’s preferred title, Day Of The Woman enough people would have taken note of this film for us still to be talking about it forty years on. Titles matter, and the phrase I Spit On Your Grave has such a visceral charge that it...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its first new Oscars category since 2001: Best Popular Film. The award will honour those films which have had huge mass appeal, yet typically not the artistic reverence necessary to take the standard Best Picture gong. The runaway favourite for the first Best Popular Film statuette is the critical and commercial smash hit Black Panther. There are even rumours that a behind the scenes Disney campaign led to Best Popular Film...

When I first saw Heathers I was in hospital. It was, perhaps, an unusual choice; a blackly comic satire about a popular girl (Winona Ryder’s Veronica) who has come to hate the clique she’s a part of (the titular Heathers, played by Kim Walker, Shannen Doherty and Lisanne Falk). Veronica gets roped into murder when her new boyfriend JD (Christian Slater) serves one of the Heathers a ‘hangover cure’ that is actually drain cleaner. The two of them make this,...