Film

For all the joy and frivolity of the festive period, film has always had a tendency to show the darker side of the holiday. From Dead of Night and Mon Oncle Antoine, to the mournful Meet Me in St. Louis and emotionally raw It’s a Wonderful Life, Christmas at the cinema can be pretty bleak. The Apartment may not be full of snow, reindeer, and Father Christmas, but like many other Christmas films it looks at the loneliness that can...

Christmas is the season of giving, when people come together and rejoice in each other’s company. So, what better way to spend your pre-Christmas Friday than in the company of three loathsome characters, whose sense of cheer comes at the expense of others and to watch them slowly descend into a black hole of greed, selfishness and murder? This week’s Forgotten Film Friday marks the immaculate conception of a very different, more cinematic Holy Trinity, that of Danny Boyle and...

By Simon Columb  Mean, affected by a tragic condition and with a haunting, arresting gaze, Ava is a memorable tale. Directed by Léa Mysius, this debut can meander and lose a little energy, with plot devices dropped by the way side early on, but it has an intriguing focal point in its lead protagonist who is keen to escape her middle-class, yet lonely life. Ava is also a vulnerable and broken 13-year old girl. Bravely portrayed by newcomer Noée Abita...

By Sam Inglis Most of my go to Christmas movies are the same as anyone else’s: It’s A Wonderful Life, Gremlins, Muppet Christmas Carol, Die Hard, Die Hard 2 (it’s underrated, and as much a Christmas movie as the first). Then there’s this. This is the Manos of Christmas movies: It’s terrible, has been on MST3K, and is great fun with or without Joel and the bots making jokes. It’s an irresistibly silly title and, happily, Santa Claus Conquers The...

With family overseas, Christmas time has often meant a fair deal of travel, travel that has always involved international flights. When my family was based in the Middle East, I was often fortunate enough to find myself cozying into a long haul flight on an airline that boasted a great in-flight entertainment system, with a library of films that would put the BFI’s archives to shame. However, when my parents moved to Tashkent, the capital city of Uzbekistan, I had...

“Buddy the Elf, what’s your favourite colour?” I have wanted to answer the telephone and say that to someone ever since I first watched Elf, but considering it would probably make me look like a mad man I haven’t. Instead, I quote it in my head every time someone mentions the film. The line itself is silly – no one needs to answer the phone in that way, but Will Ferrell’s beloved character is just the right side of cheerful...

Towards the end of Pitch Perfect 3, Brittany Snow’s Chloe declares to her fellow Bellas – without even the vaguest hint of irony – that it’s time for them all to start new chapters and move on with their lives; a conclusion many members of the audience are likely to have already come to some 60-70 minutes earlier. For even if you consider yourself to be a hardcore fan of the Pitch Perfect franchise – and as someone who could...

Warning: Though this review is spoiler free, the film’s set-up is referenced throughout. “Good guys, bad guys, these are all just words,” says Benicio Del Toro’s inscrutable space-hacker DJ about a third of the way through The Last Jedi; his own allegiances, tellingly, enigmatically blurred between the dark and the light. The Star Wars saga means so many things to so many people, but its narrative and thematic crux has ostensibly been the same since George Lucas first introduced us...

A family are celebrating Christmas in style by building a life-sized Millennium Falcon - on their ROOF. Colby Powell and his four children built the 28.5 ft long, 20 ft around, and 5 ft thick replica of the spaceship used by Han Solo in the sci-fi saga. With help from family and friends, they also created a 23-foot replica of the Death Star on top his house two years ago when Episode 7 the Force Awakens was released, which was...