We’ve had sparkly vampires and we’ve had funny vampires. We’ve even had whatever it was Johnny Depp was doing in Dark Shadows. However, it is safe to say A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is our first Iranian Western vampire.
One Last Fight: Danny Collins
It is safe to say that Al Pacino hasn’t done his best work in the twilight years of his career. While there is no denying his talent, recent years haven’t been kind to the great man, as the number of films he releases dwindles and the ones he does appear in hardly set the world afire. He’s not alone in this however and he’s joined a surprisingly strong list of actors who have attempted to stage a comeback, by playing a character in a very similar position.
Taking a Risk: Tomorrowland
There are plenty of films out there that just do the bare minimum. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are bad, but they play to an audience that they know exists and whether they are good or not, there is a decent chance they will find that audience. However, every now and then a film comes along that tries something a bit different and is full of big ideas. Quite often these films don’t quite work and something is a bit off about them. However, should these films not be celebrated over even the better of the safe films? Movies that go for broke and don’t quite make it are surely more exciting than movies that play be all the rules?
Pitch Perfect 2
It has been said before and it will be said again, comedy sequels ain’t easy. Keeping what is good about the first, but not treading over old ground is a hard game to play. However, it has never stopped Hollywood churning them out at a rate of knots and with Pitch Perfect having been ten times more successful than anyone could have predicted, it is hardly a surprise to see number two hitting our screens.
Mad Max: Fury Road
George Miller’s Mad Max series was always the odd one out in terms of this years summer blockbusters. Going up against Marvel, The Terminator and Jurassic Park, it had almost been shoved to the side, forgotten for its more illustrious peers. Therefore, it may come as a bit of a shock that Mad Max: Fury Road stands a very good chance of being the best of them.
The Falling
It takes a certain kind of film to release on the same day as something like Avengers: Age of Ultron. You either have to be a little bit insane or be peddling something so completely different, that you believe your audience will find it. The Falling definitely falls into the second category, as Carol Morley‘s film looks at a fainting epidemic in a 1960’s girls school in England.
The Voices
Horror comedy is a tough genre to pull off. It requires that you to both produce scares and laughs to truly pull it off and for every Evil Dead 2 there is a whole host of shit that we don’t want to remember. Stepping into that difficult arena is The Voices, directed by Marjane Satrapi whose previous film Persepolis, it’s fair to say, is a very different beast from this one.
Trailers = Shit
Trailers. They’re a bit shit aren’t they?
I like getting to the cinema early. I like finding my seat (particularly since most Cineworld patrons seem incapable of working out the seating system), getting comfy and watching the trailers. Now, this ritual has led to some issues over the years. I still involuntarily scream every time I hear Kevin Bacon’s name and you don’t want to see what happened the last time I walked past an EE store. (Seriously, those adverts were the bane of my life). But, I always enjoyed watching the trailers. As someone who goes to the cinema far too often, I actually do see most of the films I want to (it’s the wonders of being unemployed, you run out of things to do around 2 pm) and slowly this has led to me realising that this trailer watching tradition, is negatively affecting my cinema going.
Trash
There’s a lazy habit in the film industry of boiling things down to an elevator pitch and then sticking with that description. Therefore, it’s no surprise that Trash has become widely known as a Brazilian, Slumdog Millionaire. Directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Richard Curtis, the film has star power behind the scenes, but then chose to follow the City of God model by taking its lead actors from the streets of Brazil, rather than the glamour of Hollywood.
Big Hero 6
Following up a hit like Frozen was never going to be easy for Disney. Their animated wing has hit a run of form with Tangled, Wreck it Ralph and everyone’s favourite snowy adventure, so the choice to adapt an obscure Marvel property for their latest animated film, might have seemed bold. Of course, that was before adapting obscure Marvel properties became all the vogue and in a post Guardians of the Galaxy world, it’s become clear that it doesn’t matter how many people have read it, the Marvel Disney combo sells.
Ramblings About Wrestling 