A Quiet Place Part II (2020)

Cast your mind back to what I like to call ‘the before times’; the pre COVID-19 age when we could do what the hell we wanted and films were coming out in theatres ten to the dozen. At the very tail end of those before times, A Quiet Place Part II was set to be…

Land (2021)

I don’t know whether it is something that is reflecting the state of the world in over the last couple of years or just pure coincidence, but a lot of the movies I’ve been watching recently have been about isolation in one form or another. The likes of Stowaway, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The…

Cruella (2021)

I’m going to whisper this quietly so nobody freaks out, *I’ve never seen the 1996 live action version of 101 Dalmatians*. Not the hugest cinematic crime, I know, but it does mean that I haven’t experienced the full glory of Glenn Close’s Cruella de Vil. I do, of course, have fond memories of the 1961…

The Woman In The Window (2021)

Hollywood has a long and storied history of adapting novels into feature films, and whilst some are absolutely amazing, others tend to suffer a shared fate of feeling far too rushed and far too stripped back from the richness of the original source material. You might think that adapting a flashy thriller would be one…

Those Who Wish Me Dead (2021)

Considering how huge of a Hollywood star she is, I was surprised to realise that over the last decade, the only new performances I had seen by Angelina Jolie were her outings as Disney’s iconic ‘villain’ in Maleficent and Maleficent: Mistress Of Evil. I was pretty neutral on the first, and flat out disliked the…

The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2021)

At this stage in my adult life, I must admit that I am way behind the pace when it comes to keeping up with all of the latest animated features. I’m not particularly proud of it, but I tend to make the effort for each new Disney and Pixar release, and then leave everything else…

Here Are The Young Men (2020)

As you are growing up and experiencing your own adolescence, I think it’s natural to gravitate towards films that detail some of the growing pains and events that feel familiar to you at the time. Though my life was rarely as dramatic as the screen narratives, movies like The Basketball Diaries, Thirteen, Kids and even…

Stowaway (2021)

Well, here we are, on the other side of Oscars weekend, and I couldn’t be more baffled by what went down on Sunday night. I’m not talking about Anthony Hopkins’ shock Best Actor win over Chadwick Boseman (an upset that I actually think was more than deserved), I’m talking about the handful of production decisions…

Thunder Force (2021)

When it comes to the career and performances of Melissa McCarthy, my personal relationship with the actress seems to be very much a case of one step forward, two steps back. She’s hit plenty of cinematic highs (for me) with the likes of Bridesmaids, The Heat and Can You Ever Forgive Me?, hell, I even…

Concrete Cowboy (2021)

One of the things that I love most in cinema is when a film invites me into a world or subculture that I had previously known nothing about. It’s one thing to watch a documentary and be given a very A-Z style education on a subject, but it’s an entirely different feeling when you are…