Moneyball, Bennet Miller’s biographical baseball drama about Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland Athletics, and his revolutionary approach to managing a sports team, was perhaps a surprise Oscar hit in 2011. It may not have won anything on the night, but six nominations is impressive for such an understated film – even one that … >
Following the mammoth success of the X-Men franchise and Marvel Cinematic Universe, superhero films have become a fully fledged genre of their own over the past decade. From the beginning, Deadpool is extremely self-aware and ready to poke fun at the superhero genre along with its cast, X-Men connections and the complicated 12 year journey … >
Michael Bay has become something of a shorthand in the film world over the past decade or so. Gone is the affection that was once earned from hugely entertaining (if somewhat cerebrally challenged) blockbusters like Bad Boys, The Rock and Armageddon, replaced instead with scorn for a seemingly endless litany of Transformers movies, which somehow … >
The financial crash that took place in 2008 is something that affected all of us, either directly or indirectly, and yet it’s not something that a huge number of people fully understand. How did it happen? What caused it? And why did nobody see it coming? Sounds like a great idea for an informative documentary, … >
For me, Doctor Who and Star Wars come from opposite ends of the sci-fi spectrum. While the latter is a big-budget blockbuster saga revolving around a group of rebels fighting galaxy-spanning battles, Doctor Who is a generally underfunded television series about a lone man who travels around in a ramshackle time machine. That said, neither … >
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS PLOT SPOILERS. WE ADVISE NOT READING THE REVIEW UNTIL YOU’VE SEEN THE MOVIE. After three non-stop years of building hype and anticipation, the latest chapter in the Star Wars saga has finally hit cinemas. Strangely enough for a sci-fi fan, Star Wars kind of passed me by. I have vague memories of … >
Halowe’en may have come and gone, but if you’re still looking for scares, you could do a lot worse than Irish horror The Hallow. Coming out at the same time as one of the most successful Irish films ever (Brooklyn), The Hallow offers a very different look at the Emerald Isle, taking the beautiful countryside, … >
Spectre is not, as some have boldly claimed, ‘the best Bond movie ever’. But then, deciding on the ‘best Bond movie’ is like reaching a consensus on the best way to make a Martini: everyone’s got their own idea of how much of what you should slosh in, and whether to shake or stir (stir, … >
The opening to Spectre is the sort of sequence that James Bond films are made for. It’s a dazzling distillation of everything that the franchise should be – visually striking, funny, sexy, explosive and exciting. And if the rest of the film can’t quite match up to that impressive opening, Spectre still makes for a … >
Of all the filmmakers working in Hollywood today, Guillermo del Toro is one of the most fervently followed. The cult of interest that springs up around any project he’s attached to is well earned: smaller scale Spanish language classics (Cronos, Pan’s Labyrinth) are offset against mega-budget Hollywood blockbusters (Hellboy, Pacific Rim) in his back catalogue, … >