Film noir is one of the greatest genres if done well. The smokey detective stories that are stylish, flirtatious and cynical, with a puff of criminality in the shape of curves and femme fatales. Though they have been adapted in modern culture with films such as Brick or Memento, the term is often related to the black and white films of the 1940s and 1950s. There is a whole heap of films that work around film noir: The Maltese Falcon, Sunset Boulevard and Strangers on a Train to name but a few. But one of the most alluring pieces of films noir is Robert Siodmak’s The Killers.
by Cookie N Screen
Film noir is one of the greatest genres if done well. The smokey detective stories that are stylish, flirtatious and cynical, with a puff of criminality in the shape of curves and femme fatales. Though they have been adapted in modern culture with films such as Brick or Memento, the term is often related to the black and white films of the 1940s and 1950s. There is a whole heap of films that work around film noir: The Maltese Falcon, Sunset Boulevard and Strangers on a Train to name but a few. But one of the most alluring pieces of films noir is Robert Siodmak’s The Killers. by Liam McMillen In the last few years, British TV has had a big influence on British cinema. Within a matter of months, we’ve had The Harry Hill Movie, Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie and Pudsey the Dog: The Movie. These three films started because of the massive success of The Inbetweeners Movie, a film that surprised critics and audiences alike with its massive success. Its sequel, The Inbetweeners 2, pushes the latter films aside and shows that its predecessor wasn’t a fluke. by Cookie N Screen I like to think that there are two ways to enter a horror film. You either, for some reason, want to be scared completely out of your wits (and tits); or you want to have fun. After all, we’ve gone so passed desensitisation that it has flipped around and a truly amazing horror is one that can enthrall us with amazing comedy. You have to go into creating your horror film with these thoughts. You are going to blow people's sense of safety and security away from them and leave them putting the lights on whilst they sleep; Or you are going to pick some actress, get them to scream and flail around with hilarity. Guess which section See No Evil 2 falls in? by Jo Johnstone There was a time, not so long ago when the idea of the reboot/remake was not something that came about every five seconds. Sure ideas were reused and redone, but before it was a love of the source material that inspired the work, not just studio profit. One such positive remake came in the early nineties when a group of people decided to re-imagine America's strangest family on the big screen. Based on the cult sixties comic strip series of Charles Addams' cartoon family, The Addams Family brings the Gothic and peculiar bunch into the modern age. With parents Gomez and Morticia, children Wednesday and Pugsley along with eccentric Grandma Addams. In this version Uncle Fester has been missing from the family home for twenty five years. Scheming businessman Tully decides to send in a Fester look-a-like to take his place and steal the family wealth. As imposter Fester spends time with the unusual bunch, he grows to like them and perhaps finds where he is meant to be. by Cookie N Screen Ben Affleck has had more shit in recent years than you can fling a Batarang at. And it only doubled when he was cast as the winged hero last year in DC’s upcoming Superman vs Batman: Dawn of Justice. Of course, some of these damning remarks are often brought up with the following uttered hushed disaster; Gigli. So moving past that, you have to cough up some honesty when it involves Affleck because, frankly, he has excelled much more than most give him credit for. Good Will Hunting, Daredevil (Directors Cut, people,) and many more showcase his talents as a solid thespian, writer and director. More recently, his acting is astute and incredible in the recent Gone Girl it's clear Affleck is triumphing again. But if you were to ask me what springs to mind when I think of Affleck is Kevin Smith’s on point religious comedy Dogma. by Matthew Gammond It’s always hard to discuss a tragic real-world event, and it’s harder still to make a movie about one. Of course, lots of true life disasters have made their way to the big screen, often with mixed results, but for my generation there is one event (or date, rather) that is at the forefront of our minds when we think of tragedy – 9/11. The 13th anniversary has just passed by and as usual the television channels were flooded with news coverage, tributes, documentaries... and movies. Despite the world thinking that making a film about the events of that September morning was in bad taste, we got a few anyway, proving that studios didn’t believe the subject was to lie in a perpetual state of ‘too soon’. And despite still getting emotional when I think about what I saw that day, I’m glad films were made about it. by Melissa Haggar In a world where the vampire genre has been plagued by some more ‘sparkling’ additions, Jim Jarmusch arrives to rescue us all from the suffocating teen infatuations that we have all had to endure. Only Lovers Left Alive is not content to adhere to normal standards and provides a uniquely artistic cinematic experience, with Jarmusch showing that he is a certain flair for the indie aesthetic that he has created. by Cookie N Screen There is nothing more delightful to the ears than hearing “from the writer of Drive” combined with “and the author of The Talented Mr Ripley.” That is stamping gold stars all over your work before you’ve even begun. If you are doing a sixties drenched thriller in the golden shores of the Mediterranean it must be a winning combination. Imagine the sultry seducing plot, tantalising teasing humanity that spirals out of control thanks to an unforgiveable crime. The twists and turns, you simply cannot proceed your latest film with this crime drama holy duo of crime drama without incurring high expectations. Luckily, The Two Faces of January delivers on its promises in this highly tense drama. by Robbie Jones Seth Rogen and Zac Efron are both actors who have had their fair share of detractors. For Rogen, it’s the fact he seemingly plays the same sort of character in every film he makes, with only tiny bits of variation, and Efron has always come under fire for the films that made him famous, the High School Musical trilogy. But last year, Efron effectively hammered the final nail into his Disney coffin with The Paperboy, which came following quite a few serious performances, and now he’s a rising star on the comedy scene. The proof? Well, you’ve got his two comedies from this year: That Awkward Moment, a fairly enjoyable romp starring Miles Teller and Michael B. Jordan, and Bad Neighbours, the film that made it clear he was a comedy force to be reckoned with. by Liam Bland ‘Well, that doesn't explain... why you've come all the way out here... all the way out here to hell.’ ‘l... uh... I have a job out in the town of Machine.’ ‘Machine?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘That’s the end of the line!’ ‘Is it?’ ‘Yes!’ As the train makes its way across the American frontier toward the edge of civilisation, the driver portentously warns Johnny Depp’s character, William Blake what he might expect. ‘You’re just as likely to find your own grave.’ And so begins Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man, an indie film Western like none other you might have seen before. |
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