Wreck-It Ralph’s Playful Retelling of Recent American Political and Economic History
Whilst film-makers often deliberately infuse their films with messages relating to current concerns – the allegorical explorations by Romero in his zombie films immediately spring to mind – more subtle or even subconsciousness reflections of recent events often find their way into films. In the following piece I explore the way in which Wreck-It Ralph, … Read more
Zero Dark Thirty – Torture, Revenge and a Question for America
Following an opening featuring a black screen and the sounds of 9/11 calls ,which lasts for a deeply uncomfortable period of time despite actually being relatively short, Zero Dark Thirty moves into more scenes which are well played to upset and discomfort an audience. We are introduced to the lead, Maya (Jessica Chastain), who is … Read more
The BBFC Are Using Flawed Research to Reaffirm Their Policies Regarding ‘Potential Harm’
Contrary to a common error that many seem to make, the BBFC stands for ‘British Board of Film Classification’ and not the ‘British Board of Film Censors’ (this was its name until 1984). Though, as a film fan growing up in the UK I always associated the board with censorship. Tracking down films to watch I was always struck by … Read more
Stanley Kubrick’s Cinematic Lolita
Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film Lolita, adapted from Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel of the same name, is a fascinating example of a cinematic adaptation and one that is oddly under-discussed within Kubrick’s career, even though it was something of a cause célèbre at the time of its release. The novel upon which the film is based is a … Read more
Frightfest 2011: Five of the Best
FrightFest is probably my favourite film festival and it’s definitely five days in August that I now look forward to every year. This is in part down to the excellent organisation, the incredible atmosphere and the fellow film fans you get to spend the August Bank Holiday with but mostly it’s because the festival affords … Read more
Why Sucker Punch Deserves A Second Chance
To the discerning film fan the modern multiplex can be a depressing and woefully uninteresting place to quench one’s thirst for cinematic pleasures. Filled as it so often is with unrelentingly banal and superficial Hollywood spectacles that fail to even be the simplistic fireworks displays that they appear to promise to be. To find a … Read more
Final Destination 5: Premonitions, Rules And Flying Limbs
At the heart of the Final Destination film series is a pretty dopey high concept, that death doesn’t like to be “cheated”. They rest on a set up in which a group of people manage to survive an elaborate disaster through the actions of one member, who has a premonition. Then the survivors begin to … Read more
Catfish – Online Identity, Ethics And Audience Reactions
Contrary to the poster for Catfish, which declares “Don’t let anyone tell you want it is.” the following will in detail discuss the film and therefore reveal elements of the plot that some would perhaps rather remain a mystery until they are unravelled on screen. Although the film is constructed in a way that builds the tension for the … Read more
