How Television Saved My Life

The thing about slasher  films, is that all in all they're rather fun, but we've seen them before. The concept of The Final Girls is, however, different. Max (Taissa Farmiga) lost her mum a few years back, a famous scream queen actress Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman) who played in an eighties slasher film called Camp Bloodbath , which Max's friends force her to attend a viewing of. The viewing of the film turns disastrous, as an accident sends the entire theatre into flames, but Max and her friends head for the screen hoping to find the exit behind it. Inadvertently, they find themselves inside  the film itself, having to follow the set-up of Camp Bloodbath, while Max struggles to cope with seeing her mother alive again even if it's not really her. However, due to their appearance, the films story seems to alter, and the final girl  is up for grabs. It's not often I find myself tearing up about a film, but I did. There are lots of films who've done simila...

I knew nothing about Room when I walked in. I knew Brie Larson was playing one of the leads whom I remembered from Trainwreck and Scott Pilgrim vs The World. In some cases not knowing anything is a benefit. I'd not looked up a trailer, though I'd seen a short little synopsis about a young mother stuck in a room with her son. My mind raged from post-apocalyptic horror to indie-flick. None of which rang true in the end. It's a film that has to be seen and it hurts throughout the whole. That's all I can really say, and Brie Larson deserved to be clutching the many awards that slipped into her hands. She was perfection and so was Jacob Tremblay who played her son.

When you think of Oscar winners they usually celebrate Hollywood in some way or the other, besides digging into the same melodramatic groove which is familiar to us all. Recent years the trend has finally turned (like a slow rusty cog, it has got to be said), and what was once an obvious shoehorned winner doesn't get its price. Like Spotlight, nobody could swear it would win, though they hoped. It doesn't glorify the villainy that is talked about, its quiet, its honest, its true. This is a real story, these are real people and victims. The Boston Globe has a little group of journalists who collectively make up a single department called Spotlight  and focus on a story at a time, doing months of research before publishing. When a new editor steps in, there's a bit of fear that Spotlight will get cut, but they're surprised when finding their new editor wants them to pursue a story that has become easily overlooked articles in the newspaper as a whole. It's abou...

"Hello ladies...and gentlemen." Caught this in the theatre on Friday, wide-eyed and intrigued ignoring the whole pink-ballooned entrance in the theatre advertising 'How to be single' pre-Valentine's Day madness. I'm probably not one of the only ones who've become caught up by the 'media coverage' surrounding Deadpool, though this coverage was ultimately bolstered by fans. It's a delightful and fantastic way to do it, which Marvel themselves know well-enough, unlike Fox who haven't really dipped their toe in the water like this way before. Ryan Reynolds has certainly been amusing in this role, dropping enough of little gems throughout his way, besides being a big enough nerd himself. I am excessively glad this got made considering all the trouble it seemed to have pre-anything. The leaking of the test-clip helped them a long way, forcing Fox's hands. And thankfully it's paid off. Deadpool unlike his Marvel siblings, some of t...

There are no words that can encapsulate the immense sorrow I felt on hearing about the passing of the great Alan Rickman, a man of whom has etched himself into my life as Hans Gruber, Serverus Snape, The Sheriff of Nottingham and Colonel Brandon. It's not that there aren't other great roles he's done, perhaps to a much greater effect, but these felt like they were mine . These were the ones I grew up with, that I re-watched, that I giggled to, that I sympathized with. However, it's his Colonel Brandon from Sense and Sensibility that's gotten me the most. Perhaps it's because I'm a hopeless romantic, perhaps it's because it's a well-casted, brilliantly written and directed piece of costume drama. Emma Thompson adapting Jane Austen, and Ang Lee (of Brokeback Mountain fame) in the director seat - not much can go wrong. Alan was known for doing villains . But he really wanted to be remembered for his more quiet roles, the ones where he was kind, ...

Sentimental? Me? On Valentine's Day? Nooooo. Not at all. I'm not like tearing up and shit. Not at all. I'm like not one to cry you know. I'm made of rock. I'm an emotionally stunted bastard. It's all good. What's Princess Bride about? It's a fairy tale. A grandfather comes and visits his sick grandson and reads him this wonderful amazing book that his father used to read to him, and his father's father used to read to his father and so on and so forth. It has become a cult classic since its release back in 1987 and for good reason. Our story is about Buttercup who orders farm boy Westley around until she realizes that every time he's taken her command he's replied with 'as you wish'. He really means 'I love you' every time he says it, and so, they fall in love.  One day Westley leaves to seek his fortune so they can marry, but he never returns. She gets words that he has been killed by the dreaded captain Roberts, ...

I'm not a fan of remakes. That said, I did enjoy Evil Dead that had a gore level which certainly threw me off my guard. There's like gore and then there's gore. This was very much the latter. Mia (Jane Levy) has brought her friends and her estranged brother to the cabin they used to visit in their childhood. However, something seems different with the place, and it's not under the coziest of circumstances that they decide to travel there either. Mia's been struggling with a drug problem, and she's finally decided to quit. It seems like a good plan, except she's ultra sensitive to things and keeps complaining about the cabin smelling. They discover to their disgust that the entire cellar is filled with dead animals and that something has been burnt down there. There's also a book... If you're whatsoever familiar with the original(s) you probably know where this is heading, and it certainly went there though with the stereotypical 'it's th...

I've not spoken about a film I really adored  over Christmas, for me it was probably one of my favourites from 2015 to be entirely honest. It's the first feature length film from John Maclean and it really doesn't look like his first. Jay Cavendish (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is looking for his true love, Rose Ross (Caren Pistorius) who left Scotland to go to the West with her father. Unbeknownst to Jay there is a bounty on Rose and her father, soon enough he's accompanied by Silas Selleck (Michael Fassbender) an outlaw who serves as his guide who has some unsavory past friends (all of them bounty hunters). Where Jay is ignorant and naive in the ways of the West, Silas is the complete opposite and distrusts everyone, which creates for a fun dynamic, however not fresh  that concept seems.  It's a simple enough plot, but it's the way it's done that's a credit to it. There's a sort of - if Wes Anderson did a western feel over it. And it has actual...

(some spoilers below) I've been hearing about All About Eve  for years, this old black&white film from the 1950's that's supposed to be quotable besides amazing, showcasing Bette Davis at her absolute best. The whole film starts off as someone by the name of Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) being awarded a great theatrical award. Everyone seated around claps enthusiastically except four people, but I will focus more on the two ladies who don't clap - Bette Davis' character Margo Channing and Karen Richards (Celeste Holm). We're taken back, how long I'm not certain, perhaps a year or two where Karen Richards is heading to the theatre, but is a bit taken aback that a familiar face isn't residing on the outside of the theatre itself. She's been spotting this young woman who's been seeing the play with Margo Channing in the lead every night for the past weeks. Her name is Eve, and soon enough Karen brings her in to meet Margo, which Eve tries t...

"GIVE ME THE OSCAR NOW!" (SPOILERS AHOY BTW) Life has a way of uprooting ones ability to use the internet at times. My social life has been blossoming somewhat terrifyingly due to school and everything else has been put on the shelf for greater things, like actually creating things that I'm somewhat proud of, like a music video that's going to be Twin Peaks' inspired besides Coffee and Cigarettes. I can already hear someone coughing 'hipster' in the distance, though I think nerd is the more fitting term, then again, hipster geek is probably a thing. Let me get to the whole 'oh my god' Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens bit where I start chewing on furniture because I'm so pumped for the rest of this trilogy or endless route of films that Disney will be churning out hopefully to the end of my days (though I'll probably be cranky pants about that at some point 'oh dem raggedy youths with Star Wars VIIIIIIII - I don't know how to d...