Written By Lewis Mainwaring
A new Alien movie is officially in development.
Neill Blomkamp is to direct the film, with Ridley Scott on board as producer.
“So I think this is officially my next film,” Blomkamp wrote on his Instagram account on Wednesday night (February 18).
http://instagram.com/p/zQwEQ0qhBq/?modal=true
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Written by Lewis Mainwaring
A truly great soundtrack is a time capsule of it’s film’s year and can provoke many memories for the listener.
This weekend the highly anticipated Fifty Shades of Grey has hit cinema’s worldwide and has also seen the release of Fifty Shades of Grey: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
One of the tracks Love Me Like You Do which is recorded by English recording artist Ellie Goulding is currently at the Number 1 spot of the UK Top 40 (for the second consecutive week). The track has also seen ‘top 10’ chart success in many other countries. Continue reading
It’s the season of love! And what better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than by looking back at some of our favourite couples from both the big and small screen.
Buffy & Angel (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1997-2003)
Before there was Bella and Edward (Twilight), Buffy & Angel (Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz) set hearts alight with their typical high school romance between a superhero and a brooding vampire (a tale as old as time). Continue reading
From new director Dammie Akinmol and writer/cinematographer Kazi Zaman
comes a brand new British noir short; Board to Death. It is produced by a collective called ‘Broken Lens Productions’.
We follow a husband (Joshua Expositio) who is incredibly paranoid and vengeful. He suspects his wife (Victoria Ashford) of being unfaithful and we follow him as he hunts down those who have he feels disrespected his wife and his marriage. Performed mostly as voice-over; Expositio does a great job of creating the seeds of a complex character that is one part villain and one part victim in a larger game that we discover later in the piece.
This alone is enough to maintain interest; supported by some other pop-up characters that range from bar-tenders to priests. The flow is also propelled by a constant techno/ambient score that carries the piece along and builds momentum to the inevitable conclusion.
The noir genre has had somewhat of renaissance in recent years; thanks in part to big-budget film’s such as Sin City (Robert Rodriguez); it is once again stylistically acceptable. A lot of effort has been made in this piece to create this especially with the cinematography and it is very successful in this respect. Visually it maintains a consistent black & white noir look with a generous use of backlight. It also has that dark and menacing feel we have come to expect.
However; I can’t help but feel this is noir for noir’s sake…and it would be nice to see some of the film-makers own creative flair come into play. All that said, this piece shows some promise and I look forward to what this production team will do next.
3/5
Written by Lewis Mainwaring
Spider-Man is joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe under a new deal between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Marvel Studios.
This new deal between both studios will allow Spider-Man to appear alongside Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and others in future films.
The character will appear in a currently unspecified Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. Marvel’s Kevin Feige will produce the next Spider-Man with Amy Pascal, due to hit cinemas on July 28, 2017.
The Internet’s Own Boy tells the tale of programming genius and privacy/information activist Aaron Swartz who is known for his involvement in development of web technologies such as RSS & Creative Commons as well as co-founding the website Reddit. Often labelled as a ‘hacktivist’ his political activities and campaigning garnered him many enemies as well as supporters. He was heavily involved in campaigning to stop the SOPA(Stop Online Piracy Act) bill. In the age of the internet these issues are increasingly important and no clearer for most individuals to understand. Continue reading
Coming soon from production company Epicleff Media and Director/Producer Matt Schrader is the much anticipated film ‘SCORE: A Film Music Documentary’.
So much attention is paid in the media to Actors & Directors; but very little notice is given to the production team behind the scenes that help bring the film together and take very little of the credit for the end result. One such group of un-sung heroes is Composers and this is who this documentary focuses on.
A good or bad score can make or break a film and in some genres is crucial to support the action and/or emotion of the piece. This is no simple task; the composer must shape their score around the director’s vision and work within the constantly evolving nature of a film in production. Continue reading
Written by Ben Gummery & Lewis Mainwaring
Chastity Bites is a 2013 black comedy/teen horror film written by Lotti Pharriss Knowles and directed by John V. Knowles. (See our interview with John here)
Notorious serial killer Elizabeth Bathory (Louise Griffiths) believed that bathing in virgin blood would keep her young and beautiful forever. Still alive in present day America she’s found a perfect hunting ground promoting celibacy in the young girls at San Griento High School under the banner of the V.A.G. society.
Dolphin Tale 2 is the sequel to the 2011 Dolphin Tale which was loosely based on the true story of bottlenose dolphin ‘Winter‘ that was rescued from the Florida coast and taken to the Clearwater Marine Park (which is also used in the film) who sadly lost her tail and had to be fitted on a prosthetic. This film centred on the friendship between Winter and 11-year-old Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble).
The film stars Harry Connick Jr., Ashley Judd, Nathan Gamble, Kris Kristofferson, Cozi Zuehlsdorff & Morgan Freeman; all of whom returned from Dolphin Tale. Writer/Director Charles Martin Smith also returns. Continue reading
The 1991 thriller Toy Soldiers is being released for the first time on Blu-Ray on the 2nd June by 101 Films as part of their ‘Cult Film Collection’. It is probably arguable however whether this film deserves cult status. It fits in with the typical action/military films of the late 80s/early 90’s; but this is no WarGames.
This was the directorial debut of Writer/Director Daniel Petire Jr. who is better known for his comedic writing on films such as Beverly Hills Cop an Turner & Hooch. Some of that humour is also seen here but is not nearly as effective as his other works. The cast includes Sean Astin(The Goonies, Lord of the Rings), Wil Wheaton (Stand By Me), Louis Gossett, Jr. (An Officer and a Gentlemen), Andrew Divoff (Air Force One), Mason Adams (Lou Grant) and Denholm Elliott (Indiana Jones).
Regis High School, an exclusive prep school for delinquent teens becomes the target of a terrorist hostage-taking when Columbian drug lord and terrorist Luis Cali (Divoff) travels to the US to negotiate the release of his father and it is left to a group of student pranksters (Astin, Wheaton etc.) to outsmart the terrorists.
