We’re now at the stage in the cinema calendar where the Oscar nominations have been announced and the films designed to bait the audience are being gushed over. Steven Spielberg directs Tom Hanks in a Cold War thriller. Tick. Cate Blanchett in a 1950s lesbian love story. Tick…
Top Ten: Tom Hanks Films
9 July 2015 by Leave a Comment
Happy birthday Tom Hanks. The nicest man in Hollywood is 59 today and to celebrate here are my Top Ten Tom Hanks films.
Boyhood
2 July 2015 by 2 Comments
When I first heard about Richard Linklater’s film Boyhood, the story of a family told over a span of 12 years and filmed over that same timeframe, I was thoroughly excited. It was such a bold idea and had the potential to be a generation defining narrative…
Dallas Buyers Club
11 February 2014 by 4 Comments
I’m just about old enough to remember the emergence of the AIDS epidemic in the early 80s. Here in Britain it was accompanied by doom-laden adverts showing exploding mountains and granite gravestones with the tagline “Don’t Die of Ignorance”. It probably saved lives by terrifying people…
Saving Mr Banks
6 February 2014 by Leave a Comment
Having missed Saving Mr Banks first time round at the cinema I’m thoroughly grateful to Cineworld for their Take-Two Thursdays policy where a recent film gets a one day reshowing for those of us who have been a bit tardy in our viewing…
12 Years A Slave
20 January 2014 by Leave a Comment
I’ve not been terribly good at getting to the cinema recently, but the Oscar nominations last week have focussed my mind. I didn’t want 2014 to be yet another year where I hadn’t seen the winner of the Best Picture Academy Award in advance of the ceremony. Given that until today I had only seen two of the nine nominees…
Top Ten: Oscar 2014 Snubs
16 January 2014 by 5 Comments
The Oscar nominations were announced earlier and everyone has an opinion on them. Including, as it turns out, me. I haven’t seen all of the films nominated and with so many strong performances and the high level of technical craft on show I wouldn’t dream of second-guessing The Academy. Having said that…
Calamity Jane
28 May 2013 by 2 Comments
If there’s ever been a time in my life that I needed cheering up it’s been the past few days. My beautiful cat was run over and killed and I’ve been a total wreck since then. I’ve not been able to do any work, going out of the house was hard and even eating took a back seat. I’ve started to come out the other side now…
Flight
27 May 2013 by 2 Comments
I can’t believe how quickly 2013 is marching on, it seems like only a few days ago I was watching the Oscars and bemoaning the fact I had missed a number of the films at the cinema. Now they’re nearly all out on DVD and iTunes. I’m sure when I was younger there was a much bigger gap…
Going My Way
15 May 2013 by Leave a Comment
As I wrote in my review of Argo I’m way behind on my viewing of films which have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. I am working on that though and making my way through the films from the 20s until today. I did try to watch The French Connection…