Film | Mama
3/5 stars Film snobs: do you tend to put foreign-made films on a pedestal, perhaps overlooking this trite plot device or that stock character in order to preserve that silly axiom that non-Hollywood films should be judged on some sort of bell-curve? I will admit to sometimes falling prey to this somewhat-misguided notion – but [...]
Film | NO!
Being a Politics Student, I’m aware that politicians rarely give straight answers. Don’t you all wish they could just be more direct and full of clarity? Referendums are the tap water of politics, clear and simple. A good example of referendums at work can be shown in No, a picture based on the real story [...]
Film | Oscar Snubs
A certainty at the Academy Awards every year is that some films- whether audience favourites or critically acclaimed avant-garde cinema- will fail to land the nominations they were expecting or indeed worthy of. This year the usual array of Oscar bait comes in the form of Tom Hooper’s surprisingly saccharine adaptation of West End crowd-pleaser [...]
Film | Controversy and the Oscars
The build-up to the Oscars is in full swing and the nominated films are being closely analysed in the press. As always this year controversial stories about the nominated films are being featured in the media with increasingly dramatic stories. Recently, the controversy surrounding nominated film Zero Dark Thirty reached its’ extreme height when journalist [...]
Film | The Baftas: the aftermath
Sunday’s BAFTA awards celebrated, in true British style, the championing the underdog. Up against the blockbuster powerhouses of Lincoln, Les Miserables, and Django: Unchained, it was Ben Affleck’s Argo which undoubtedly came out on top. Argo, a historical thriller which dramatises a CIA rescue mission during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, picked up three awards [...]
Film | Wreck-It Ralph
2/5 stars Over the years, videogame developers, like film studios, establish a certain pedigree. Nintendo’s Super Mario games are known for their endearing ingenuity and propensity to transcend audience brackets. Children enjoy them, adults enjoy them. If Nintendo released a bad Super Mario game, it wouldn’t sell. Trade-In shelves would be full of copies. But [...]
Film | Warm Bodies
4/5 stars Warm Bodies takes our pop culture fetishization of supernatural creatures to a place it has never gone before… zombies. Why not? It’s the natural progression from vampires and werewolves. But if the idea of a cold corpse grunting sweet nothings into your ear doesn’t get your gears turning, maybe the fact that said [...]
A Closer Look At… Michael Haneke’s Amour
With the 85th Academy Awards to be hosted this Friday, the films of 2012 and ‘13 are to be honoured in momentous fashion and style in Los Angeles. Amongst those nominated to receive awards is Michael Haneke, the Austrian film and screenwriter for his critically acclaimed ‘Amour’. Amour tells the story of an elderly couple, [...]
Film | Self-congratulation at the Oscars
Another year goes by and here we go again. Roll out the red carpet; it’s time for the pampered elite to pat themselves on the back once more. Well done, everyone! Especially you, Baffleck. That beard you grew for Argo? – No wonder those pesky Iranian revolutionaries didn’t recognise you! On that note, I’d say [...]