Reviews Archives - Page 3 of 9

March 11, 2016

Film Review: To Kill A Mockingbird

Our resident film reviewer is writer Harry Casey-Woodward who will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched…

To Kill a Mockingbird, 1962, cert 12, dir Robert Mulligan, 3/5

Harper Lee was a one of a kind author. She only published two books, but not many writers can claim the same amount of popularity and success she received. Not only was her first book To Kill a Mockingbird an instant hit when first released in 1960, it won the Pulitzer prize and is still regarded as a literary classic. Furthermore, it was adapted for film only two years later. With the author’s recent passing, I thought it was high time I ticked the movie off my cinematic-classics-watch list.

I only got round to reading both of Lee’s novels last year. I thought Mockingbird was a superb piece of storytelling, blending childhood charm with darker themes. The sequel she published last year, Go Set a Watchman, I did not enjoy so much. Not because of the new controversies surrounding the characters but because it wasn’t my kind of novel and its message was muddled for me by the end.

After reading Mockingbird, I was curious to see how its storyline of a white lawyer defending a black man accused of rape would have been adapted for the early 60s. The book itself was subtle in depicting such a controversial plot, but its depictions of racism were still shocking for a book about children. I wondered if the filmmakers might have toned down those elements with respect for the censors. However, the infrequent use of the ‘n’ word and ‘rape’ were kept in, which was still shocking to see contrasted with the scenes of kids playing and family tenderness. But maybe that was the point, to show the light and dark sides of the American South.

The film’s strongest point is that it is a near perfect adaptation of the book. Very little is changed (except to condense the story in some places), and the only parts left out were extra story padding depicting the intricacies of Southern American society, which I didn’t greatly miss. The best scenes are all kept in and are just as I imagined them in the book, with all the drama, suspense and little details intact.

The good acting helps as well. Gregory Peck’s Oscar winning performance as lawyer and widowed father Atticus Finch is both charming and noble, although I felt his acting in highly emotional moments was a bit forced. The child actors were great as well, if you’re ok with Alabaman children shouting everything at the tops of their high-pitched voices. The most emotional performance for me came from Brock Peters], the actor playing the accused Tom Robinson. His near breakdown when telling his side of the story to a courtroom packed with white folks is enough to show the extent of racism present in the society depicted.

It is interesting to view the film after reading Go Set a Watchman, when the seemingly heroic depiction of Atticus in both the Mockingbird book and film is challenged. Nevertheless it is still worth watching the film for quality cinema, its ability to enchant, frighten and move you still undimmed.

February 26, 2016

Film Review: Five Cold Films

Our resident film reviewer is writer Harry Casey-Woodward who will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched…

Since the weather at the moment is rather grim, I’ve had a think about what handful of films mirror the British winter chill and would be horrific to be starring in, not just for the cold.

The Hateful Eight, 2016, cert 18, dir Quentin Tarantino

I haven’t seen The Revenant yet, otherwise by the sound of the conditions depicted it would surely get a place here. But the Hateful Eight is another western coinciding nicely with the British winter. Except it’s depicting a Wyoming winter so naturally the weather is a bit more extreme. As in, everything is smothered in snow and looks like a Christmas card, except the very opposite of Christmas cheer and goodwill happens in the film. I just feel sorry for that stagecoach driver stuck on top of his coach the whole time while his passengers are sheltered below him, and the guy forced to walk naked in the snow. Yes that does happen. All in all, this film does a great attempt at showing how cold the American west could get and just how desirable a pot of fresh hot coffee would have been.

The Shining, 1980, cert 18, dir Stanley Kubrick

I know most of the film’s action takes place indoors, but the ominous presence of winter just lurking outside is maintained throughout. Even at the beginning, the hotel manager is warning Jack Torrance how severe the winter can get, what damage it can cause to the hotel and what damage it caused to the mind of the last caretaker who, suffering allegedly from ‘cabin fever’, murdered his family. All the other staff members are hurrying to leave before the roads are snowed in. So while the Torrances are trying to have a relaxed, normal time (besides the ghosts, the kid’s powers of prophecy and daddy’s slide into psychosis), the raging winter outside is cutting down telephone wires, shutting down roads and generally making it difficult for the Torrances to escape or be rescued when things start going down the toilet. Plus Jack Torrance freezing to death outside looks a chilly way to go.

The Thing, 1982, cert 18, dir John Carpenter

For one thing, this film is set in Antarctica, the coldest and remotest place you can get. Not only that, but you’re stuck in a science base with a bunch of experts and one bearded alcoholic pilot played by Kurt Russell, so you could die of boredom as well as cold. Unfortunately, a shape-shifting alien is unleashed from the ice and starts taking over everyone like a parasite that’s really good at impressions. Cue some traumatic 80s prosthetics of human bodies tearing apart and sprouting new alien appendages, but at least the gushing bodily fluids that flood this film might keep you warm. Funnily enough, season one of X-Files did their own tribute/rip-off of this film in one episode about parasitic aliens set in an Antarctic science base, which looked equally cold.

Dead Snow, 2009, cert 18, dir Tommy Wirkola

Let’s bring some world cinema in. Of course, the term does suggest sophistication, not students getting slaughtered by Nazi zombies. Try telling that to HMV, however, whose ‘world cinema’ sections appear to be mostly stocked of all the nasty pulp foreign language films. Anyway, it does look pretty cold in this particular Norwegian snowbound shocker. The constant running away and the brain-bashing of undead fascists would keep you warm though, as would being soaked in the copious amounts of spilled blood from you and your friends. I thought the most unpleasantly cold-looking moments in the film were in the outdoor toilet next to the students’ wood cabin. How did two characters have sex in there? It’s bad enough with the zombies pulling you down the poop chute afterwards.

Die Another Day, 2002, cert 12, dir Lee Tamahori

Honestly I had a hard time thinking of things for this list, but this movie sure looks chilly, especially since the second half is set in some ice palace in the Arctic. They must have had some magical central heating system where the guests didn’t freeze but the palace didn’t melt around them. James Bond even managed to persuade Rosamund Pike to lose her clothes in some icy bedroom. There are many cold scenes throughout the Bond franchise (as in temperature not the acting). I haven’t seen Spectre yet but there is another Pierce Brosnan flick called The World is not Enough, the predecessor to Die Another Day, where Bond and Sophie Marceau lose some baddies in a ski chase but end up buried under an avalanche. Luckily Bond’s array of gadgets includes a bubble that pops up around them and shields them from the evil snow. This doesn’t stop Marceau from having a panic attack and Bond has to calm down the silly woman. At least he didn’t do it the Sean Connery way and slap her.

February 21, 2016

A Chocwork Orange Beer Launch

Last weekend our music writer Amber Carnegie had the pleasure of heading to BrewDog Sheffield to try their latest beer collaboration. Here’s what she got up to…

‘A Chocwork Orange’ has been created by BrewDog in Sheffield, and independents Abbeydale Brewery and Skull And Bones Boys Club. A chocolatey pale malt brewed with a focus on citrus fruits and orange peel. The result- a rich beer with a lasting flavour that left you wanting another pint.

‘A Chocwork Orange’ have nailed it with a chocolate focused beer with none of the artifical taste that you sometimes associate with chocolatey beers. The chocolate notes coming from real cacao nibs and chocolate malts for a moreish flavour that certainly paid off with the first cask selling out in under two hours.

The launch also gave us a taste of the latest Skull And Bones Boys Club collection with baby pinks, pastel blues and intriguing washes framing the bar. As their brand evolves so do their pioneering collections, with already iconic products such as chopping boards and straight razors who knows what SABBC will be adding to their portfolio next.

Find out where you can try ‘A Chocwork Orange’ here.

February 19, 2016

Film Review: Deadpool

Our resident film reviewer is writer Harry Casey-Woodward who will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched…

Deadpool, dir Tim Miller, 3/5

As I’m not a fan of superhero movies, I feel we are saturated with them at the moment. Not only is every conceivable Marvel and DC character being dredged up for adaptation but we are going through an era of multi-superhero films. Franchises like The Avengers are teaming superheroes up and pitting them against each other, criss-crossing story lines in a vast blockbuster market consuming web.

We’ve got Captain America: Civil War, Suicide Squad and Batman vs Superman all coming out this year, and even superhero sequels for next year are being hyped up. It’s like Marvel and DC are in a furious race to get as many characters and storylines up on screen as possible and I’m getting sick of it. I feel like more than ever we need an antihero.
Cue Deadpool. I haven’t read the original comics but I have seen one panel where he shoots dead someone just for admitting they like the Star Wars prequels. After seeing his movie, to me this is a good summary of both the character and the film. There’s humour, violence and more pop culture references than you can shake a stick at. And more violence.

In short, Deadpool could be the first adult Marvel film. I don’t mean that in an erotic sense (although there are fair dollops of nudity) but it’s the only movie about a Marvel character I can think of that doesn’t hold back with the jokes, the swearing or the explicit violence. Often it combines all of these, especially in scenes where Deadpool gleefully dispatches henchmen in a variety of comically gruesome ways.
So yes the film is crude and savage but it’s also smart. It’s refreshing to watch a superhero cracking self-aware jokes not just at the idea of being a superhero but at other superhero movies. Many of these jokes are aimed at Hugh Jackman, which I relished after having to watch him in so many bad X-Men sequels. There were even stabs at Ryan Reynolds, the actor playing Deadpool, so try and get your head around a character making fun of the actor playing him. As for Reynolds’ performance, I think it’s the best I’ve seen out of him. He’s clearly in his element playing a wisecracking anti hero and having immense fun with it.

I expected the jokes and the violence. What I didn’t expect were the moments of seriousness underneath. The plot boils down to an ex-special forces man named Wade meeting the woman of his dreams (Morena Baccarin), getting cancer and taking up the offer from a shifty man in a suit of a cure that also gives him the ability to heal from everything else. Unfortunately it also leaves him with all over body scarring, destroying his fine looks. So he straps on some weapons and a costume, becomes Deadpool and rampages after the British sociopathic scientist named Ajax (Ed Skrein) who performed the process and ruined his life. Not only does he want revenge but he also wants the damage reversed so he can have the confidence to face his girlfriend again. As he tells us in the film, this is both a romance and a horror story. You feel sorry for Deadpool as well as laugh along with him. The scenes where he’s struggling with cancer and his relationship are quite touching, even with jokes.

Overall, what we get is a film that joyfully slaps all the clichés of its genre in the face while still taking its story and characters seriously. It’s kind of relaxing to watch a superhero movie that shrugs off the overbearing moral code that oppresses other such films and instead gives us a guy who likes killing people and cracking jokes, which you can kind of understand. Judging by the film’s box office success, this is what people have wanted. It’s fun, it’s different, it’s outrageous and it comes with a pumpin’ soundtrack. Plus we finally get a comic book character who sees the hilarity in wearing a skin-tight latex costume.

February 12, 2016

Film Review: Mad Max: Fury Road

Our resident film reviewer is writer Harry Casey-Woodward who will be sharing his opinions on things he has watched…

Mad Max: Fury Road, 2015, cert 15, dir George Miller, 5/5

2015 was the year of sequels. We had Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Terminator all make comebacks. But the sequel I was most excited and worried about was the fourth Mad Max movie. I felt conflicted about the return of this futuristic Aussie hero because of my love for the original trilogy. I actually wondered if there was any need for a new film and whether director George Miller was simply wringing the udder of the cash cow.
For one thing, the plot of the new film didn’t sound radically different from those of the previous movies. In the scorching wastelands of post-apocalyptic Australia, loner Max teams up with another bunch of outnumbered misfits (this time women) fighting off armies of road barbarians.

Actually it’s the simplicity of the plot that saves this sequel. Fury Road acknowledges that the Mad Max films are nothing more than glorified road action movies and rather than trying to twist something more out of this formula, chooses to perform it very well. However, balanced with the motorised carnage audiences no doubt were there for, is a simple but surprisingly emotional story of a small band of mismatched, damaged characters searching for a place to call home.

This brings me onto the cast, whose abilities to fit into the Mad Max world I did doubt. How does Tom Hardy fare as the title character, filling the boots of Mel Gibson? Despite his anti-Semitism I have enjoyed Mel Gibson’s performances, especially as the tough, cool but emotionally distant Max. However, the more I see of Tom Hardy the more I respect him. He is utterly gripping as Max, perfectly conveying the silently heroic but emotionally broken loner.

I wondered whether Charlize Theron would be too pretty to play one-armed matriarch Furiosa, but she brings great attitude, nobility and vulnerability to the role (though I wonder why she got to keep her American accent). The actresses playing the girls Furiosa rescues are all captivating too, although I wonder if models like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley are still too gorgeous to play citizens of such a harsh post-apocalyptic world. Nevertheless they are meant to be girls captured for their beauty by terrifying warlord Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne who also played the villain in the first Max film).

I’ve always seen young Brit actor Nicholas Hoult as a pretty face, but he is transformed in this movie into the deranged but pathetic war boy Nux, whose obsession for glory in battle turns to sympathy for the women.
Apart from the great story and cast, the film looks good too. The action is not only intense and thrilling, but Miller uses special effects previously unavailable to him in the 80s to fully imagine his savage, epic vision.

Overall this film has everything: a magnificent blend of imagination, heart and relentless action. After such a long wait this is a worthy addition to such a great series, with plenty for old and new fans alike. In fact, it stands up so well on its own you don’t even need to see the old movies to have a good time. Best film of 2015? It gets my vote.