MoviesWriter/ Director Debbie Isitt’s “Nativity!” is a bit of a curiosity. Although largely scripted, some of the scenes were improvised (an approach which was expanded in the sequel), which lends it a slightly meta amateur feel. Paul Maddens (Martin Freeman), a frustrated actor turned resentful primary school teacher, is tasked with producing his school’s Nativity ..
MoviesBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever, lost in grief, volunteers as tribute. Setting a new standard for “in media res”, Marvel’s BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER opens with a scene which echoes the ongoing Phase’s preoccupation with the multiverse only this time it’s a metatextual incursion as real-world events – the tragic death of Chadwick Boseman – bleed ..
HorrorSo cupcakes, I’ve finally returned, summoned back to the land of the living by Odeon’s Scream Unseen, thinking a fiver’s got to be worth the gamble. If you haven’t heard of the scheme, basically you don’t know what you’re watching until it starts, although at least with Scream Unseen you know it’s going to be ..
Television*SPOILERS* With the surprising end to Season 3, viewers were excited to see where the BBC’s “Sherlock” would go next and, true to form, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss trolled everyone by announcing that the forthcoming special – The Abominable Bride – would take place in the period for which Holmes is most famously known: ..
MoviesThere’s something familiar and comfortable about Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth movies by now and it’s actually a little bit poignant that this will be (allegedly) the last time we’ll get to visit his New Zealand-infused take on Tolkien’s epic fantasies. Yes, there are a number of tricks and techniques which are starting to look a ..
MoviesThe posters for “The World’s End” outside my local cinema featured something I’d never seen before. There, right across the top of the poster, was a stark warning that showings of this film were being specially monitored for recording equipment (including mobile phones!) to prevent unauthorised copying. Not only did it spoil the look of ..
MoviesWhen the decision was made to expand “The Hobbit” from two films to three, there was always a risk the material would feel too stretched and if the strain was going to show anywhere, it would be in the middle section, “The Desolation Of Smaug”. And the strain does show, there’s no denying it. “The ..