Much like its Roman namesake, the month of January has two faces when it comes to the world of cinema, whilst the conversations are all abuzz with awards shows and accolades the actual theatrical releases tend to be a little lacklustre, especially in horror, but Master of the genre James Wan is here to break…
Tag: Female Lead
Enola Holmes 2 (2022) Film Review
Re-reading my review of Harry Bradbeer’s surprisingly entertaining Enola Holmes from back in January 2021, I seem to have found myself in something of a time-loop… “I don’t really buy into the whole ‘New Year, New Me’ mentality but as January rolled around it seemed as though my desire to watch new content came back,…
Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) Film Review
After something of a teaser in Marvel’s No Way Home, cinema-goers were expecting some fun-filled escapades across the infinite cosmos with the MCU’s latest film, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Unfortunately, Sam Raimi’s Doctor Strange failed to make much of a spark leaving room for Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All…
The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022)
As fans of cinema and TV we do have a certain level of tolerance for the ridiculousness that sometimes comes with our favourite form of escapism. We like to poke holes in the logic of science-fiction, roll our eyes at the bad guy’s terrible aim in action movies and throw our hands up in exasperation…
Scream (2022) Film Review
Twenty-five years ago Wes Craven’s Scream breathed new life into a flagging genre spawning three sequels and the hilarious parody series Scary Movie. For many, this franchise sparked a love of horror but for eight-year old me it gave me a suitably terrifying boogeyman and something of a love-hate relationship with the slasher genre as…
Encanto (2021) Film Review
Given the rather lukewarm reaction to 2020’s The Prom and the epically spectacular failure of a Cats revival in 2019, you would be forgiven for thinking that musical theatre movies would slink away into the shadows for a while licking its wounds until enough time had passed for us to forgive – but never forget – the…
Last Christmas (2019) Film Review
For me, Christmas movies tend to fall into two camps, both of which I’m pretty happy with. We’ve got the watch-a-billion-times classics such as The Holiday, Love Actually and Arthur Christmas that become part of the fabric of our Christmas traditions and then we have the overdosed-on-sugar, over-the-top schmaltzy gems that are so bad that…
Bombshell (2019) Film Review
Bombshell Definition (noun) An unexpected and surprising event, especially an unpleasant one. A very attractive woman The irony of the double meaning of the word ‘bombshell’ is not lost on the cast and crew of the 2019 biographical drama from director Jay Roach. A little over a year before the Harvey Weinstein scandal rocked Hollywood…
Last Night In Soho (2021) Film Review
Coming from my neck of the woods, Edgar Wright is the epitome of country boy making it good in the big city, garnering himself quite a following with cult comedy classic like Spaced and Shaun of the Dead alongside dramatic and cinematic masterpieces (yes, I stand by the word) such as Baby Driver. For his…
Midsommar (2019) Film Review
Considering Ari Aster’s feature length debut, Hereditary, won the not-so-coveted top spot on my worst films of 2018 list, I can’t say I was particularly enthusiastic heading into his Scandinavian follow up, Midsommar, especially considering the reviews were as similarly divided this time around. Not one to judge a book by its cover, or a…
Retro Review: The Birds (1963)
It seems as though Halloween brings out my retro side, considering most of my ‘Retro Reviews‘ so far have been classic horrors or thrillers and my latest first time viewing continues that tradition, as I take another dip into the film catalogue of the great Alfred Hitchcock with his 1963 offering, The Birds. Director: Alfred…
Charlie’s Angels (2019) Film Review
I was a little apprehensive going into the new Charlie’s Angels, as twelve year old me loved the 2000 version and I am still kind of in two minds about straight out and out remakes. They tend to have a ‘been there, done that’ kind of vibe – a la 2016 Ghostbusters – but the…
The ‘New Girl’ Flat Mates Ranked From Worst To Best
Building on – and improving – the format that F.R.I.E.N.D.S made mainstream what feels like an age ago, creator Elizabeth Meriwether’s New Girl is a quirky, refreshingly hilarious and surprisingly emotional sitcom about a group of flat mates that is an absolute must watch. Although the series finale aired way back in 2018, it wasn’t…
Black Widow (2021) Film Review
Before Covid, the long awaited standalone Black Widow movie was set to kick off Phase 4 of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe but, with cinema’s closed and the subsequent reshuffling of movie releases, Black Widow made way for MCU’s first canonical forays into television. No matter how much buzz WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and…
Booksmart (2019) Film Review
Often referred to as a female-centric Superbad, Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut is a modern and feminist take on the traditional high school ‘coming-of-age’ stories that are chock full of teenage shenanigans and raunchy comedy. Booksmart was one of those films that I had every intention of watching at the cinema but was always superseded by…
Run (2020) Film Review
After enduring the harrowing and traumatic birth of her tiny premature baby, Diane Sherman (Sarah Paulson) can be forgiven for being a little over protective but seventeen years later she seems ready for her daughter Chloe (Kiera Allen) to leave the proverbial nest and go off to college. Chloe has a sharp engineering mind many…
Things Heard And Seen (2021) Film Review
Over the last few months Netflix have been churning out a host of female-led psychological thrillers, including Amy Adam’s The Woman in the Window and most recently Gina Rodriguez’s Awake. Kicking off this influx was Amanda Seyfried in Things Heard And Seen, a part gothic horror, part psychological thriller inspired by Elizabeth Brundage’s acclaimed novel…
Cruella (2021) Film Review
The origins of the deliciously devilish, dog-napping fashionista, Cruella De Vil, was never really something that had crossed my mind but with the announcement of Emma Stone (one of my favourite actresses) taking on the role and those incredibly edgy early images of her in full costume, I think it’s safe to say that I…
Ma (2019) Film Review
In the need of a new life and a fresh start, Erica and her sixteen year old daughter, Maggie, move from San Diego back to Erica’s home town in rural Mississippi. Maggie quickly makes friends with her fellow classmates Haley, Darrell, Chaz and Andy and they invite her to join them on a night out…
Birds Of Prey (2020) Film Review
Although 2016’s Suicide Squad was a total disappointment, that didn’t get any better on a second viewing, there was one shining light in amongst all the crap: Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn. But in much the same way that Gal Gadot’s standalone Wonder Woman didn’t quite live up to the character’s potential shown in Batman Vs…
The Woman in the Window (2021) Film Review
Much in the same way that it took Leonardo DiCaprio five nominations before he finally took home an Oscar, Amy Adams has been nominated six time (SIX!!) and has still not received one of those coveted statues. So when I first saw the trailer for Joe Wright’s psychological thriller, The Woman in the Window, I…
Promising Young Woman (2020) Film Review
Each year there always seems to be one particular film that everyone, and I mean everyone, is either talking about or hearing about. Last time it was Bong Joon Ho’s history making Parasite, this time it’s Emerald Fennell’s #metoo era black-comedy thriller Promising Young Woman that was making all the waves. Now I’ve been wanting…
Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark (2019) Film Review
2019 feels like it was decades ago, but I do remember that Mark and I were quite keen to watch Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark when it was released but, for one reason or another, we never got round to it but when it got randomly pulled out of our lucky dip box…
What Happened To Monday (2017) Film Review
With the world projected to have 8.5 billion people by the end of the decade, I don’t think anybody can argue the fact that our planet has a massive population problem. The idea of restricting the number of children born to reduce humanity’s impact on the planet’s resources is not exactly new, China implemented a…
WandaVision (2021) Series Review
Us poor Marvel fans barely had enough time to reflect on the events of Endgame and Far From Home before the next three years of our cinematic lives were neatly planned out with new release dates acting as mini milestones to mark in our diaries. If there was one good thing to come out of…
Late Night (2019) Film Review
I think it’s fair to say that representation in Hollywood has been something of a hot button topic over the last however many years, and whilst I certainly believe that it’s a conversation that needs to be had it’s not something that I am particularly vocal about myself, in part for fear of incurring the…
Film Review: Peppermint (2018)
Despite the unfortunate experience that Outside The Wire turned out to be, this weekend we once again decided to go with an easy watch, with the 2018 action thriller film, Peppermint from Taken director Pierre Morel. With money a little tight, Chris North considers helping a friend rob powerful drug lord Diego Garcia but ultimately…
Hidden Gem: Molly’s Game (2017)
I am a big fan of Jessica Chastain but I don’t feel she gets as much love as she deserves so I thought I would use my next ‘Hidden Gem‘ review to help rectify this injustice, looking at the 2017 film Molly’s Game, based on the incredible biographical book of the same name. Director: Aaron…
Series Review: The Queen’s Gambit (2020)
In a year that started with the bizarre true story of an eccentric redneck with a penchant for big cats, country music and assassination plots, ending 2020 with a drama series about chess seems like a dramatic and foolish change of pace but, yet again, Netflix managed to pull it out of the bag with…
Film Review: Enola Holmes (2020)
I don’t really buy into the whole ‘New Year, New Me’ mentality but as January rolled around it seemed as though my desire to watch new content came back, along with my motivation for writing. Now, Sherlock Holmes is a name that everybody knows but the world famous detective is taking a bit of a…
Hidden Gem: Colombiana (2011)
Hey Folks!! It’s been a little while but I figured that it’s once again time to celebrate a hidden gem so if you are looking for something to watch with the other half this weekend, then grab the popcorn and check out action flick, Colombiana. Director: Olivier Megaton Starring: Zoe Saldana, Jordi Molla, Beto Benites,…
Film Review: X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)
I have always enjoyed the X-Men movies, they were my gateway into the world of superheroes, and considering X-Men: Apocalypse is my favourite of them all (unpopular opinion, I know), I was really looking forward to seeing where they went next. However, despite Dark Phoenix being one of my most highly anticipated releases of 2019 for one reason or…
Modern Classic: Thelma & Louise (1991)
This month’s ‘Modern Classic‘ was recommended to me by a book blogger friend of mine. If you like books as well as films then you should check out her blog, NSFordWriter.com. As this is still a relatively new feature, here’s a quick recap of my self-imposed rules Post 1990 release date Should be a first…
Film Review: Close (2019)
Netflix are continuing to make their mark on the world of cinema. It’s almost impossible just to keep track of all their original releases , let alone finding the time to watch them all, but the other day, me and Mark had a proper sofa day and got through three of them; Close, Polar and…
Film Review: Captain Marvel (2019)
I’ll admit that after eleven years and twenty-one movies, I am starting to get a teensy bit bored of the Superhero genre and I’ve found the last few MCU films a little under-whelming on the first viewing. Couple that with all the hype and focus on finally having a female lead** and I actually went…