Category Archives: Film
Review in Brief: Kong: Skull Island (2017)
KONG: SKULL ISLAND is what it is, and what it is is a big, dumb monster brawl. The just-post-Vietnam War setting is just window dressing to the standard, laboured story setup. While the creatures are impressively realised, clearly nobody has … Continue reading
Review: Dunkirk (2017)
Some directors just need to get a film out of their systems. For Steven Spielberg it was SCHINDLER’S LIST, for Christopher Nolan it is surely DUNKIRK. The French coastline, May 1940. With the Allied army surrounded and with the sea … Continue reading
Review in Brief: Prevenge (2016/17)
We’ve had plenty of schizophrenic serial killer movies, but PREVENGE must be the first where the voice telling the perpetrator to kill is her unborn child. Our antihero is utterly miserable in her pregnancy, so turns to killing and maiming, … Continue reading
Review in Brief: The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)
There are surprisingly few horror movies set in morgues. Plenty with morgue scenes, but a scarcity that really make the most of that cold dread atmosphere for an extended duration. What they do with a few key simple sounds and … Continue reading
Review in Brief: Elvis & Nixon (2016)
ELVIS & NIXON is an intriguingly simple title and unfortunately, a pretty disappointing final product. In the depiction of this remarkable partly true, partly hypothetical series of real-world events, Kevin Spacey makes for a good Nixon. He’s slimy and calculating … Continue reading
Review: War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
The new Apes movies, up to and including WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES are pretty special. They’re respectful of what has come before in the franchise, but not afraid to reinvent it. They want to be far-reaching conceptually, … Continue reading
Review in Brief: A Cure for Wellness (2016/17)
A CURE FOR WELLNESS is clean and cold, calculated and stylish horror. It’s about time we had a psychological scarer about that oft-heard euphemism “Going to Switzerland”. I think it’s aiming to be a scathing critique of non-stop modern work … Continue reading
Review: Okja (2017)
I’ve loved the work of South Korean genre-manipulator Bong Joon-ho since university. Criminally, we never got his last film SNOWPIERCER in the UK (at least not officially), so the fact that his latest, OKJA, has gone straight to Netflix is … Continue reading
Review in Brief: The First Film (2015)
Boast time: I’ve met David Wilkinson. He gave a guest lecture on film distribution while I was studying Film at university. As a fellow Yorkshireman, I wanted him to be right about the first film being produced in this great … Continue reading
Review: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING is a case of too many cooks. This isn’t surprising considering this is a joint venture between Marvel (who provide the universe the film inhabits, plus that stamp of quality) and Sony (who retain the characters and the … Continue reading
SSP Thinks Film 