Film

I have no rhythm and I can’t carry a note, let alone a tune, but still, I love music. As much as I love music in and of itself, as something to listen to while I’m writing a review for instance, it’s at gigs that I find myself most transported and engaged by an artist. A great gig is unifying; for the three minutes of THAT song that you and the rest of the crowd have waited for, everyone is...

They say that size doesn’t matter, but that’s unlikely to be of much consolation to the makers of Ant-Man and The Wasp. For having been requisitioned to follow on from the gargantuan critical and commercial success of both Black Panther & Avengers: Infinity War, there’s no denying that, true to the heroes of its title, this 20th instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe feels a little, well… diminutive. The story follows on from the events of Captain America: Civil War,...

Bride Courtney McMillian, 28, has been a fan of the dinosaur flick since she was a little girl and was thrilled to realise her partner Billy McMillian, 26, shared her dedication when they began dating in 2013.

It seems that every comedian with a movie or two under their belt turns pretty quickly to the romantic comedy, and with good reason. The rom-com is a fascinating genre, at once rigid in its long established rules and structure, yet infinitely malleable in the genre hybridisations that can be created within it. Mike Myers’ attempt at this most mainstream of genres, So I Married an Axe Murderer, its title might suggest, falls on the darker end of the spectrum....

The 1993 murder of James Bulger was shocking both in its brutality and in that its perpetrators were just ten years old. It seemed that both the public and the press were at a loss to understand how it happened, how two children ended up committing such a violent murder. When something like this happens there is, I think, a need to find something to blame, to find a problem that will explain the event away and allow us to...

In the list of things no sane person has ever wanted, the third instalment of the Hotel Transylvania franchise is right up there with Trump’s recent visit to the UK. It’s expensive, pointless and fails to bring anything of value to anyone’s life. However whether we like it or not, Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation is here and this time, the awfulness is dialled up to 200% with the addition of a truly detestable soundtrack packed full of loud and obnoxious...

Despite passing them on the street almost every day, I’ve rarely given Jehovah’s Witnesses much thought. It is easy to look past them and continue with your daily routine. In many respects, Apostasy, the debut feature from former Witness Daniel Kokoajilo, was the first time I had ever really thought about the religion. The film is set within a Jehovah’s Witness community in Oldham. Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran) and her two daughters Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) and Alex (Molly Wright) are active member...

Felix Randau delivers with his satisfying, Chalcolithic revenge thriller Iceman. For those who have been waiting on a wing and a prayer for part two of The Revenant, Iñàrritu’s two and half hour DiCaprio driven epic about a fur trading frontiersmanslogging his way through the wilds of North American after being mauled by a bear to seek revenge on the man who killed his son, the wait may well be over.  Felix Randau’s Iceman is leaner, if not quite meaner,...

For decades, the Soviet Union was the staple movie boogeyman. Spy films, sci-fi, action movies and more often had an accented bad guy from mother Russia (or an alien analogue for one), the spectre of the all encompassing evil of communism. Then Rocky punched communism and over the next few years it began to crumble, first the Berlin wall, then the USSR itself. Culture moved on, we found new boogeymen. Now though, Russia is back in the news, espionage is...