I guess there’s a degree of irony in posting a positive review of The Social Reckoning onto social media and praising its pointed messaging. The ‘investigative journalism thriller’ is always a winner of a genre and this is no exception. A semi-sequel to the imperious The Social Network (legendary writer Aaron Sorkin is on script duty again and takes the directing baton from David Fincher) we fast forward into modern times (the years either side of the pandemic) and explore Fa

Alejandro González Iñárritu is certainly not afraid of a big swing. Whilst it’s fair to say that Digger doesn’t get close to the heights of Birdman or The Revenant, its critical panning feels unusual, unjust and strange. A timely swing into a meta, sci-fi, Wes Anderson-adjacent climate change satire/farce (the nature of satire and farce being hilariously discussed within the film itself) this sure is strange but also eminently watchable, thought-provoking and enjoyable. Tom C

You won’t have seen a film with as many contrasts as Na Hong-jin’s Hope. At once impeccably crafted and beautiful, but also batshit crazy and prone to toilet humour interludes. At times you can feel what is supposedly the biggest budget in Korean cinema history with some jaw-dropping scenery, sets and mise-en-scene but the CGI creaks like a PlayStation 1 videogame. It’s a monster film, a sci-fi film, a (kind of) apocalyptic thriller, an action movie, a quasi-real time horror,

If it were possible to nominate an animal for an acting Oscar then look no further than the German Shepherd at the heart of Heart of the Beast. A man and his dog survival mission, this film depicts one hell of a brutal journey as a retired special forces soldier suffers a heart attack whilst flying back from a camping trip in the Alaskan wilderness. 56 miles of arduous terrain, wolves, bears, white water rapids and variable weather then separates the pair from civilisation. I

The improvement in the videogame adaptation has been well documented in recent times and most have performed well at the box office or on TV streaming. Zach Cregger’s reboot of Resident Evil isn’t a straight adaptation of any of the games but as a ‘videogame film’ might just hew the closest to the tradition. We’ve had the lot recently. Want an authentic retelling of the game’s story? Watch The Last of Us. A new tale that feels authentic to the world and the lore? Go with Fall

Watching a group of people be competent at their job is often the satisfying draw of the ‘office-based thriller/drama’ film. So many films require someone to blunder or things to go wrong that it can be pleasing to watch things work out every once in a while. Pressure is certainly high on the competency factor as we are shown the quite fascinating story of the Allied meteorologists during World War 2, tasked with predicting the conditions for D-Day. Sure, it may be a niche to

There’s always a clamour for the ‘next’ something. So the fact that it’s taken this long for the ‘next’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, i.e. the ultimate cartoon/live-action hybrid, is surprising. The fact that Coyote vs. ACME has gone through plenty of hurdles to even be released, and then has largely been stuck with daytime ‘kids’ screenings, mean it might have to earn its way to cult status like its predecessor. Fortunately, considering just how good that eighties Bob Hoskins cl

Sometimes you have to try and separate a film from the time in which its released. For whatever reason, we often see spurts of films within the same genre get released at the same time. From A Bug’s Life and Antz to the smorgasbord of space movies we got a few years back (The Martian, Gravity, Interstellar, First Man, Ad Astra et al.) and, of course, the superhero deluge. After some fallow time, it seems the post-apocalypse is in vogue again in recent times with TV hits The L

Original doesn’t always mean good and, to further go against most every review I’ve ever written, not all ‘Black Mirror-esque’ ideas necessarily make for great films. One Night Only is, however, an interesting one and might be fairly divisive. So, against what you may see from the trailers and posters, this is a romantic comedy film but set very much in some sort of quasi-future, dystopian version of America where The Purge is real except, instead of crime being legal for one

The End of Oak Street is J.J. Abrams' next stab at Steven Spielberg homage after Super 8. Producing rather than directing this time around this film almost tries to present itself as the true, original sequel to Jurassic Park and, were it to be bestowed with the Jurassic moniker, it’d probably sit pretty high in the rankings It immediately feels like a lost eighties classic. This suburban America of 1982 feels real, from the film stock to the shot choices, the soundtrack and

Finding freshness in the horror genre is always exciting and Obsession perfectly blends the old and new. Using the ‘monkey’s paw’ fable as its base but finding ways to escalate the tension and horror through a low budget, this is filmmaking par excellence from first time director Curry Barker. As lovestruck Bear wishes his friend Nikki loved him ‘more than anyone in the world’ increasingly twisted and frightening versions of that reality start to unfold. Each set piece ratche

Strangely, I don’t think there’s actually too much to say about Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Seemingly, Marvel’s slight retraction from its previously relentless schedule has suitably whetted audience appetites with a huge box office and tangible hype for the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday. The MCU has hardly ever let us down and Brand New Day is absolutely adamantium-solid filmmaking at the usual blockbuster scale. Moving Peter Parker’s story logically on whilst also remaining it