Being without the cinema has been difficult for The Brighton Film Club. The buzz of seeing a new film amongst fellow fans is a feeling that I can’t wait to have back in a few weeks’ time as those theatre doors swing open again. In the meantime, it’s been fun to post the 'Isolation Inspiration' recommendations on Instagram and I've also been diving into some ‘best movies ever’ lists to try and broaden my own watched list ever further. The announcement that the cinemas are reop

Breaking records with Star Wars and the MCU, continuing success with their live-action remakes and less than a month before the launch of the Disney+ streaming service, the Disney train keeps on a-rolling. Their commitment to continuing quality and original content has been key to this inexorable rise, the critical jewels in the crown amongst the sequels and blockbusters. A lot of these gems have come from the Mouse House’s most critically adored wing: Pixar who, despite the

The Brighton Film Club has spoken a lot about videogame movies in the past. There are notoriously bad examples of the form but the general consensus is that they’re improving. I’m not sure that’s true. The turn towards po-faced, self-serious CGI-fests has given us some terrible ports which, whilst pretty, are far too cliched (think Warcraft, Assassin’s Creed, Need for Speed and Tomb Raider for some recent examples.) Having said that, the same problem occurs when you make a ti

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) has had to be renamed Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey in the States to get more bums on cinema seats. Is this the first shoots of audience fatigue creeping into the superhero market after the finality of Avengers: Endgame? Only time will tell on this front and this year is still to give us Black Widow, The Eternals, The New Mutants and Wonder Woman 1984 so Marvel and DC will certainly hope this isn’t the case. W

It’d be fantastic if the awards-buzz and critical hype surrounding Parasite got people into the cinema and watching a foreign language film. The tired rhetoric of ‘not wanting to read subtitles’ means so many miss out on incredible movies and whilst some remakes are good (Let Me In, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo et al, not as good as the originals though) the less said about anything dubbed into English the better. Parasite would be a great place to start for the uninitiate

There can only be one thing to start with when talking about 1917 and it’s important to note that the ‘one-shot’ style is not something brand new (Hitchcock's Rope was the first in this style back in 1948) but, equally, this is certainly not a gimmick. Other films have even done it better (Birdman and the quite remarkable, actually-shot-in-one-take Victoria.) What Sam Mendes has given us here though is an experience, an ordeal, an exercise in human spirit and resolve and a fi

Because 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle was [gasp] an actually good remake a sequel was absolutely inevitable. We live in an age where you can definitely have too much of a good thing. Impressively retaining and, actually, improving the original cast Jumanji: The Next Level escapes with a fair amount of credit. It’s in fairly uncharted waters as a good sequel to a good remake. These films work by knowing exactly what they are and having a darn good time doing it. The vi

Sound the alarm and get ready with the expletive bleeper, Guy Ritchie is back with a 'propa' London gangster film, the first since RocknRolla back in 2008. The Gentlemen makes a few concessions to the fact that it’s 2020 but otherwise drops us back into a world of dapper gangsters, boxing gyms and liberal use of the 'c' word. Ritchie is let loose here after the too-tame Aladdin, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, the underrated The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Sherlock Holmes reboo

Much like with music, the last decade has been a sparkling one for film. The leaps and bounds that technology has given us has enabled...

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker. This one is going to cause some debate. It’s difficult to explain the intangible love for Star Wars for the non-believer or, God forbid, the uninitiated. How we can watch the prequels whilst mocking every line, laugh deliriously over mocking memes and point out the shoddy scripting and those student-like screen wipes. It’s the only franchise that, to many, gets an absolute free pass due to the sheer joy it provokes. It goes beyond

A coming-of-age film presenting a young Nazi boy slowly getting to know a Jewish girl being hidden in his attic could just be the perfect way to launch 2020. Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit is a comedy about empathy and friendship that uses its setting and concept to its full effect to show us a moral message about the absurdity of not getting along. Ostensibly, the film follows the titular Jojo: a ten-year-old devoted Nazi during the final days of the Reich. Adolf Hitler is his

Despite everything, there's a temptation to call the 2010's (or the 'teens' if we must) a wonderful decade for music. 2019 has been...