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...

There’s nothing like a classic murder mystery film in terms of assembling frankly awe-inspiring casts. Perhaps it’s the attached prestige to the genre, and the literary legacy, or maybe they’re just great fun to film being largely devoid of CGI and often set in one location. Knives Out is beholden to the classics of the form but bucks the trend in not being based on a pre-existing text. It also, refreshingly, is set thoroughly in the modern day despite its traditional hallmar

Your actions are important and, sometimes, cinema too can be important. Films can elevate the achievements of people and inspire others. Official Secrets is an investigative journalism-inspired thriller in the vein of Spotlight which depicts the actions of Katharine Gun: a British Intelligence worker who leaked a memo that requested her team spy on UN Council members in order to have bargaining power to, ostensibly, fix a vote so that the US could have legal discourse to inva

Zombieland knows that coming back ten years later brings with it a sense of anticipation, but also cynicism, and this is addressed as soon as Columbus picks up the narration as if nothing has changed at all. It’s the sequel long wished for but fans were sceptical given director Ruben Fleischer’s diminishing returns since the cult classic first movie. Fortunately, Zombieland: Double Tap largely delivers on the anticipation and will leave a warm feeling for any fans of the firs