Letterboxd — Your life in film

This was far better than it had any right to be. With its terrible but entirely appropriate title, Cockneys vs Zombies is a film that revels in its knowing silliness. Co-written by James Moran (responsible for another solid British horror-comedy, Severance), this demonstrates that there is still some (undead) life in the rundown zombie sub-genre. It does nothing groundbreaking - the humour is simple and cheap, the walking dead action is bloody and enjoyable but hardly innovative and the characters…

Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt is undoubtedly a good film but I’m unconvinced that it is a great one. The sensationalist but sensitively handled plot centres on a male nursery teacher, Lucas, accused of sexually abusing one of his pupils. Despite the lack of evidence, lies spread throughout the small community as his life slowly unravels. It is a story that plays on modern social issues - the fear of sexual predators, baseless witch hunts and social prejudices - as a…

Shadow Dancer is a film of squandered potential with its intriguing and potentially complex family drama at the heart of a routine spy thriller. It’s a frustrating film of ‘what might have beens’ as it has all the right ingredients for an intelligent and emotionally rich story but is ultimately scuppered by a poorly developed script and obtrusive style. Andrea Riseborough (by far the best thing in the entire film) plays a young mother caught between family loyalty and attempting…

Check your brain at the door as you won’t need it for the next two hours. Fast Five was a genuine surprise back in 2011 as it ditched the repetitive street racing of the previous films to deliver a frenetic heist movie full of wit and invention. Furious 6 abandons the dumb Day-Glo delights of its predecessor for a darker, although no less retarded, story that gets bogged down in the bland and convoluted mythology of the franchise.

This time…

I don’t like the Star Trek franchise. I think it only fair I make that clear from the very beginning.

JJ Abrams’ first stab at this never-ending series re-energised the creaky Enterprise crew and delivered an accessible and breezy blockbuster in the process. This bigger, darker (well it is in the title after all) sequel is a natural progression delivering the same frenetic action, sparkling chemistry and dubious plotting as we have come to expect from practically every Abrams production.…

Marvel’s ambitious Phase Two begins with a confident bang as Tony Stark returns for his latest solo outing. After the phenomenal success of The Avengers it was always going to be interesting to see how these individual stories, away from the world destroying peril and star-studded team-up would fair, and despite numerous references to the New York showdown in Whedon’s movie it is reassuring that neither Stark, nor the audience, really miss the other superheroes.

After the indulgent mess that…

This short film is written and directed by fellow Letterboxd member, James Healey, a student at the School of Visual Arts. Shot in high contrast black and white (it is always interesting to see how many debut shorts are filmed in black and white) it tells the story of a man struggling with reality after the death of his wife.

Mindless is a very solid student film from a writer-director clearly learning his craft. Whilst that sounds like a backhanded…

I love discovering folklore from around the world but I’ve been less than impressed by the recent Scandinavian films that blend folk fantasy and horror. In the cases of Troll Hunter, Rare Exports and now, Thale, they are packed with rich ideas yet poorly developed thus wasting their compelling concepts.

Thale tells the story of a Huldra (a siren-like creature of the woods who seduces men) locked underground and away from her own kind by a scientist. When he dies,…

Obviously inspired in no small part by Playdead’s excellent computer game, Limbo, Between Beasts not only borrows its dreamy silhouette design but also shares many of the same visual cues (bear traps, glowing butterflies, shattered glass etc.) and could even be considered as a prologue or side story to the independent game. Because of this, Jesper Eriksson’s film can often feel more like a fan made movie than something that works on its own terms.

This is rather disappointing as…

I had high hopes for Dreamwork’s latest animated family film, The Croods, simply because of the involvement of director Chris Sanders. Sanders, along with Dean DeBlois, was responsible for two of the better animated features in recent years (Lilo & Stitch and How to Train Your Dragon) yet DeBlois has left to work on the sequel to HTTYD leaving Sanders with a new co-director in the shape of Kirk De Micco. It would be easy to lay the blame at De…

The Challenger is a TV dramatisation focused on the inquiry that followed the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Firmly from the viewpoint of Richard Feynman, the man key in uncovering the defect that led to the tragic incident, it is a film that is more a portrait of the theoretical physicist’s tenacity and knowledge than the investigation as a whole as the other panel members are given scant attention.

Beyond the unfortunate events of 1986 I knew very little…

It’s a real shame they didn’t go with the far better title - A Spaniard, Frenchman and Englishman walk into the desert...

Black Gold is an old fashioned movie of sweeping deserts and melodramatic romance against the backdrop of historical and political turmoil. However, Lawrence of Arabia it ain’t (even if the score tries to ape David Lean’s inimitable classic) as this is leaden, poorly acted and lacking depth. Set during the birth of the oil boom in the 1930s,…