United Kingdom
It’s very easy for the media to get overexcited about a new Meryl Streep film, and one costarring Hugh Grant and directed by Stephen Frears at that, but this time there’s something different. I think maybe, what with the recent success of The Iron Lady and the confusion over Suffragette (where she was on screen for only a few moments), the media and filmgoers are suffering from a little overindulgence when it comes to one of the world’s greatest actresses. So although Florence Foster Jenkins has been promoted widely, it hasn’t been the film on everyone’s lips.
On Belle’s original release, I was intrigued by the film but felt no real urge to watch it. It almost seemed to sell itself on the back of its unusual story: a biracial woman born to aristocracy during the time of the slave trade.
In the brilliant and insightful documentary A History of Horror, British writer and actor Mark Gatiss explores the horror genre throughout many countries. While discussing British horror cinema of the 1960’s, Gatiss uses the term ‘folk horror’ to describe a short but very curious subgenre. The films that make up this genre are unmistakably British and owe a large debt to the trail blazers of horror cinema in Britain:
Despite The Falling Snow is a film by novelist and filmmaker Shamim Sharif. The film is based on her book of the same name and plays out over two time periods. In 1950’s Moscow Katya is a spy for the Americans and is encouraged to marry and steal secrets from the young politician Alex.
I have been following the production of Eddie The Eagle for a very long time it seems. I’m a great devotee of director Dexter Fletcher (Sunshine On Leith is excellent), I love a good sports movie, even better, I love a British underdog sports movie. Of course, if you know me or are familiar with me at all you’ll know I also absolutely adore Taron Egerton.
It’s no secret that Sacha Baron Cohen makes comedies that age badly, no matter how well-regarded they are upon their release. His reputation as a satirist with his finger on the pulse of contemporary societal prejudices ensures that days and weeks after initial release they become regarded as documents of America’s unforgivable past. With Grimsby, Cohen makes his first British movie in fourteen years, after his execrable debut Ali G In Da House – and it is the first time his brand of social satire feels not just outdated, but tired prior to release.
I love Pride & Prejudice and I will never tire of its adaptations and interpretations. I also really like zombie films. I am Pride & Prejudice & Zombies’ demographic.
Back in 2013, a prestigious ballet director from the Bolshoi Theater named Sergei Filin was attacked outside his house, and acid was thrown into his face. He suffered third degree burns all over his face and down his neck and was left blind in one eye. After an investigation, it was discovered that a dancer of the Bolshoi paid the perpetrator; the motive was in reference to the casting of Swan Lake in which Filin was responsible.
I love the TV show Dad’s Army. Originally aired between 1968 and 1977, it is a show that remains hugely popular to this day, and I can watch it every Saturday night on BBC Two and listen to the radio version every Monday morning on BBC Radio 4 Extra. Like all incredible BBC comedies, it makes up a part of the British psyche and its characters and catchphrases are legendary.
The Falling, the first drama feature by critically acclaimed director Carol Morley, went largely unnoticed on its general release. Despite collecting high praise from the critics, and starring Game of Thrones’ Maisie Williams in the lead role, The Falling was almost a blink-and-you-miss-it situation. This seems absolutely tragic, as I would have no reservations in rating it as my favourite film of 2015.
It’s been at least two years now since I first saw Daniel Radcliffe on The Graham Norton Show, sporting the unattractive hair extensions that would define his character, Igor’s, look. Admittedly, I have been excited for Victor Frankenstein since I first heard of its production. A Frankenstein ‘re-imagining’, told from Igor’s point of view, and one starring both Daniel Radcliffe and James McAvoy?
In What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy two sons are brought together by a shared legacy, the legacy mentioned in the title. Both are the sons of high-ranking Nazi officers.
We’ve seen Bond undergo a lot of changes for over fifty years: the globe-trotting playboy whose license to kill spared no evil doer or anonymous henchman. James Bond, the catalyst of Ian Fleming’s romanticized panorama of espionage, grew from fiction novels to a film series that would become a cinematic phenomenon spanning over fifty years.
Watch Our Lad here. Our Lad, brought lovingly to life by director Rachna Suri, is a compelling insight into a British Muslim community and the conflict between two brothers. The short film stars Shazad Latif (The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) as a young Muslim soldier returning from Afghanistan to an antagonistic brother and community.
Technology has made finding relationships easier than before, yet also far more difficult to sustain. Less than a day before writing this review, my boyfriend broke up with me. It took eight months to realise that we are completely different people with different interests, with the realisation of our incompatibility unwelcome but inevitable.