Category: Articles
Beam me up, Scotty: 10 Great Movie Engineers
Engineers past and present have far reaching influences on the world of today. From simple light bulbs to complex iPhones, contemporary society would be unrecognisable without the behind-the-scenes efforts of hardworking technical experts. Engineers in movies are either presented as living in the shadows of their mother’s basement or running headlong into danger hell-bent on…
Great beginnings: 40 impressive directorial feature film debuts
The key to 21st century communication is the blog. And, as every blogger knows, the key to the blog is the list. Nothing generates discussion faster than labelling something “The Ten Best…” or “The Twenty Most Overrated….”. After recently writing a piece on Ryan Coogler’s impressive debut film Fruitvale Station (for which Michael B. Jordan…
Crisis of the Undead: Zombies ate my movie script
Zombies are huge right now and never before have so many astoundingly bad films (and books… and TV shows… and video games) made their way into the mainstream. Never has the genre been populated by so many characters who are, in fact, less intelligent than the zombies they are up against. Never have there been…
Sturm und dreck: In defence of Hollywood
Whilst watching Ghostbusters (1984) on Esquire TV the other night, I came to a peculiar conclusion. Hollywood ain’t so bad. There’s recently been a lot of talk about this American movie-churner-outer and the quality of its productions. That somehow, the world of foreign films is a more satisfying land. That Hollywood has had its share…
Unnoticed Injustice: Dirty Harry and the RoboCop reboot
What a difference 43 years makes. That is the time between the on-screen birth of Harry Callahan, Clint Eastwood’s iconic protagonist in Don Siegel’s brilliantly controversial Dirty Harry (1971), and the screen rebirth of Alex Murphy, freshly minted drone-with-a-heart-of-gold in Jose Padilha’s RoboCop reboot. Harry, for those who don’t remember, was the American conservative middle…