Watching Prometheus upon release, it was hard not to sympathise with scientist Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). Having spent years hoping to find the “Engineers” who brought about the genesis of mankind and left cryptic messages painted on cave walls, he found himself filled with existential despair, upon finding only their corpses. I walked out of…
The World’s End is a success on a whole bunch of metrics. As a conclusion to the loose “Cornetto trilogy” alongside Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, it’s as well-written, acted and directed as you’d expect; Edgar Wright’s kinetic, eclectic style ensures the film is a treat for the eyes. Each of the earlier…
At least there’s one lesson to be learned from the amorphous blob of mediocrity that is Exorcist II, a woefully disappointing sequel: this is the kind of film that doesn’t get made anymore. Not so much the half-assed sequel thing – there are plenty of those – but the advent of the internet means that…
There’s an ever-present sense of tension in the final season of a good drama, and it’s not necessarily related to fear over the plight of the show’s protagonists. The tension is born of fear that an otherwise great show might not stick the landing; that it might fumble important storylines, or simply run out of…
If you’re looking for a definition of “Cronenbergian,” The Brood isn’t a bad place to start. It’s deliberately paced, pairing operatic grandeur with restrained domesticity. It prominently features Cronenberg’s early obsessions of science fiction, horror and body horror, interwoven with more conventional problems; as Cronenberg uses genre conventions to comment on the emotional damage dealt…
It’s easy to imagine an alternative universe where 2001: A Space Odyssey is a cult oddity, a largely-forgotten curio. Where Kubrick’s iconic sci-fi was met with mystified reactions to its glacial pace and its puzzling, almost religious narrative. That universe is perhaps more plausible than our own, where this thoroughly weird, elliptical film is an…
It’s hard to deny its cultural import of Deep Throat, a porno that managed to achieve the kind of cultural saturation normally reserved for towering icons like The Godfather or Citizen Kane – by which I mean it’s been referenced and parodied so many times, you don’t need to have seen it to be familiar…
“Then, maybe your best course would be to tread lightly.” Man. That was satisfying. Breaking Bad has always been primarily about plot, with some compelling characterisation carried along in the wake of amazing storytelling. And the strength of that storytelling is on display in a taut, tense premiere that’s a welcome return to Albuquerque. Perhaps…
One of the big hooks of the Underbelly series is that it depicts, with some degree of veracity, real crime events from Australia’s history. The drawback to this selling point is that the show can often feel like it’s merely ticking off sufficiently interesting occurrences without having to bother with questions like “How does this…
Horror sequels make a habit of ramping things up to the point of ridiculousness: compare the simplicity of Wrong Turn to the excess of its sequel, or how Prom Night shifts from a garden-variety slasher to a supernatural romp. The Collection is a sequel to the almost-plausible The Collector, which began by carefully establishing character…
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