Giveaway: Win Double Passes to The Snowman [COMPLETED]
Thanks to Universal Pictures Australia, ccpopculture has 5 double passes to give away to The Snowman, releasing in Australian cinemas Thursday October 19th.
Shaun the Sheep (2015)
If you’ve been following ccpopculture for a while, you might have noticed that kids’ films are rarely reviewed here. That’s not an accident; I’m simply aware of my strengths and weaknesses as a critic, and writing about children’s entertainment is most definitely a weakness. When it comes to Shaun the Sheep, for instance, I can…
Banshee Chapter (2013)
When is a found footage film not a found footage film? When it’s Banshee Chapter, apparently, which borrows the grungy, handheld aesthetic of found footage without much actual found footage to be, uh, found. Writer/director Blair Erickson’s debut feature actually makes pretty good use of this questionable stylistic choice, surprisingly enough. Banshee Chapter ain’t pretty,…
The Top 10 (or 12) Episodes of Television in 2013
10. Spartacus: War of the Damned – “Victory” Not the last finale on this list, “Victory” is a triumphant conclusion to a slightly overstuffed season of the great, underrated Spartacus. With a substantial list of casualties, “Victory” was defined by tragedy and, yes, victory, even if that victory was a moral one, not born of…
Manhunter (1986)
Manhunter has much to recommend it; as the first adaptation of Thomas Harris’s books, it hasn’t had the same cultural impact of the superior Silence of the Lambs, but it benefits from Harris’s richly considered world, falling somewhere between fantasy and realism. Even without knowledge of Harris’s canon, the characters feel fully-developed, even in minor…
Commentary: Television Gone Mad – How Television is Maturing in its Approach to Mental Illness
In any given year, one in four Americans will experience a mental disorder1. Yet, turning on their televisions, searching for relatable protagonists, what do they find? Insanity as a precursor to violence, an excuse for murderers and rapists. Depression and anxiety as signifiers of weakness rather than symptoms of a disorder. Unless, perhaps, they turn…
Hannibal – “Entrée” (Season 1, Episode 6)
Hannibal’s episodes have been largely stand-alone so far; “killer of the week” plotlines dominating the slowcooking larger arcs. “Entrée” embraces a more serialised approach – along with the Hannibal backstory, filling the hour with re-appropriated quotes and visual quotes from the films. It’s made very clear that this isn’t a straightforward prequel, but a reinterpretation;…
The Last House on the Left (1972)
A horror “classic,” starting Wes Craven’s career, The Last House on the Left is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a good film. The cinematography and editing can be generously described as amateurish, the screenplay (a loose reinterpretation of The Virgin Spring) decides that the best thing to play against a harrowing rape/murder sequence…
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