Since becoming a fan of Doctor Who as a kid and later on other TV and film series like Red Dwarf, I’ve been intermittently going to conventions and events for about ten years now. Of course, I had to combat the balance between autographs and kids’ pocket money (which I […]
Alex Paine
Concrete Utopia (2023) Bleak and Brutal But Riveting Modern Dystopia (Review)
Dystopian stories come in a variety of different forms, and we’ve been treated to many examples of them in recent years. There’s the YA dystopias such as The Hunger Games and Maze Runner that explore systemic oppression in fantastical societies, the more relatable urban dystopias such as Daniel Kaluuya and […]
Late Night with the Devil (2023) Old Standard Freshened In Engaging and Thrilling Ways (Review)
It’s no secret that found-footage is an often-derided format for horror films, and aside from some very good exceptions (Blair Witch, Cloverfield, Chronicle, etc), the whole gimmick of a family member or friend recording every strange occurrence until they drop the camera out of terror is extremely played-out. Inevitably, eyes […]
Damsel (2024) – Millie Bobby Brown Showcase Only Delivers Some Of The Goods (SPOILER Review)
There is no denying that Millie Bobby Brown is one of the biggest stars of my entire generation. Hell, I’m less than a year younger than her and I’ve been seeing her face stamped on everything ever since the first series of Stranger Things blew up back in 2016. Stranger […]
Au 8ème Jour (SXSW 2024) – Wonderfully Unique and Gorgeously Atmospheric (Review)
One of the many short films that SXSW are showcasing is the French animated student film Au 8ème Jour, or On The 8th Day, an eight-minute short depicting the creation and sudden collapse of a planet we can only assume to be similar to Earth. Many filmmakers in recent years […]
Editorial: Sam Raimi Needs To Make More Films Like A Simple Plan (1998)
When I reviewed Sam Raimi’s excellent The Quick and The Dead, I knew I’d scratched an itch that was not going to subside for a while. Seeing a director like him offer his box of tricks to a genre and setting that wouldn’t normally go with his style yielded fantastic […]
The Boy And The Heron (2023) – A Triumphant If Flawed Comeback For An Animation Titan
As part of my endeavour to see as many films in the cinema this year as I possibly can, I thought there was no better place to start (and no better first thing to review) than a Studio Ghibli film, especially when it’s their first film in nearly a decade […]
Alex’s Favourite Films Of 2023: End-of-Year Roundup
2023 is quickly approaching its end, and this year has been massive for me. A-Levels and starting university in the same year is a whole new level of responsibility that I would not wish on my worst enemy. However, despite all of these mad changes and busy workloads, I’ve actually […]
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) A Gorgeously Animated And Engaging New Take On A Classic (Review)
Something that only just clicked with me when watching Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is that I have never seen a bad stop-motion animated film. Not one. Don’t worry, I’m not about to say that Pinocchio is bad, it’s just a startling fact that I can’t believe I’ve never noticed. At […]
Doctor Who: The Giggle (2023) – A Fantastic (for now) Collision of Past, Present and Future (Review)
After a short but sweet run of 60th anniversary specials, the era of the Fourteenth Doctor is over and Ncuti Gatwa is now officially the iconic Time Lord, though this handover process hasn’t happened in the usual way. We will get to this in due course, never fear, because there […]