After the longest and most unremitting promotional onslaught in film history, James Cameron’s Avatar was finally released in December. In typical style, I only got around to seeing the film a couple of weeks ago. My immediate thoughts on the film were mostly filled with the spectacular imagery and undeniably groundbreaking use of 3D technology. [click to continue…]
Billy Elliot (2000) is one of the most celebrated examples of what has come to be known as “Soft” Realism. A movement in British cinema which became prevalent in the mid-1990’s. A movement which produced films which actively drew on the traditions of Northern working class realism, but instead of following the traditional realist approach to the letter, these films depicted characters who had ambitions to escape the harshness of their day to day existence by performing as entertainers. This approach produced box office hits such as: Brassed off (1996), The Full Monty (1997) and of course Billy Elliot. [click to continue…]
“To make Michael Myers frightening, I had him walk like a man, not a monster.” – John Carpenter.
The ‘Halloween’ franchise was resurrected by Rob Zombie in 2007 to great financial success (his remake is the highest grossing ‘Halloween’ film of all time) as a result there was never any doubt that a sequel was inevitably going to be made, and given the sadly wasted potential of the original ‘Halloween II’ (1981), perhaps it was not too much of a stretch to hope that Zombie could make a success of it. [click to continue…]
After the phenomenal financial success of John Carpenter’s Halloween in 1978, a cycle of so-called ‘Slasher’ films quickly emerged, in order to capitalise on the popularity of the formula established by Carpenter’s film and, to an extent Bob Clark’s seminal 1974 horror Black Christmas. Although the quality of these films varied greatly, the slasher formula of the late seventies and early eighties was extremely profitable, for both the big studios and independent production companies alike. Films such as Friday the 13th, The Burning, Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine and Halloween 2 all made in 1980 and 1981 grossed extremely well. By the mid-1980’s the ‘Slasher’ cycle’s output had become so generic and predictable that the genre burned itself out. [click to continue…]
