When Tom Cruise passed on the role of playing a CIA agent fingered for being a Russian sleeper spy because the story echoed too much of his Mission: Impossible franchise, the high-octane action picture nearly fell apart. Salvation for the project came from a casting suggestion made by Sony Pictures chief Amy Pascal which sparked […]

Martyrs, 2008. Directed by Pascal Laugier. Starring Morjana Alaoui, Mylène Jampanoï, Catherine Bégin, Robert Toupin and Patricia Tulasne. SYNOPSIS: Fifteen years after escaping from captivity a child abuse victim and her friend set out to exact revenge on those responsible only to discover a world of unimaginable terror and depravity. Martyrs was something I picked […]

Trevor Hogg profiles the career of three time Academy Award-winning sound designer and film editor Walter Murch in the third of a five part feature… read parts one and two. “I was interested to go back and look at the two films I edited, The Conversation [1974] and Julia [1977], which I had done “mechanically” […]

Splice, 2010. Directed by Vincenzo Natali. Starring Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley and Delphine Chanéac. SYNOPSIS: Brilliant genetic scientists Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) splice animal DNA together to create hybrids in search of a specific protein. Wanting to add human DNA, but forbidden by their funding pharmaceutical company, they secretly create Dren, an […]

Gary Collinson traces the many screen incarnations of The Dark Knight in the second of a three-part feature… read part one here. Just as Superman’s comic-book debut had led to the creation of Batman almost forty years earlier, the success of Richard Donner’s Superman: The Movie (1978) helped plant the seed that would ultimately bring […]

Trevor Hogg profiles the career of three time Academy Award-winning sound designer and film editor Walter Murch in the second of a five part feature… read part one here. “I try to choose projects that dovetail my own interests,” remarked New York-native Walter Murch. “That’s a significant part of the process – where you are […]

In what could prove to be a crushing blow to the British film industry, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has today announced the government’s intention to abolish the UK Film Council in a move first reported by Deadline London. The decision – which according to John Woodward, CEO of the Film Council, “has been imposed with […]

Since the first film exhibition near the end of the 19th century, a countless number of science fiction films have been released. Here, Russell Hill selects the very best of the genre… Outer space has always intrigued mankind. Is there life outside of Earth? And will this life form be friendly? Apparently based on the […]

Trevor Hogg profiles the career of three time Academy Award-winning sound designer and film editor Walter Murch in the first of a five part feature… Enthralled with the world of sound, an eleven year old boy convinced his parents to buy a tape recorder. “I would hold the microphone out the window, recording sounds of […]

Although the classic British horror studio Hammer Films is making a comeback of sorts (they currently have Let The Right One In remake Let Me In and erotic thriller The Resident both in post-production), it seems that the future of Bray Film Studios – Hammer’s home between 1951-1966 – is unfortunately looking rather bleak. The […]