Flickering Myth

Geek Culture | Movies, TV, Comic Books & Video Games

The Butlernaissance: Gerard Butler’s Return to Form

by

Tom Jolliffe looks at the recent upturn in Gerard Butler’s career… Gerard Butler has been around a while now. The Scottish actor began by making a name for himself in Britain before a few choice breaks saw him become something of a go to in Hollywood. He has the distinction of having a franchise he […]

Mid-Era Jason Statham Movies

by

Tom Jolliffe looks at the middle era of Jason Statham movies (2010-2015)… He’s follicly challenged, raspy voiced and a double hard bastard. No, he’s not Vin Diesel, he’s Britain’s own Jason Statham. Statham began his film career almost by accident, plucked from obscurity to star in Guy Ritchie’s breakout film, Lock Stock and Two Smoking […]

The Film and TV Reboot Explosion

by

Tom Jolliffe looks at a current explosion of reboots in film and TV, with many from properties no one remembers anyway… The idea of a reboot isn’t exactly unfamiliar. Hollywood is on a very well worn trail that is littered with remakes, reboots, sequels, whatever you want to call them. Some might say Hollywood has […]

The Blockbuster Running Time Debate

by

Tom Jolliffe looks at the trend of excessive running times in blockbuster movies…  You make your way to the cinema, you’re bang on time. Then the movie starts right? Nope. 20 minutes of trailers, adverts and P.S.As about turning your phone off, which half the audience misses, because they’re looking at their phone. Finally the […]

Revisiting 80s Fantasy Films: The sublime, the ridiculous and the underrated

by

Tom Jolliffe takes a jaunt back to the 80s to see how some of the decade’s biggest fantasy films have aged… Growing up as a young sprog in the 80’s I was treated to all manner of eye-catching fantasy films. A lot of these ‘kids’ films were completely savaged by critics at the time. I […]

Enjoyably Preposterous Movies

by

Tom Jolliffe pays homage to films that are utterly ludicrous, but are enjoyable because of it… If you can enjoy one thing about cinema, then it’s probably the wealth of variety at our disposal. We can watch the sublime, the dramatic, powerful, hilarious, thrilling, or we can also watch something that compounds (and beats the […]

Rusty Nail vs Candy Cane: Revisiting Joy Ride at 20

by

Tom Jolliffe takes a look back at 2001’s Joy Ride… Terror on the highways. A cat and mouse chase as unsuspecting folk wending their merry way across the long American highways, get targeted by a mysterious stalker. It worked in Duel when Steven Spielberg announced himself as a film-maker who might just be something special. […]

Being an Indie Genre Screenwriter

by

Tom Jolliffe on the ups and downs and ins and outs of being an indie screenwriter specialising in genre cinema… As a screenwriter plying my trade in the low budget world of independent genre films, quantifying success can be difficult. I’ve had a number of horror films released across the world in the last few […]

A Squid Game-inspired Movie Triple Bill: Cube, The Running Man, and Battle Royale

by

Tom Jolliffe offers up a perfect triple bill for fans of this years most talked about series, Squid Game… Have you seen it? You must have seen it by now. Netflix’s latest worldwide phenomenon, surprisingly, is Squid Game. I say surprisingly, because though Korean cinema and dramas have proven very popular with Western audiences (and […]

From Shades of The Crow to the Ace in the Pack: Will The Batman Be Great?

by

Tom Jolliffe looks ahead to The Batman ahead of its release next year… The Batman has had an odd production filled with all manner of issues. For one, production has suffered the same as many other studio films of late with the presence of a worldwide pandemic. Shutdowns and delays lengthened the process of shooting […]