Tom Jolliffe takes a look back at Seven Samurai and its influence on modern action cinema, including the film event of the year, Avengers: Endgame… When everyone in the world within 50 miles of a cinema runs off to see Avengers: Endgame (myself included), I’d like you to bare something in mind; That is a […]
Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and the Art of Career Transformation
Tom Jolliffe on films stars who re-invent themselves after career decline… Hollywood is unforgiving. You find a degree of success and get to the top. Maybe a string of flops send you crashing back to anonymity. You may still work solidly. Mickey Rourke for example, perceived to have disappeared around the beginning of the 90’s […]
A Big Year for Three Modern Horror Masters
Tom Jolliffe takes a look ahead to The Nightingale, Midsommar and The Lighthouse… There’s been some great horror films in the last five years. Three in particular for me really harked back to a classic era sensibility, owing a lot to the best era in creepy atmospheric horror. These would evoke films (among others…) like […]
90s Video Action Stars Part I – Lorenzo Lamas, Olivier Gruner, Roddy Piper, Billy Blanks and Frank Zagarino
Tom Jolliffe takes a time machine back to the booming straight to video action era of the 90s, and looks at some of the headliners… Call me sentimental but the idea of a VHS player whirring away in its machine, having been carefully picked from the local video shop gets me all misty eyed. In […]
A Moviegoer’s Epiphany: I’m a Jack Sholder Fan
Tom Jolliffe takes a look at the work of director Jack Sholder – most notably, A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge… As a movie going aficionado, I watch a lot of films. I have certain favourites, be they actors, directors, composers or writers. I can tell you with assurance that I’m a fan […]
After the Endgame: Can Marvel Studios Do It Again?
Tom Jolliffe looks back at the MCU’s success to this point, and wonders whether they can repeat the formula again… So the dust has settled. A whole slow building 11 year phase of Marvel films (it’s had splits in among those, but everything stems all the way back to Tony Stark’s first outing). Attempting to […]
The B to Z of Movies: How B Movies Ruled the Cinema
In this short series of features, Tom Jolliffe will look at the humble B Movie and everything below. From the golden period of B cinema, to the rise in popularity of the B picture, to the underground mavericks making films on a shoe string from the 50’s right up to the present. To begin with, […]
Why it’s time for the #NotMyAriel movement to grow up
Tom Jolliffe looks at the recent furore surrounding the casting of Halle Bailey in The Little Mermaid… As comes with many casting decisions, the recent announcement that Halle Bailey has been cast as Ariel in the Disney reboot of The Little Mermaid has been met with a mixed reaction. For the most part people seem quite […]
Brilliantly Intense: Why Stephen Graham is one of Britain’s finest
Tom Jolliffe on why Stephen Graham is one of the most electrifying actors of his generation… I recall, (probably in the same film as a lot of people), the first time I became aware of Stephen Graham. It was as Tommy in Snatch, Guy Ritchie’s cockney gangster epic mk2. Tommy was sort of slow, a […]
The B to Z of Movies: Mockbusters and the Digital Age Mavericks
In the final part of our look at the B to Z of movies, Tom Jolliffe explores the post millennium age, moving into digital film-making and the most open era for distribution… In the wake of Corman, Kaufman et al, the VHS era gave way to DVD. Physical media now finds itself on the way […]
