Tom Jolliffe on the fascination of watching the watcher in cinema… The voyeur in cinema. It’s been a common recurring character. What is the fascination? Why does it become so involving as a viewer, with our own voyeurs gaze on a characters life, when the protagonist becomes pre-occupied with watching someone else? Watching the watcher, […]
Searching for Yourself: When the Detective Must Journey Within to Discover They Are the Culprit
Tom Jolliffe looks at the search for self in cinema, when repression, mental illness or physical ailments blind a protagonist from the chilling truth… they are the villain. I love a cinematic Detective yarn. A typically weary, clearly damaged protagonist is sent on a mission to find an elusive figure, be it a murderer, or […]
The A-Z of Action Movies: M-Q
As we continue are A-Z of action, we bring you a selection of entries from M-Q… Explosions, fist fights, one liners and quite a lot of mullets. We’re getting toward the business end of an action A-Z, hitting the middle ground toward the home straight. More carnage will ensue and we’ve all got bigger biceps […]
Will Ghostbusters: Afterlife be the perfect balance of old and new?
Tom Jolliffe on Ghostbusters: Afterlife so far, and whether it can perfectly balance old school nostalgia with modern blockbuster trends… It feels like Ghostbusters: Afterlife should have been and gone long ago. The dust should have cleared and we should all know, whether it would capture the magic of the original, or prove as disappointingly […]
A Cult Cinematic Oddity – Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Tom Jolliffe takes a look at the bizarre Japanese body horror Tetsuo: The Iron Man… Cinema is full of the bizarre. From rockets being launched into the eye of the man on the moon, to Arnold Schwarzenegger getting pregnant, the beauty of film is that it can offer up a doorway, of almost limitless imagination. […]
Revisiting Klute: An Overlooked Masterpiece of Paranoia Cinema
Tom Jolliffe looks back at Alan J. Pakula’s Klute, an essential piece of 70’s paranoia cinema… Over the course of cinema history, there have been a number of great thrillers that amped up the tension and levels of paranoia. In American cinema, a prolific era was the 1970s. Deep into cold war paranoia, espionage and […]
Cynthia Rothrock: The First Lady of International Action
Tom Jolliffe takes a look at the career of action heroine Cynthia Rothrock… Western stars who have managed to break China and Hong Kong successfully are a rare breed. In fact there’s probably only one person who has found success as a major action star in China, as well as in the west. Some have […]
Pentathlon: The Best Olympics Movie You Never Saw
With the Olympics in full swing, Tom Jolliffe looks back at a forgotten Olympics themed movie, Pentathlon… The Olympics are well underway. Gold medals are flying around and national pride for respective nations is at a high. Whether it’s the expected medals glut for Olympic heavy hitters like China, Japan and the USA, or first […]
Ten Essential Gambling Films
Tom Jolliffe puts his chips on ten essential gambling films… The money goes down. You’ve placed your bets. Now it’s time for the nitty gritty. Win or lose. If you win, do you quit while you’re ahead or go again? Cinema has long held a fascination with gambling across its many forms, but the predominant […]
Masters of the Universe: Revelation – The biggest fan revolt since The Last Jedi?
Tom Jolliffe takes a look at Kevin Smith’s much anticipated Masters of the Universe: Revelation and the fan furore it has sparked… He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a rite of passage for my generation. A campy, colourful, just ever so slightly shoddily constructed animated series with the all good hero, He-Man, fighting […]
