Author Phil W. Bayles

Early in Sicario, a shady government operative compares finding a cartel boss to “discovering a vaccine.” It’s a throwaway line, but it resonates in Roger Deakins’ breathtaking (and surely Oscar...

As with Andy Weir’s novel, the reason that The Martian works so brilliantly as a film is that it’s a one-man show that’s much bigger than just one person. Matt Damon shines as the lovechild of Neil...

A Walk in the Woods feels like Planes, Trains and Automobiles in a dressing gown and some comfy slippers. Robert Redford and Nick Nolte make for a wonderfully odd couple, but the script gives them little to...

The best actors are the ones that lose themselves so completely in a role that we barely recognise them anymore. It’s a hard enough task with only one character to play, so anyone who can pull it off...

This latest effort to adapt the hit video game franchise for the big screen bears more than a passing resemblance, bizarrely, to Mad Max: Fury Road; in that they're both about men of few words who assist a...

A comedy starring the cast of Monty Python and the late Robin Williams - not to mention a smorgasbord of British talent in supporting roles - sounds brilliant on paper, but it only works if you give them funny...

“Nowadays they're all a little serious for my tastes… Give me a far-fetched, theatrical plot any day.” Watching a suave, besuited Colin Firth decimate a church full of bigots to the sounds of Lynyrd...

"Mein Fuhrer... I can walk!" You don’t become one of the greatest auteurs in the history of cinema without doing a few things that make people charitably describe you as being “a few reels short of a...

It speaks volumes about the sheer tedium of Tarsem Singh’s Self/less that its most annoying aspect is the errant punctuation in its title. Is the film supposed to be called “Self or less?” - Sounds like...

“Wait a minute, Doc… Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?!” Few films feel as simultaneously dated and ageless as Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 classic Back to the Future....

A record producer by trade, Jayson Jackson's first film project is What Happened, Miss Simone?, a frank and intimate exploration of Nina Simone. We sat down with Jackson at the end of Sheffield Doc/Fest to...

At first glance, Tell Spring Not To Come This Year feels like more of what we’ve already seen in war documentaries like Sebastian Junger’s Restrepo and Korengal. We see soldiers relaxing in the barracks or...

Few can deny the awesome power of Nina Simone's iconic voice. Fewer still will be aware of the strength of her words. Director Liz Garbus paints a fascinating portrait of a woman who reflected her own time...

In A Sinner in Mecca, director Parvez Sharma documents his Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca - knowing that, as an openly gay man, he could be executed just for setting foot in Saudi Arabia. We sat down with Sharma...

There are two things that every university student must do, says young idealist Zhao Changtong: get a job in the students’ union, and fall in love. It sounds like pretty standard practice for students...