Still Creating Musical Fusion: School of Rock Turns 15 Ellena Zellhuber-McMillan October 3, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia When it came out in 2003, School of Rock was deemed a "sleeper hit". Though it was obviously intriguing enough to investors, it does sound pretty unremarkable: washed-up musician tries to teach preppy kids how...
My Summer of Love: Pawel Pawlikowski’s Finest Hour Patrick Nabarro August 30, 2018 Features, Love Letter Pawel Pawlikowski, winner of the Best Director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Cold War, has become one of the world’s top contemporary auteurs almost by stealth. He’s not a filmmaker who...
A Love Letter To… The Muppets (2011) Sian Brett August 24, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia For many a comedy fan, The Muppets was the start of a lifelong love of entertainment. Playing the music, lighting the lights, celebrity guest stars aplenty, and a gang of Muppets to offer guaranteed laughs...
Mamma Mia! at 10: A Fun, Feminist Legacy Ellena Zellhuber-McMillan July 17, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia The faults of Mamma Mia! are well known; the singing is bad, the choreography is simple, and the plot is weak. Its strengths, on the other hand, are barely mentioned – strange for a film that made...
My First Uprising: WALL-E’s Family-Friendly Revolution Joni Blyth June 28, 2018 Features, Love Letter Thracian gladiators. Highland knights. Petulant teenagers. These are the kinds of people who are born to lead revolutions. Courageous defiance comes with the territory of being a sword bearing, bow-wielding...
Captain Fantastic vs. Death Rhys Handley June 27, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Behind its fanciful premise; its lush, heightened production design; and a thick, swirling cloud of ambient Sigur Rós atmospherics, Matt Ross’ Captain Fantastic is an incredibly frank film. Its musings...
Love Letter – Sicario (2015) Jack Blackwell June 26, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia War films generally have a hero. They pay lip service to the received wisdom that war is hell and people shouldn’t have to get caught up in it, but for the most part there are still clear ethical boundaries...
Let’s Get Down To Business: A Love Letter to Mulan Carmen Paddock June 22, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Apologies to all whose have continued singing “I’ll Make A Man Out of You” in their heads – or out loud – upon reading the title. The 2010s have been a relatively strong decade for Disney...
The Legacy of The Truman Show James Andrews June 5, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia "And in case I don't see you: good afternoon, good evening and good night!" It's one of the most memorable Jim Carrey lines, up there with "aaalrighty then" and "somebody stop me!" It's also from the film...
How Young Adult Shook Up the Mainstream Rachel Brook May 2, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia This Friday will deliver Tully, a drama about motherhood from the stunning team of director Jason Reitman, writer Diablo Cody and actress Charlize Theron. Reitman and Cody, of course, first worked together on...
A Love Letter To… Hairspray Sian Brett April 11, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia A cast that boasts the likes of John Travolta, Michelle Pfiefer, Christopher Walken and Queen Latifah is what movie dreams are made of – and John Water’s 2007 reboot of Hairspray doesn’t disappoint. A...
Why Heathers Is A Cynical Masterpiece Cathy Brennan April 5, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Let’s get something out of the way: high school is hell, and if you enjoyed it then you probably made it miserable for those who didn’t. Adult appreciation of the high school film is more complex than mere...
Unravelling The Genius Of Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven Patrick Nabarro April 4, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia To younger audiences, Todd Haynes is probably better known for his Bob Dylan experimental tribute, I’m Not There (2007) and exquisite romantic melodrama, Carol (2015). In the early years of the new...
A Love Letter To…Anton Yelchin Katy Moon April 3, 2018 Analysis, Features, Love Letter In 2016, aged just 27, Anton Yelchin was at the top of his game. Deftly navigating between multimillion dollar blockbusters and smaller independent fare, Yelchin was building an enviable career working with...
A Love Letter To…Attack The Block Stephanie Watts March 20, 2018 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia A concrete estate in London, a gang of teenagers roaming the streets, and…aliens from outer space? Yes, it’s the surprising sci-fi comedy Attack The Block, in which a group of inner city kids must defend...