Why Suspiria Still Has The Perfect Horror Opening Sequence Joseph Bullock December 28, 2020 Analysis, Close-Up, Features Watch the opening sequence of Suspiria here: part 1 & part 2 A masterpiece of the genre, and certainly the most famous Italian example, Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) remains a uniquely haunting...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2020: #9 – Rocks Angela Moore December 27, 2020 Analysis, Features, Top 10 Rocks was a shot of life and energy in an otherwise listless year. The film takes us into the world of a group of young girls in Hackney – their loyalties and their rivalries, their music and their jokes. It...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2020: #10 – Mangrove Rhys Handley December 27, 2020 Analysis, Features, Top 10 We’ve had a lot of time to reflect in 2020, whether we wanted it or not. That means time to look into ourselves, our culture, our society – our history. It’s not a passive process, though that’s an...
History of Horror: How Universal Studios Created Movie Monsters Tori Brazier December 26, 2020 Behind The Curtain, Features, Stories from the Set What immediate associations pass through your mind when you hear the name Frankenstein? Or Dracula? Is it an image of a flat-headed, neck-bolted green giant? Does Dracula swish around in a cloak and white tie,...
ORWAV’s Top 20 Films of 2020: #20 to #11 David Brake December 24, 2020 Analysis, Features, Top 10 What a year 2020 has been. Thankfully ours is not to reason why, so for now let us look for a silver lining somewhere else entirely. 2o20 was an outstanding year for movies. While our industry suffered from...
Ten Unforgettable Films That Have Haunted Us Since Childhood Tom Bond December 23, 2020 Analysis, Features, Top 10 The greatest films linger in your memory long after the credits have rolled, but there’s a particular power to those we watch as children: impressionable young minds latching onto striking images and twisted...
The Coen Brothers, Charles Portis, and True Grit Rory Steabler December 21, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Ten years on from its release, True Grit has settled firmly into the middle ground of Joel and Ethan Coen’s filmography. It's well-respected in the Coen canon but doesn’t seem to be many people’s...
Wrong Lever: How The Emperor’s New Groove Was Almost The Next Lion King George Howarth December 13, 2020 Behind The Curtain, Features, Stories from the Set In 1994, Disney seemed like it could do no wrong. The release of The Little Mermaid in '89 had kick-started the "Disney Renaissance" and the studio was riding high on the success of a string of musical films...
Arcade Fire’s Richard Reed Parry On His Intimate Score For The Nest Jess Goodman December 2, 2020 Behind The Curtain, Features, Interview Writer/Director Sean Durkin's first feature, Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), gave Elizabeth Olsen her breakthrough role. Nine years on, his second feature might just do the same for Arcade Fire's Richard...
Disney’s Top 10 “I Want” Songs Anna McKibbin November 24, 2020 Features, Music of the Movies, Top 10 Revisiting films from Disney’s Golden Age can feel like slipping into a pair of well-worn pyjamas. Cosy, soft and, crucially, familiar. Familiarity is the currency Disney exchanges to win over audiences....
How Tangled’s Flynn Rider Perfected the Disney Prince Alex Goldstein November 19, 2020 Close-Up, Features, Nostalgia, One Off Tangled has always had a bit of a mixed reputation. Although cinema-going audiences treated it fairly kindly, it struggled to make back its mammoth budget. Critics shrugged at it - complaining it was a little...
Why Mother Gothel is the Best Disney Villain Phil W. Bayles November 19, 2020 Analysis, Features, Opinion Tangled - Disney’s 50th animated feature, and the film that kick-started the studio’s ‘Revival’ period - turns 10 years old this month. In the decade since its release the studio has gone from strength...
A Love Letter to… The Great Dictator Jess Goodman November 18, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia “I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.” For Charlie Chaplin, making people laugh was part of who he was. Having made his...
Ammonite, Nomadland and Female Freedom Alex Goldstein November 9, 2020 Analysis, Close-Up, Features So many women’s stories are about freedom: choosing it, fearing it, paying for it. At the London Film Festival this year, two of the most talked about features - Nomadland and Ammonite - had the same...
Aaron Sorkin’s Demons and Better Angels Anna McKibbin October 10, 2020 Close-Up, Features, Opinion Eight years ago, Kevin Porter posted a video entitled “Sorkinisms – A Supercut”. Over 1.5 million people have watched this video which features different Aaron Sorkin-penned characters uttering the same...