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...
Unbridled Hope in On the Town Anna McKibbin August 1, 2020 Features, Love Letter, Nostalgia Before the three protagonists of Gene Kelly’s On the Town come bounding into frame, the audience is greeted with a series of sweeping shots of the static New York skyline. We see a construction worker...
Judy – Review Jack Blackwell October 6, 2019 Reviews Every year, you get at least one film clearly designed purely for the purpose of nabbing an Oscar for its star. In 2019, Judy is that film. Renée Zellweger’s heartfelt take on Judy Garland immediately...
Five Genres That Superhero Movies Should be Embracing Phil W. Bayles June 19, 2019 Analysis, Features, Opinion James Gunn has become an essential player in the ongoing Marvel Cinematic Universe – so much so that even an idiotic campaign by right-wing internet trolls couldn’t keep him away. But as we eagerly await...
Rocketman – Review Ben Flanagan May 21, 2019 Reviews As Elton John plays his first LA show, he begins to levitate, only tethered to earth by fingers on the piano. The crowd lift too as ‘Crocodile Rock’ slows down to a crawl, a moment of sublime magical...
Mary Poppins Returns – Review Sian Brett December 19, 2018 Reviews While not technically part of the trend for live-action Disney remakes, Mary Poppins Returns has a symmetry with the 1964 film that is hard to miss. There’s Americans playing cockneys, children stepping into...
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again – Review Tom Bond July 20, 2018 Reviews Whether Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again reads like a cheer or a threat depends entirely on how much you enjoyed the first film. Let’s be honest, you know exactly what you’re getting here. Nominally a Mamma...
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...
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...
Damsel – Berlinale 2018 Review Joni Blyth February 16, 2018 Reviews 1 Comment Movies don’t have to mimic their settings. Space is pretty desolate, but most films featuring the final frontier don’t waste half their running time slowly inching through the black. When it comes to...
Why Scott Pilgrim vs The World is Edgar Wright’s Best Film Tom Bond June 25, 2017 Analysis, Features, Opinion “He punched a hole in the moon for me. That’s pretty crazy.” It’s also not the kind of line you’d expect to find within Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Wright's first...
Debate: What Makes A Great Blockbuster? Tom Bond June 22, 2017 Analysis, Debate, Features What makes a great blockbuster? Action? Romance? Explosions? A huge budget? We’ve made it our mission to answer that question once and for all, ahead of our upcoming ORWAV blockbuster season. We’ll be...
Baby Driver – Review Kambole Campbell June 19, 2017 Reviews From the first car chase – set to ‘Bellbottoms’ – Baby Driver makes its mission clear in a manner not unlike Damien Chazelle's crossover hit La La Land: this is another untraditional musical....
La La Land – Review Kambole Campbell January 11, 2017 Reviews Damien Chazelle's third feature, La La Land, confirms two trends in the director's still relatively young career. Firstly, an inclination towards jazz. Secondly, a tendency to make thrilling, moving...
Music of the Movies: Beauty and the Beast J B Queree August 9, 2016 Behind The Curtain, Features, Music of the Movies It goes without saying that a good cinematic score should complement and accentuate the film hosting it, and a musical is often only as impressive as its songs. However, it’s fairly unusual that a film’s...