Call me a muggle but I was left cold by Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, the bloated third instalment in the Fantastic Beasts series created by Harry Potter author J K Rowling as part of the extended Potterverse. The series serves as a kind of prequel to the Harry Potter series, and explores the…
The year 1968 was a turbulent time in American history and politics. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated; US involvement in the war in Vietnam increased; and President Johnson raised the draft total to 3,500. And the Democratic National Conference in Chicago was marred by riots between police and anti-war protestors. They had…
What do you do when you’ve got two great stories, but only one movie? Mash them together of course. And while this can be fraught, director Tom Harper (Wild Rose) masters the technique in The Aeronauts. Working from a script by Jack Thorne, he deftly melds two real-life stories into one cohesive narrative. The first…
The Harry Potter franchise has been one of the most successful in movie history. Not content with having all the books adapted though, J. K. Rowling expanded the “universe” in 2016 with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Now Rowling takes the series further with Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald. Rowling does the…
Aardman has a rich history of creating fine animated features in movies like Chicken Run and Shaun the Sheep. Although Early Man – the largest Aardman production mounted in its 40-plus year history – isn’t up there with the best of them, it still has its moments. Set in prehistoric times, the film follows the story of…
Eddie Redmayne won the Oscar last year for his portrayal of brilliant scientist Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. He now has the chance to go back to back after another Academy Award nominated turn as artist Einar Wegener, later Lili Elbe, in The Danish Girl. Redmayne stars opposite Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) –…
