The Big Picture Magazine
By the time Joe Carnahan’s The Grey was released theatrically in 2012, its star Liam Neeson had seemingly devolved from being an award-winning dramatic actor to a geri-action star in search of the next dunderheaded blockbuster. Indeed, Neeson had starred in Carnahan’s previous movie, an ill-advised big screen take on ‘80s TV show The A-Team […]
The story of Cinderella has been adapted countless times, from the iconic Disney animation to Kenneth Branagh’s recent live action take. One less well-known adaptation is Three Wishes for Cinderella, a Czech-German co-production regarded in Central Europe as a Christmas classic. Václav Vorlícek’s film gives a different take on Cinderella to what we’re used to. […]
As the bell chimes midnight on October 31st, the ghoulish period adored by so many horror aficionados ends and the countdown to Halloween’s antithesis – Christmas time – begins. Christmas-themed films have produced some globally admired and iconic pieces of cinema over the years, from classics such as It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) and Miracle […]
In terms of film history, Snow Trail (Ginrei no hate) is worth looking at simply because it marks the screen debut of Toshirō Mifune. The unusual setting of this gangster film, directed by Senkichi Taniguchi and co-written by Akira Kurosawa, is another significant aspect. The hunt for the criminals takes place not in an urban […]
Where a film is set is not always integral to the movie, unless it’s a Sci-Fi. Try setting Aliens or Moon on a council estate in Clapham and see where it gets you. But something like Midnight In Paris, for example, could be Midnight In Anywhere. It’s nice that it’s Paris, and it helps with […]
“It’s a fucking fairytale town, isn’t it? How can a fairytale town not be somebody’s fucking thing?” asks Ralph Fiennes’ cockney gangster Harry (Ralph Finnes) in Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges. A favourite childhood retreat of Harry’s, Bruges is the hideout to which he has sent hitmen Ray (Colin Farrell) and Ken (Brendan Gleeson) after Ray’s […]
As a tie-in to the print issue’s theme of ‘Winter’s Discontent’, Neil Mitchell looks at an object that carried just as much physical weight as it did metaphorical baggage in Courtney Hunt’s frosty, border-crossing thriller. Brief as its appearance in Courtney Hunt’s taut, downbeat thriller it may be, but the duffel bag that’s dumped and […]
For all Disney’s early innovations in the field of animated movement of characters and environments, from the use of rotoscoping to the multiplane camera technique, it is this moment of relative stillness from Bambi that is perhaps his most affecting piece of work. It’s easy to be cynical about Disney, but this truly breaks the […]