Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Zak Penn, Ernest Cline (screenplay), Ernest Cline (novel)
Cast: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn, Mark Rylance, Lena Waithe, T.J. Miller, Simon Pegg
Cert: 12
Running time: 140mins
Year: 2018
What’s the story: 2045, Colombus, Ohio. In an over-populated world where trailer parks have become cities, the masses seek enjoyment in the virtual reality world of the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation). Expert gamer Wade Watts (Sheridan) and others attempt to win a competition that awards them vast wealth and control of the OASIS. Evil corporate CEO Sorrento (Mendelsohn) unleashes an army to ensure no mere gamer wins the ultimate prize.
What’s the verdict: Tron. The Matrix. Ready Player One...
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Director: Yûji Shimomura
Writer: Benio Saeki
Cast: Tak ∴, Akio Ôtsuka, Yura Kondo
Cert: 15
Running time: 100mins
Year: 2016
What’s the story: Former special forces soldier Toshiro (Tak ∴) works in a small convenience store in rural Japan, caring for the orphaned Sachi (Kondo). But, dangerous enemies from his past, led by the mysterious Phantom (Ôtsuka), force him to settle old scores.
What’s the verdict: With action films arriving faster and thicker than kicks from The Raid’s Iko Uwais in a particularly foul mood, they had better come strapped with a good USP.
Re:Born’s is the close-quarter knife-fighting style practiced by both hero Toshiro and his most lethal opponents...
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The Electric Shadows Podcast reaches its 40th episode. What better way to mark this landmark episode than by discussing the biggest night in the movie calendar: the Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars. Best known as the awards where they announced the wrong movie last year for the biggest win of the night.
We know what you’re thinking, “Aren’t the Oscars just fish-wrapping by the Wednesday after the Sunday they happen?” Highly probably, but fear not. In a discursive, some might almost say wildly undisciplined chat, the two Rob’s hold forth on a range of subjects spinning off from the award winners. Including 1994’s The Shadow, the tyranny of pan and scan video in the dark days before DVD, and an imagined disaster in which Warren Beatty uses Faye Dunaway as a human shield.
Plus of c...
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Episode 39 of The Electric Shadows Podcast is the agony and the ecstasy.
The agony comes from Rob Daniel, who talks (at length) about his ongoing recuperation following surgery after a particularly non-heroic “sports injury”.
The ecstasy comes Rob Wallis, who, being sound of body was able to see Black Panther – aka Contender for the Biggest Film of 2018, aka Contender for the Most Culturally Significant Film of 2018, aka The Film You Really Should Have Seen By Now. So Rob W lets Rob D know about all the good stuff he has been missing. Rob D bravely listens without sounding too despondent.
Our intrepid casters in pod then tackle a brace of disappointing Netflix sigh-fi efforts: Mute and The Cloverfield Paradox...
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Director: Brian Taylor
Writer: Brian Taylor
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Selma Blair, Anne Winters, Zachary Arthur, Robert Cunningham, Samantha Lemole, Lance Henriksen
Cert: 15
Running time: 83mins
Year: 2017
What’s the story: Brent (Cage) and Kendall (Blair), both in the grip of mid-life crises, live in a state of increasing resentment with their kids Carly (Winters) and Josh (Arthur). Then, without warning, parents all over the country begin violently turning on their children.
What’s the verdict: Reportedly, Nicolas Cage declared this the most enjoyment he has had making a film in ten years. We’re right there with you Nic. What seemed like another direct-to-rental dud, Mom and Dad is a short, sharp, sensational satirical shock.
American Beauty meets 28 Weeks Later, this is a film for...
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Director: Christian Gudegast
Writer: Christian Gudegast (script), Christian Gudegast, Paul Scheuring (story)
Cast: Gerard Butler, Pablo Schreiber, O’Shea Jackson, Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson, Dawn Olivieri
Cert: 15
Running time: 140mins
Year: 2018
What’s the story: Career bank robber Ray Merrimen (Schreiber) is planning the ultimate heist. Can loose cannon LA County Sheriff’s Dept. cop “Big” Nick O’Brien stop him?
What’s the verdict: Den of Thieves is a film so derivative it would be simpler to list the ways in which it fails at being Heat.
Michael Mann’s 1995 crime opus was an icy-cool, blue-tinted study of flawed cops, code-bound criminals, and the blurred moral distinction between them. The type of film of which Jean-Pierre Melville would have been proud.
Den of Thie...
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Director: Julius Onah
Writer: Oren Uziel (screenplay), Oren Uziel, Doug Jung (story)
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Chris O’Dowd, David Oyelowo, Zhang Ziyi, Roger Davies
Cert: 15
Running time: 102mins
Year: 2018
What’s the story: Astronauts aboard space station Cloverfield discover reality is lethally twisted after they successfully complete a particle accelerator experiment designed to solve a global energy crisis.
What’s the verdict: Cloverfield is about everyday life jolted by a seismic event. Fitting then that home entertainment giant Netflix surprise released this third instalment in producer J.J. Abrams’ anthology franchise.
Unsurprisingly, expectations were high...
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Director: Adam Green
Writer: Adam Green
Cast: Kane Hodder, Joel Moore, Tamara Feldman, Mercedes McNab, Robert Englund, Tony Todd
Cert: 18
Running time: 85mins
Year: 2006
Review originally posted 5th Oct 2007 on www.skymovies.com
What’s the story: A motley crew of characters board a Louisiana haunted boat ride, but are soon on menu of deformed murder machine Victor Crowley (stuntman Hodder).
What’s the verdict: It’s Mardi Graaaaaaaargh as a boatload of New Orleans tourists is splayed and slayed in Adam Green’s canny mix of gore and guffaws. The ghosts of Friday the 13th, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Deliverance are resurrected and horror fans will be elbow deep in the slaughter, star cameos and neat twists on the slasher movie.
Hatchet believes in doing horror the old fashioned ...
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Original title: Cô Haû Gaí
Director: Derek Nguyen
Writer: Derek Nguyen
Cast: Nhung Kate, Jean-Michel Richaud, Xuan Kim
Cert: 15
Running time: 105mins
Year: 2016
What’s the story: Vietnam, 1953. An orphaned young woman finds work as a housemaid at a large rubber plantation. When she and the French plantation owner begin a relationship, ghosts from the past return.
What’s the verdict: Derek Nguyen’s confident feature debut, the third highest grossing horror movie in Vietnam’s history, proudly wears its genre finery. But, amidst the J-horror and K-thriller borrowings it boasts surprises of its own.
With Nguyen permitting himself a healthy ration of spectral jolts lifted out of the Ringu and Ju-on playbook, at surface level this is a traditional tale of ghostly goings-on...
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