How historically accurate is Stanley Kubrick’s epic Spartacus? This time Gaz and Mel take on the Hollywood classic about the slave that took on the Roman Empire! Starring Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons, Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton. Join us as we discuss the real history of the slave rebellion, why the original director had to be fired, and of course that infamous Oysters and Snail scene.
Drenched in ho-hum reviews and a tepid marketing campaign, it’s worth knowing Jurassic World Rebirth is a distinctly old-fashioned slice of 90s action-adventure pie, the kind of re-watchable cinema that would be completely at home on a video store shelf next to Anaconda (1997) and Congo (1996)
23 years after establishing that zombies could not only shuffle but sprint at high speed, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland return to reestablish their horror credentials by leaving behind the transitional shock of seeing normality destroyed and instead embracing the cold, wet, post-apocalyptic bleakness of British weather and flesh-hungry beasts.
It's a movie that peaks behind the curtain into the domain of a world renowned ballet company, Ballet Lermontov. Fiction of course, which is just as well as it allows its audience to escape into a world of beauty, art and heartache.
If the prospect of Len Wiseman directing and Keanu Reeves being retained in a supporting role inspires little confidence, the collaborative oversight of producer Chad Stahelski ensures that the high water mark for John Wick’s standard of visual quality is thankfully maintained.
You have to admire Wes Anderson’s steadfast artistic principles, prolific and yet wholly dedicated to a type of sly, cute, irony-laden, self-conscious aesthetic that comments on filmmaking itself as a form, as a deconstruction.
With the eighth entry, Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the franchise has unfortunately decided to fully commit to romanticizing its own mythology, providing us a film that feels weighed down by self-serious grand-standing and a retconned story that’s only interested in looking to its previous entries with rose-tinted glasses.
Adding to the growing list of art about tempestuous chefs in the trenches of the service industry, La Concina, within its stark black and white framing, speaks righteously to those of us disillusioned and chewed up by the gears of capitalistic greed.
In a movie pining to celebrate independent journalism, Kriv Stenders’ The Correspondent straddles the line between award-baiting sincerity and unsettling docudrama, managing to be both convincing in its need to exist but also unconvincing in its emotional execution.
For the scores of films claiming to be ‘anti-war’ films, Ray Mendoza’s and Alex Garland’s Warfare has a strong argument, not least because it is a film I don’t particularly want to experience a second time.
For over two hours, Coogler transfixes us, hypnotises us with the exuberant energy of black culture under fire from the social forces of Jim Crow-era Mississippi and the insatiable blood lust of vampires.
Film Critic Gaz Mallon co-hosts the Real Movies Fake History podcast and writes extensively on new movies here.
