Author Nick: Steve Exeter
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Fresh from the success of furnishing the scripts for the extremely lucrative Bourne franchise, Tony Gilroy was given the rare opportunity to make his directorial debut with his own original screenplay Michael Clayton, an intricate, character-driven suspense story which finally confirms George Clooney to be one of the most distinguished screen actors of his generation. [...]
At this year’s Academy Awards Aaron Sorkin said in his acceptance speech, “It’s impossible to describe what it feels like to be handed the same award that was given to Paddy Chayefsky 35 years ago for another movie with ‘network’ in the title.” It was his first Oscar win for adapting The Social Network and [...]
The Mission was the last screenplay by Robert Bolt, the writer responsible for such epic, historical movies as A Man for All Seasons and Lawrence of Arabia. Director Roland Joffe has made a film equally ambitious in its scale, featuring breathtaking cinematography by Chris Menges, deeply moving performances from stars Jeremy Irons and Robert De [...]
Director Richard Attenborough is the first to admit that his epic biopic Chaplin was a difficult film to finance and consequently the producers made demands upon him which lead it to be not as “profound a picture” as he would have liked. Nethertheless its one massive saving grace is Robert Downey Jr.’s miraculous performance as [...]
The Night of the Hunter was the directorial debut of legendary British actor Charles Laughton although due to the largely negative response from both the cinema going public and the critics during its original release in 1955 it was to be his only film behind the camera. Clearly, the movie was years ahead of its [...]
I think Disney’s 1951 version of Alice in Wonderland is not only my preferred adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories but probably my favourite cartoon from the studio’s “Golden Age” of colour animation feature films which began with Snow White in 1937; although it could so easily have been different for more than a decade [...]
It’s been 10 years since Richard Kelly’s admirable and ambitious directorial debut Donnie Darko was released to an unsuspecting cinema audience with its blend of teenage angst and paranoid schizophrenia it has become a cult movie for anyone familiar with the 1980s zeitgeist. In his breakout performance Jake Gyllenhaal plays Donnie Darko a psychologically disturbed [...]
The Rocky Horror Picture Show has always been something of a guilty pleasure dating back to my days as a teenager appearing in am-dram musical revues inspired by it because the performing rights were always strictly reserved for professional productions until March 2000. The original stage show opened in London in the summer of 1973 [...]
Almost 20 years before the overhyped Inception focused on the phenomenon of dreaming Emir Kusturica directed Johnny Depp in the surreal comic fantasy Arizona Dream. The movie was produced by Claudie Ossard (Delicatessen/Amelie) and is typical of the sort of strange art-house films that Depp used to regularly appear in before finding mainstream appeal as [...]
It seems that 2010 will be remembered as a boon year for movies derived from comic strips what with Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and the various Marvel and DC Comic franchise exploits there was also Tamara Drewe based on the graphic novel of the same name by Posy Simmonds which in turn was [...]
I was given Tetro on Blu-ray as a Christmas present but I had delayed watching it as with Francis Ford Coppola’s previous release Youth Without Youth I was actually expecting to be very much disappointed by it, luckily this was not to be the case and its clearly his best entirely original screenplay since The [...]
A great advantage of parenthood is having the wonderful opportunity to revisit the movies you loved when you were growing up and experience them afresh through your child’s eyes. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is one of those timeless family films that still captivate generation-spanning audiences and its bonnet has never looked shiner than on this [...]
When Carnivale premiered on BBC TV in the autumn of 2003 I eagerly anticipated it as the trailer had suggested that the show was going to share more than just the appearance of dwarf actor Michael J. Anderson in the regular cast with landmark surreal series Twin Peaks which had its run just over a [...]
Having heard the controversy surrounding Kick-Ass due to its portrayal of graphic violence involving a minor I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I sat down to watch it for the first time. I’d actually delayed watching it over Christmas with the family as my father-in-law is particularly squeamish when it comes to the [...]
As a devotee of the landmark American serial drama The West Wing which ran for 7 years and focused on the day to day activities of the Oval Office and the loyal support staff who serve at the pleasure of fictional President Josiah Bartlet played effortlessly by the ever charismatic Martin Sheen, when I learnt [...]
Like most teenagers of my generation I became fanatical about music, obsessive even, and at the high point I was acquiring an average of 4 record albums a week. It’s hard to imagine a world before iTunes or even the Compact Disc where you had to search shops for recordings of your favourite artists and [...]
I came to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on Blu-ray without prior knowledge of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s 6 volume digest size graphic novel and whilst it appears that the 2nd volume in the series shares the film’s title writer/director Edgar Wright worked with O’Malley to incorporate the key elements contained in all 6 volumes [...]
So, I’m going to be turning 40 in 2011! I’m not alone in this, among the luminaries joining me are Ewan McGregor, Mark Wahlberg, Winona Ryder, Mariah Carey and Sacha Baron Cohen, not that this makes me any happier about the prospect. Still, as this year’s lavish 80th birthday bash for Broadway composer Stephen Sondheim [...]
When Fantasia was first released on home video tape back in November 1991 I was working in a retail Video shop and I was actively involved in its promotion, I think we must have played it 4 times a day for the best part of 3 months and the sales were phenomenal; in fact it [...]
When Wild At Heart was released at the cinema in 1990 I went to see it 3 times in the first week, this was the height of a strangely cool David Lynch mania that had gripped the planet since he posed the question “Who killed Laura Palmer?” in the groundbreaking, primetime TV series Twin Peaks. [...]
