Reviews & features: Henry Northmore

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Henry Northmore

Men in Black 3

25 May 2012

Silly, lightweight, completely unnecessary but surprisingly fun

In these times of austerity Hollywood seems scared of originals ideas. Studios demand ‘brand recognition’ before they’ll stump up the multi-million dollar budgets blockbusters require. And they seem willing to latch onto almost any brand, from comics to…

Avengers Assemble in latest trailer

1 Mar 2012

Trailer for superhero movie with Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye and Black Widow

It’s the moment comic book and action movie fans have been waiting for as we get our first good look at all six members of the superhero team, The Avengers, in the latest trailer. The hype has been building for this massive blockbuster with Iron Man…

GFF 2012 - Mark Millar interview

13 Feb 2012

The comic book creator of Kick-Ass and Wanted tells us about his role at the Glasgow Film Festival

Mark Millar has written some of the biggest comics of the last 20 years. He’s tackled the X-Men, Spider-Man, Superman and Fantastic Four alongside...

GFF 2012 - Frightfest highlights

2 Feb 2012

A round up of the best films showing as part of the Glasgow Film Festival's horror strand

FrightFest is back once again to terrorise the Glasgow Film Festival. Now taking over the GFT for two full days, this year (as with every year) it’s a vibrant snap shot of the state of horror cinema. It’s been so successful the organisers have launched…

Tekken: Blood Vengeance

1 Feb 2012

Fluid but uneven CGI movie based on the popular games franchise

This is actually the third movie based on the immensely popular fighting games, but Tekken: Blood Vengeance (Manga Entertainment) is the first fully computer animated version and was originally available as part of the Tekken Hybrid package. It looks…

Oscars 2012 - predictions

25 Jan 2012

Some of The List's film critics give their predictions on who'll win what at the Oscars

Best Picture. The Artist; simplicity is the reason that is soars above the other Oscar bait. The Artist probably will win, as it has won pretty much everything else going. It deserves it - when was the last time a film came along that made everyone fall…

Preview of 2012 - Django Unchained

6 Jan 2012

Quentin Tarantino flexes his Western muscles with Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio

Quentin Tarantino has already given us his heist movie (Reservoir Dogs), his take on blaxploitation (Jackie Brown), his war film (Inglourious Basterds), horror (Death Proof), kung fu (Kill Bill 1 & 2) and of course his crime thriller (Pulp Fiction).

Shame

5 Jan 2012

Steve McQueen's second directorial effort is an unflinching portrayal of sex addiction

(18) 101min Sexual imagery oozes from every blockbuster and frat boy comedy, but serious discussion rather than cheap titillation is a rarity. Cinema actually finds it hard to confront sex, partly because the American censorship board takes such a…

Director Steve McQueen discusses latest film Shame

5 Jan 2012

Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan star in story of sex addiction

‘When I first heard of the notion of sex addicts I laughed,’ says Steve McQueen. ‘Then I did a bit of research. It’s very similar to an alcoholic that drinks a litre of whisky a day.’ The artist and director is talking about his new film Shame, an…

The Awakening

15 Nov 2011

Superior British period ghost story sets a tone of creepy unease

There’s been a glut of cinematic ghost stories this year. The likes of Paranormal Activity 3 and Insidious often relied on jump scares and cheap parlour tricks, whereas The Awakening goes in the opposite direction letting the story unfold to reveal the…

La Planete Sauvage, The Funhouse, Tenebrae and Pulp Fiction rereleased

21 Oct 2011

Blu-ray releases round-up

While inevitably the picture quality and audio track are vastly improved by the high definition offered by Blu-ray another bonus is the extra features you can cram on to the format. Trippy animated sci-fi allegory La Planete Sauvage (Eureka!) ●●●● is…

Paranormal Activity 3

21 Oct 2011

Surprisingly effective third instalment of found footage suburban ghost story

(15) 84min Now Saw has relinquished it’s stranglehold on the multiplex each and every Halloween, Paranormal Activity has stepped up to fill the void. And it’s impressive that they’ve managed to mine this much back-story from the simplicity of the…

Shark Night 3D

6 Oct 2011

Dumb fun as big fish chow down on stereotypical college kids

(15) 91 min The avalanche of 3D releases may be slowing down but there’s still a few chuckles to be had with the format. Shark Night 3D has the flimsiest of plots as seven college kids head out for a weekend at a luxurious lake house in Louisiana…

The Woman

28 Sep 2011

Challenging horror from the minds of Lucky McKee and Jack Ketchum

(18) 98 min There has been a spate of interesting indie horror recently, films like Dead Girl, The Loved Ones and Red, White & Blue have brought a real intelligence to the genre. A challenging leftfield take on the idea of what is horror. The Woman…

Profile: Melissa George

1 Sep 2011

Aussie actress Melissa George tells us all about her new film A Lonely Place to Die

Born 6 August, 1976, Perth, Australia. Background Yet another Aussie soap alumni done good, after starring as Angel in over 300 episodes of Home & Away. ‘I’m a very good quitter, I always quit a job at the right time,’ explains George. ‘I was…

Final Destination 5

24 Aug 2011

Horror franchise gets back on track with some suitably gory bloodshed

(15) 92 min In many ways the Final Destination series is the ultimate streamlined horror franchise, they have dispensed with a villain and it is death itself that stalks our victims. And FD 5 returns the glorious gory yucks to the screen after the…

A Lonely Place To Die

24 Aug 2011

Tense and riveting Brit-thriller set in Scottish Highlands

How far would you go to save a stranger? Would you risk your life? And your friends’ lives? It’s a question Alison (Melissa George) and her fellow climbers must answer after they stumble across a young girl (Holly Boyd) buried in a wooden box while…

DVD reviews: The Kingdom, Giallo, The Pack, Bloodrayne 3, Evil Rising and Lake Mungo

18 Jul 2011

Summer horror DVD round-up

Forget Hollywood – this month we embark on a European horror odyssey. First up, Lars von Trier's superlative haunted hospital drama The Kingdom (Second Sight ●●●●). Collecting both of his four-part Danish TV series into one boxed set for the first time…

DVD reviews: Amer, My Soul to Take, Season of the Witch, The Resident and more on DVD

24 Jun 2011

Horror DVD round-up

Time for another dastardly delve into the horror DVD pile. We’ll start on a highnote. Amer (Anchor Bay) is actually French but is a studied homage to Italian 70s gialo filmmaking, more concerned with sound, colour, style and mood than coherent…

The Last Circus

20 Jun 2011

Spanish black comedy/horror takes in clowns, circus life, love and madness

The latest film from writer/director Alex de la Iglesia is almost unclassifiable, a love story, a black comedy and horror all apply and as fans of his Accion Mutante (1992) will know it’s this glorious mess of ideas and themes that makes for such a…

Rabies (Kalevat)

17 Jun 2011

An interesting twist on slasher movie conventions from Israel

The problem with slasher films is that they perhaps have the most rigid rules in cinema. It’s so easy to fall into the standard clichés as set out by Halloween and Friday the 13th. Not that it means you can’t make a fun, entertaining film within these…

Phase 7 (Fase 7)

16 Jun 2011

Dark pandemic tale from Argentina

There’s a vague ‘pandemic’ theme in this year’s EIFF programme (with talks and screenings of the likes of 28 Days Later, The Divide and Panic in the Streets) and Phase 7 is the first to raise its diseased head above the parapet. As a global epidemic…

Video game LA Noire features Mad Men's Aaron Staton

5 May 2011

Rockstar Games’ recreate 1947 Los Angeles in latest title LA Noire

Henry Northmore checks out Rockstar Games’ meticulous recreation of 1947 Los Angeles in their latest title LA Noire. They’ve already created digital versions of gangland America in the groundbreaking Grant Theft Auto series, and of the Wild West in Red…

Insidious - Leigh Whannell and James Wan interview

26 Apr 2011

Terrifying new ghost story Insidious from horror duo behind Saw

They gave the world Saw, followed it up with Dead Silence and now writer director team Leigh Whannell and James Wan are back with the terrifying ghost story that is Insidious. So what is Insidious about? Leigh Whannell: The film is our version of…

Scream 4