Will a self-conscious AI ever exist? Will we one day be surpassed by machines that are much smarter than us, machines that we made ourselves, machines that look in a mirror and recognise who they are? These are the never-ending questions that sci-fi keeps trying to answer, with novel adaptations like Blade Runner and I,…
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Clouds of Sils Maria displays the best of what French cinema can offer – the ability to tell a multi-layered story through the leanest of means. This is not a fast paced film; it is a thoughtful, complex story that shows rather than tells its takeaway messages. This film tells the story of a love…
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An exciting new take on the found footage trope (which, incidentally did not have its origins with The Blair Witch Project – Cannibal Holocaust capitalised on this style in 1980) has hit the cinemas. Unfriended blends perfect pacing with some Lord of the Flies style kill-or-be-killed mentalities. Unfriended takes place entirely through Skype chat and…
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A couple of days before Pitch Perfect 2 was released I walked past a promotional poster for it with a male friend of mine. I braced myself for the inevitable eye roll and derisive comment about chick flicks (and probably not a particularly original one – that’s the thing about sexism, it’s been around for…
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From the get-go, When Marnie Was There, quite possibly the last film from world-famous Studio Ghibli and based on the novel by Joan G. Robinson of the same name, is a tearjerker. The Japanese production house has been producing incredible and heart-wrenching anime films since 1985, with the unforgettable Spirited Away (2001) as Japan’s highest…
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Following in the footsteps of other prolific American indie directors of his generation, such as Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze and Richard Linklater, Noah Baumbach has proven to be one of the most intriguing and unique filmmakers on the indie scene. Following successes of the uncompromising The Squid and the Whale (2005), the shamelessly quirky Greenberg…
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Testament of Youth brings Vera Brittain’s memoir of the same name to life on the big screen. The film opens amid a jubilant scene: Armistice Day, 1918. In the middle of it all, a young woman stumbles, overwhelmed by the crowds and removed from the joy everyone else is seemingly experiencing. The timeline then jumps…
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After watching a myriad of gore-tastic movies over the past couple of decades, I’d forgotten how utterly terrifying a foe that walks, not runs, toward you can be. Torture porn will no doubt disgust and horrify (and if it doesn’t that is really weird) but the slow walk of the predator in It Follows…
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Xavier Dolan’s Mommy (released on April 9) brims with an exuberance that threatens to split its very illusion at the seams. Violence brews just beneath the surface of chaotic and charming almost-teenager Steve’s countenance (played by Antoine-Olivier Pilon). Diagnosed vaguely by his mother with “ADHD… attachment disorder” he is thrust back into her life when…
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In recent years, director Tim Burton has made some truly appalling remakes; films filled with over-the-top CGI and best characterised as nonsensical insanity. His tired muses, Johnny Depp and (now ex-partner) Helena Bonham Carter, recycled zany character after zany character in lacklustre films like Alice in Wonderland (2010) and The Dark Shadows (2012), although the…
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Out of the all the heartbreaking and dehumanising things that can happen to a person, losing one’s memories has to be at the top of the list. Alzheimer’s disease touches so many people in the world, with almost everyone knowing someone who has been diagnosed with the debilitating disease. Usually classified as a disease that…
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Charting the life of Dr. Stephen Hawking and his wife Jane from their blissful relationship beginning in the 60s and to its end in the mid 90s, The Theory of Everything attempts to provide a private look into the life of one of the world’s most fascinating minds. It begins with Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) as…
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As I walked out of the cinema after watching Jupiter Ascending I thought ‘maybe I’ve watched too much Buffy The Vampire Slayer’. (And then I snorted because that is a ridiculous notion.) When it comes to realistically portraying female characters as strong, believable and fallible, Buffy is where it’s at. And Jupiter Ascending (directed and…
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Be careful what you wish for? Don’t wander from the path? Follow your dreams? Moral lessons are always at the punch line of classic fairy tales, and if Into the Woods is anything to go by, there sure is a hell of a lot of lessons being learnt in fairytale land. Based on Stephen Sondheim…
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