advent calendar
24th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly started life as an anti-western but is now considered one of the greatestSergio Leone had a problem with the main characters in westerns being heroic. They were mainly out for themselves and cared little for their surroundings....
23rd December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Abstract surrealism deliberately deconstructs the story in Drowning By NumbersMost films tell a story in a fairly linear way. Even my previous two reviews, Memento and 2001: A Space Odyssey have a clear narrative...
22nd December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Memento is a psychological thriller that finds the perfect way to tell its storyMemento is known as the film filmed backwards. Many people see this as a gimmick. But unlike films that employ a different technique just to...
21st December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: 2001 a Space Odyssey is an adventure that invites the audience to answer its questionsCan anyone doubt that Stanley Kubrick was a master of cinema if they have watched 2001? Not only is it visually sublime, but its composition...
20th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: A Clockwork Orange’s paranoid social commentary had the opposite effect to what was desiredA Clockwork Orange was and still is one of the most controversial films ever released. One of the main impacts the film had, much to...
19th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: The intricate sci-fi unverse of Blade RunnerI did not like Blade Runner the first time I saw it, because I didn’t get it, and couldn’t stand its slow pace. Once I...
18th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: The hilarious dystopian satire of BrazilIf you want to watch a good satire, but also fancy something truly bizarre, you have very little choice but to make Brazil a film to watch this Christmas.
17th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: How Lord of the Rings paved the way for sagasNowadays, with all the money in subsciption based content producers, long-running TV series with high production values are ten-a-penny. This is probably a good thing...
16th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Incredible music and acting chemistry makes Only Lovers Left Alive the perfect romantic dramaIf the subject at dinner turns to vampire films, before anyone can mention Twilight, suggest a genuinely passionate, creepy, underrated, modern film with an amazing soundtrack to boot as a movie anyone should definitely watch this Christmas.
15th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Less is more when achieving scares in the OthersWhen I tackled horror before, I went for suspense, ie there’s something scary and we don’t know where it is. Psychological thrillers take on many...
14th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: The story told through different timelines and intertwining philosophies in Cloud AtlasIf you can't decide what genre you want to watch, but want something deep and adventurous, Could Atlas is without doubt a film you need to watch this Christmas.
13th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Focusing the camera on the background highlights the paranoia in Children of MenParanoid fiction explores the subjective nature of reality and how it can be manipulated by the forces of power. Most conspiracy films will fall into...
12th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Se7en wraps a mystery up so people can barely comprehendIf you want a truly bleak and disturbing, yet highly compelling and ballsy murder mystery, Se7en is definitely a film you should watch this Christmas.
11th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: The Guard heightens the crime genre by setting it in apathetic rural IrelandIf you want a crime thriller FBI movie without any of the macho posturing endemic to the genre, and with plenty of hilarity and strangely touching scenes, the Guard is a film you need to watch this Christmas.
10th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Stalker ponders the mundanity of our existence despite the magic in its worldMagical Realism is a little known genre in which the film has magical elements but these are treated as mundane and normal in the environment....
9th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Alien is the perfect example of how to create suspense in horrorWhen I was a child, pretty much all films scared me and I certainly could not deal with horror. Now, as an adult, I’m a...
8th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Inglourious Basterds takes history and puts it through a blender to create its own universeYesterday I wrote about the harrowing and mostly true account, Schindler’s List. Today I’m writing about a film set in the same period that does...
7th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Schindler’s List takes an unapologetically bleak look at the history of the HolocaustToday’s genre is the historical film. These films present themselves as mostly true accounts of an event or person’s life, whereas historical fiction is a...
6th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: The disobedient fantasy world of Pan’s Labyrinth is exquisitely described through its imageryI don’t need to hesitate when somebody asks me what my favourite film of all time is. There is no shadow of a doubt that...
5th December 2018 | By Matt Hartless
Film Advent Calendar: Waltz With Bashir uses amnesia to drive its plot in a dramatisation of PTSDThe drama genre is defined as being more realistic than other genres and what could be more realistic than a depiction of somebody remembering true...