CASINO ROYALE (1967)

1967 DIRECTORS: Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Val Guest & Richard Talmadge This is the second "filmed" of the three versions of Ian Fleming's inaugural 007 novel. The first was a 1954 episode of the U.S. TV series Climax!, in which James Bond was rewritten as an American, rather than British spy. The latest is the better known…

SKYFALL

2012 DIRECTOR: Sam Mendes Opening, yet again within the Daniel Craig Bond era, without the ubiquitous 'gun barrel' sequence at the beginning, Oscar winning Director, Sam Mendes, the first of such calibre in the 23 films and 50 years of bond to this date, set out his stall from frame one with an artistic interpretation…

STAR TREK @50: LOOKING BEYOND THE FINAL FRONTIER

THE HUMAN ADVENTURE IS JUST BEGINNING... It all began not in 1966, but 1964 with Gene Rodenberry's first pilot, "The Cage". No Kirk, but instead the Enterprise's maiden voyage was helmed by Jeffrey Hunter, when he was not play Jesus Christ, King Of Kings (1964) of course. Even though, this is possibly one of Classic Star Trek's…

AVATAR 2, 3, 4 & 5 -WHY THE DELAY?

After watching Avatar in 3-D for the first time since theatres in 2009, I began to think about the long delay in the production of the sequels. I remembered how long it took to bring the original to the screen, a decade to be precise, with talk of "developing something new and innovative". It was…

BOBBY

2006 DIRECTOR: Emilio Estevez Emilio Estevez's star studded film following the day in which Bobby Kennedy will ultimately be assassinated, through the eyes of other guests at the Ambassador Hotel in California, sounds like a gem on paper, but in reality, it misses the mark completely. Its first error is to sell a film on…

KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE

1953 DIRECTOR: Richard Thorpe The medieval English myth of King Arthur has been mined for literature and film as much as Robin Hood, the subject of numerous films over the format's hundred or so year history. I admit that I'm not sure how the rest of the world see Arthur but here in the U.K.,…

HER

2013 DIRECTOR: Spike Jonze Spike Jonze is back, this time with a profoundly intriguing love story of our time. Playing with he notion that people have taken to hiding behind their Facebook profiles rather than dealing with real human relationships in real human ways. But this takes it a step further, introducing us to a…

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY SO FAR…

As the hype machine gains traction for this December's release of the second Star Wars movie in as many years, the first of the stand alone adventures, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, is set in the run up to the original outing, Star Wars: Episode IV:A New Hope (1977), as a team of Rebels…

PATHS OF GLORY

1957 DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick As we commemorate the centenary of the Battle of the Somme which took place 1916, this Stanley Kubrick classic, also set in 1916, seems to be somewhat timely. If Kubrick had not made this film, then I suspect that Spielberg would have sometime later or course, as this film begins in…

ZOOTROPOLIS (aka ZOOTOPIA) (3D)

2016 DIRECTOR: Byron Howard, Rich Moore & Jared Bush On the surface, Zootropolis appears to be yet another anthropomorphised adventure centring on animals who are relateble to us. The concept is it a little out there though, taking us into a world where animals evolved in our stead to rule the world but there is little more to justify…