Film review: The Maze Runner
Oct 06 2014- Movies
- Last Updated on 06 October 2014
- Freda Cooper
The second half of this year has seen the arrival of a new genre at the cinema. The Y A movie. Translated, this means films aimed at Young Adults, and they’ve all been based on successful books written for the same audience. The Fault In Our Stars, Divergent, If I Stay and, most recently, The Giver, are the most recent and some of them have been big hits at the box office, The Fault In Our Stars especially.
The latest one, The Maze Runner, arrives this Friday. Having already made it to the top of the American box office, it looks like doing well over here – and plans for part two of the trilogy have already been well-publicised. So is it just a prequel or does it bring something new to the Y A party?
Future Films Heads Up: Hugh Bonneville’s Paddington
Oct 05 2014- Movies
- Last Updated on 03 October 2014
- Freda Cooper
The first sighting of Paddington was back in June – the big screen version of a certain Peruvian bear, that is. Then there was all the kerfuffle surrounding the loss of his Colin Firth voice and its replacement by a Ben Whishaw one. So, with the release date of 28 November creeping ever closer, a select group of film writers – me included! – was summonsed to a screening room in Soho for a preview screening of footage from the film.
That, in itself, was enough to get me there, but at the eleventh hour it was announced that we’d be in the presence of the aristocracy. OK, fictional aristocracy, because Hugh Bonneville, who plays Mr Brown in the film, was taking time off from Downton to host the whole shebang. And a very nice tan he was sporting as well!
Why I loved Breaking Bad
Oct 03 2014- Movies
- Last Updated on 30 September 2014
- Monica Costa
Before telling you why I loved TV sensation series Breaking Bad, let me tell you that I am certainly not the target audience for this series – or at least I thought I wasn’t. I normally love girls’ movies, rom coms, comedies, live stories and period dramas (like the Paradise, Mr Selfridge, Downtown Abbey).
But a friend kept talking to me about how great the scripts of Breaking Bad was and the Netflix stream team was raving about too. So having it on tap, I thought I’d give it a go. But at first I struggled to cope with the themes of terminal illnesses, drug dealing, violence and stopped watching labelling it as ‘not my cup of tea’.
