May 2013
9 posts
14 tags
The Great Gatsby Review
Adapting and luxuriating a classic novel, Luhrmann stepped up to the plate to knock out a literary classic hoping to make a classic film at the same time. Originally intended for a December release, the delayed, 3D post-converted modernisation of the book has now been released after premiering in Cannes – although it was already out in America. This change from an awards film to a summer...
7 tags
Interview with World War Z's Director Marc Forster
Back in 2005 there was a bidding war for a manuscript of what was set to be a hit novel. It was fought between Brad Pitt’s and Leonardo DiCaprio‘s production companies, constantly bidding and besting each other to get their hands on the rights to a book that hadn’t even been released yet. After a while, Brad Pitt’s company, Plan B, came out on top and now, after many years sitting in production...
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Interview with The Great Gatsby's Craig Pearce
Walking down a rainy Regent Street in London Craig Pearce, co-writer of The Great Gatsby picked up his phone and rang me so we could talk about his latest outings, his collaborations with Baz and his new TV programme called Will, which is why he was walking around rainy London. Thankfully, he was eager for a chat to explain the reasoning behind his and Baz Luhrmann‘s interpretation of The Great...
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Interview with The Wolverine's Brian Tee
There’s an upcoming film in the summer you may have heard of called The Wolverine and I luckily got to chat with one of the actors in it, Brian Tee. You’ll recognise Brian Tee from an array of projects that are completely diverse and eclectic but his highest profile role to date is as DK of the Fast and Furious franchise. He gave up his time to chat with us about some of his future projects –...
10 tags
Deadfall Review
After winning an Oscar for best foreign film with The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky has turned to his first American project, Deadfall, bringing together an impressive cast. Entrenched in snowy landscapes, Ruzowitzky has surrounded the audience in a bitter cold atmosphere that’s as claustrophobic as it is endless with blizzards freezing our characters. Thanks to the cold atmosphere and the...
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Louie Season 1 DVD Review
Comedian Louis CK‘s own television programme has finally made it to the UK thanks to the FOX channel and now the first season has been released on DVD. It’s a much refreshing addition to the sitcom world as it hardly feels like one, with a much more human touch, even in the most surreal moment of the pilot. It’s a great foray by the comedian into acting which he has done before but there’s...
13 tags
Interview with Zombieland's Kirk Ward
After the success of the movie, Amazon have now delved into original programming with their pilot season being decided by the audience. There are thirteen pilots to choose from but only four will make it into a full series and one of those pilots, hoping to rekindle, yet reimagine, the world of the movie, is Zombieland. Kirk Ward chatted to us about Tallahassee, inviting us and the...
9 tags
Interview with Director Marcel Sarmiento
The ABCs of Death has gathered together directors, assigned them a letter and told them to make a short film relating to death. Marcel Sarmiento was assigned the letter D. His debut feature was Heavy Petting, a light dog-related romcom but his follow-up feature, Deadgirl, tugged him entirely in the other direction. Deadgirl relates the tale of two high school outcasts who discover a chained and...
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Dragon Review
Acting usually comes down to moments of believability, ensuring that the emotions that should be portrayed are done so well enough to impact the audience. What usually slips through the cracks of acting is the great pain an actor might have to go through when performing stunts, choreography or any other important things that helps bring the character to life. Martial art performances usually get...
April 2013
17 posts
8 tags
Interview with Director Andy Wilton
Indie productions have shifted into overdrive with the ease that they can now be created. Most only aspire to be short films with a budget of £1000 but director Andy Wilton stayed bold and true with his idea to create his first feature-length Behind the Scenes of Total Hell. In fact, he’s created two as Total Hell – the Jamie Gunn horror ‘masterpiece’ the mockumentary is based around – is...
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The ABCs of Death Review
Essentially, reviewing The ABCs of Death is to review 26 shorts related to death, linked only by the fact that each segment begins with one letter in the alphabet. There’s no plot, you are solely there to see 26 different ways to die. From the simple G for Gravity to the weird H for Hydro-Electric Diffusion to the utterly messed up Z for Zetsumetsu, to the insensitive M for Miscarriage....
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Evil Dead 2 Blu-ray Review
With Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead remake now out in cinema it seems a fine time for the sequel to Raimi’s original cult classic to be given the Blu-ray treatment. The film is actually a remake. More money and fewer production problems result a much scarier, camp follow-up that some may say even surpasses the original. Bruce Campbell’s Ash is a legendary cult character and this sequel is the reason...
10 tags
Behind the Scenes of Total Hell Review
This is a mockumentary much like the most famous uses of the style – The Office, Arrested Development and so on – but applies it to the creation of a separate film. It takes us behind the scenes of a horror production (Total Hell) and shows all of the problems of filmmaking, financing and distribution in comedy form. Much of the story came from real life problems in production where...
10 tags
Interview with Director Paul Hyett
Paul Hyett has been involved in the British film industry for quite some time as a bit of an unsung hero of horror make-up. Now he’s got the chance to delve further into the business with his directorial debut The Seasoning House. The interview was only supposed go on for roughly ten minutes but in the end turned into a half hour conversation about our mutual cinephilia. Continuously open to...
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Give Me the Banjo DVD Review
A niche title suggests only lovers of the banjo will enjoy this documentary which is narrated by Steve Martin. Unfortunately that’s exactly what it is. That’s not to say that the documentary is a failure, it’s packed with information from respectable people with a kicking soundtrack spanning from the 1920s to Steve Martin in 2012 but the information feels irrelevant to banjo-unenthusiasts. All...
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Elizabeth Blackmore Interview
In the next few days, Evil Dead gets a chance to scare UK cinema goers following a box office bust in the States and a buzz from mostly positive critics. Now, it’s Britain’s turn to be possessed. In preparation for its release we spoke to Elizabeth Blackmore who plays Natalie in this remake-reboot horror flick. We spoke to her about Evil Dead, her favourite flavour of blood and, despite...
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Olympus Has Fallen Review
Gerard Butler has shaken off the “Die Hard in the White House” title that has come with his latest film, Olympus Has Fallen. Where White House Down embraced that comment, they’ve shrugged it off as its own film because Gerard Butler isn’t everyman John McLane. The truth is that this is very much Die Hard in the White House but with an ex-Secret Service agent instead of the New York cop. Some...
9 tags
She Monkeys DVD Review
A modern Swedish western and coming-of-age drama is hardly the hybridisation you would expect. Lisa Aschan’s directorial debut is this amalgamation of genres, as well as bicuriousity, control and awkward overt sexualisation of a seven year-old. Unrecognisable genre-blending has made this a most refreshing piece of cinema, one which has kept the confusion and inherent awkwardness of growing...
10 tags
Spring Breakers Review
MTV’s influence has since inspired most of postmodernism within television and film, boasting a style over substance technique for the younger audiences. What Spring Breakers has done is take that motto to make one of the most stylish films that attacks the approach. It is hypocritical in a way but that’s the purpose. This attack on it makes for a very confusing film but not in comprehension,...
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The Place Beyond the Pines Review
The Place Beyond the Pines comes after Derek Cianfrance‘s last outing, 2011′s heart-breaking anti-romance Blue Valentine that breaks people. The story of a couple at the beginning and end of their relationship with no coverage of the seven year gap. It was intimate, it fixated on them as a couple at their birth and their death. It’s one of the most real films that one can experience especially...
10 tags
Side Effects Review
Side Effects has since witnessed Steven Soderbergh announce his retirement from film citing problems with executives, producers and a lack of respect to filmmakers. This, being his swansong, is a loss to cinema as this is a great film by Soderbergh who had now seemed a lot more stylish, more comfortable with directing. Trailers have painted this in different ways for different people with their...
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G.I. Joe: Retaliation Review
G.I. Joe‘s first outing on the big screen wasn’t a masterpiece or anything close to that. A film based on toys was always going to be a difficult thing to do and with that challenge in mind, it made a commendable effort to make it not so terrible. Although the first was filled with problems, it can be said that it was still a good bit of fun to phase out and watch. The first succeeded from its...
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Oz: The Great and Powerful Review
Oz The Great and Powerful finds scepticism ripe because Disney’s live-action output can be described as a bit of a failure lately. John Carter bombed, Prince of Persia bombed, Tron: Legacy sort of bombed. It seems a commonality for them all to bomb but when Raimi stepped up to the plate to develop a prequel to the 1939 classic film more than the novels by L. Frank Baum, everyone seemed to...
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Vito DVD Review
The equality battle still rages on. Profile pictures all over the internet are red with an equal sign showing viral activism for the right to marry whoever. Viral activism is the result of years of activism by the closeted, cornered few that turned into many. Now with a few clicks it’s OK to want these equal rights, it’s almost expected in the more liberal generation, but before that there was...
13 tags
Turn Me On, Dammit! DVD Review
An eye-catching title will set this apart from other films – mainly as a possible date-night film that will excite – but those for looking for something pornographic or blurring the boundaries of that will probably be disappointed.This is a coming of age comedy more than anything else while dealing with a sensitive issue lightly. Fifteen year-old Alma (Helene Bergshom) is consumed with her...
11 tags
Megamind Review
Animation pictures usually rely on the vocal talent to bring their creations to realistic life as well as drawing in a more adult audience by having such big names star in it. Dreamworks is no stranger to this by using these to make up for the fact they were a couple of detailed steps behind Pixar. Megamind is miles ahead of Dreamworks’s usual animated detail and still boasts one of the...
March 2013
3 posts
17 tags
Paradise Lost Trilogy DVD Review
A tragedy struck West Memphis in 1993 that garnered a lot of notoriety. This was the triple murder of eight year-olds, left in a canal, that was said to be ritualistic, commencing a witch hunt. Memphis became Salem, searching for anyone that could be held accountable. The poor eight year-old boys were assaulted, tortured and mutilated. Fear ruled Memphis because having the killer(s) free in the...
7 tags
(500) Days of Summer
I enjoyed this film. I pitied Tom but then learned that he is the hero of the story and doesn’t need to be saved so I no longer pitied him. Summer is a knob. My only criticism is that nobody pushed her off a skyscraper roof. 69/100 stars.
A guest review by Eleri Hughes.
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Marvel's The Avengers
I liked it a lot. It was very good. 5 stars.
A guest review by Eleri Hughes.
February 2013
7 posts
14 tags
You Should be Watching: House of Cards
In a world where cards are held against chests, it’s all about deceiving others. Bluffing, lying, cheating are all a part of the game in politics. Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) is the man who will do anything to get his way after not being unexpectedly passed over for secretary of state. In the series’ first scene Kevin Spacey commits a horrific act whilst looking straight at the camera,...
20 tags
My Predictions for the 2013 Oscars and the...
Obviously everyone’s chiming in with their own article on the Oscars but I feel like sharing mine as well. I’ve seen the 9 Best Picture nominations but, unfortunately, haven’t seen all of the documentaries, animated films, shorts nor the foreign films yet. For now, I’ll glaze over those with a fairly bandwagon approach to them but to the others I’ll be putting...
10 tags
Silent Hill: Revelation Blu-ray Review
Suffering from problems with the running time, trite dialogue and scenes of little consequence stuck together by incoherence and ambiguity Silent Hill was far from a masterpiece. It did, however, have a number of good ideas and the potential to build on them with this sequel.
Silent Hill: Revelation fixes the running time by making it half an hour shorter, there is less pointless running...
9 tags
Filmmaking
Filmmaking is something that’s always interested me but never been something I’ve really wanted to do. I love films, I love watching films, I love analysing films, I love criticising films. I thought that was the main part of films that I’d love but as my course goes on and on, I find myself loving making films more and more. A rare thing to love something so much that’s so...
9 tags
Detachment Blu-ray Review
It’s weird seeing a follow-up from a director who has made such a classic film yet nothing since. It’s even more weird that the film, American History X, isn’t something he’s proud of and tried to change his name to Humpty Dumpty on it. Odd, still, that Detachment, the new film from Tony Kaye, went pretty much unnoticed after festivals and went, instead, released to On Demand services and...
10 tags
The Fall of the Essex Boys Review
The Fall of the Essex Boys takes us back to Rettendon for another take on the triple murder of drug dealers. It may sound very familiar but, for once, it isn’t. It isn’t a standard British gangster flick that glamorises the murderers, the drug lords, the psychopaths, but instead shows them in the light they truly deserve, showing you the dark, dirty-handed ways that they didn’t even think...
9 tags
Nick Nevern Interview
Soon up there’s a Brit gangster flick that revisits Rettendon’s infamous triple murder of drug dealers. Don’t be concerned that this tale is too old as, for once, this takes it away from the just the gangsters and adds the police and shows the true nature of bullying thugs. We luckily had the chance to talk to actor, director and writer Nick Nevern (The Sweeney, Terry) who plays Danny...
January 2013
14 posts
5 tags
Samsara Blu-ray Review
Here is a documentary so difficult to describe it’s hard to understand the motivation to watch it never mind to think that you’d like it. A wordless documentary filmed over twenty-five countries in five continents, it’s all about the imagery and the accompanying music so that you may interpret it as you wish. All the images you see are completely magnanimous with every interpretation being as...
9 tags
My Afternoons with Margueritte Blu Review
Gerard Depardieu plays Germain Chavez who is a handyman, gardening illiterate who is mocked by the village for his stupidity, even by those that are supposed to be his friends. One day in the park he sits on a bench next a little old woman named Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus) who both have a common interest in the pigeons that congregate in that area of the park. In this, a friendship blossoms...
8 tags
Objectified Blu Review
The synopsis on this Blu-ray is quite misleading because the reading of it comes across as how objects own our lives and that they’re very controlling whether we realize it or not. What follows is very surface level about that idea but instead is a film about patting the back of designers who create the things we use. It’s incredibly disappointing when being misled into believing that there’ll...
6 tags
Hayley-Marie Axe Interview
In today’s new cinema release, we chat to Hayley-Marie Axe who plays Val in new British black-comedy ‘May I Kill U?’ Although you may not have seen her on the screen that much as she’s mostly been in theatre, keep watching an actress who has tipped to be an up-and-comer with an insatiable love of acting. Hayley-Marie is also a virally successful actress in a few online web shows that have proven...
13 tags
Les Misérables Review
Les Misérables the musical at last gets the big picture treatment. Sometimes it can be hard to find the words to effectively describe films. Others you passionately love enough to gush on romantically about how fantastic every minute detail of it is. Others you loathe so much that the hatred spills out of you with every acidic word spitting its disapproval on the page to warn others. Then there...
14 tags
The Impossible Controversy
In one of the earliest releases of 2013 there’s already been a massive controversy surrounding one of the films. The Impossible has been criticised heavily for reasons that are possibly oversensitive. Could it be that the world is becoming overly-sensitive in its need for censorship?And if it is a need for censorship, will we ruin the freedom of art? It’s an almost archaic question of the past...
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May I Kill U? DVD Review
No matter how much you see Kevin Bishop around, it’s hard to get the memory of him in The Muppets’ Treasure Island out of your mind. This film does try quite hard to distance him from the childhood film that birthed the comedic actor, going from a Muppet helper to a murdering cycling policeman who gains notoriety and fame for his vigilantism. Where it’s a bit heavy-handed with the social...
10 tags
Peep Show Season 8 DVD Review
Hearing the familiarity of the theme tune blast through the TV set will fill you with joy if you’re already a fan of Peep Show. If you’ve somehow not seen the brilliance that is Peep Show then you can go buy them all on DVD or even catch up now on Channel 4′s 4oD service. That way you won’t be lost in the El Dude brothers’ story nor of how incapable they are. You’ll be used to standard antics of...
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Top Ten: A Look Back at the Best Films of 2012
To start this off, I want to establish that this is all my opinion and only my opinion. It does not reflect the views of HeyUGuys nor anyone else on here intentionally and this is entirely an opinion piece.
Another thing to establish is that I’ve unfortunately not seen every film of 2012 because my bank balance won’t allow it… that and the fact I have university and other stuff to do. These...
10 tags
The Whale DVD Review
Cast: Ryan Reynolds Director: Suzanne Chisholm, Michael Parfit Country: Canada Genre: Documentary Official Trailer: Here
Animals are the best, aren’t they? They’re uncomprehending of the things around them to our extent but they develop these relationships like we do—with other animals as well as us. Animals are lovely creatures on the whole and you can bond with anything as long as you...
10 tags
The Invisible War DVD Review
Cast: Helen Benedict, Anu Bhagwati, Susan Burke Director: Kirby Dick Country: USA Genre: Documentary | Crime | Drama | History Official Trailer: Here
The plot of this documentary alone is one of incredible frustration. After reading it, it’s shocking enough as it is and when you finally press play, it only gets worse and your feeling of disgust intensifies. There are a lot of problems with...
30 tags
The World is Ending... Let's Watch How it Might!...
Although it’s Christmas time, mistletoe and wine, children singing something rhyme, there’s a sense of dread slightly dampening the mood. Getting into the spirit is difficult when some Mayans have selfishly predicted the end of the world just four days before Jesus’s birthday. There’s a sense of gloom from our impending doom that has been predicted. What better way to think of the gloom then to...
6 tags
The Legend of Neil DVD Review
We’ve all had the fantasy to be sucked into an alternate reality. Whether it be a game, film, TV programme or a book, we’ve all wanted it to happen. The idea of being sucked into Zelda is probably one that a lot of people have fantasised about. Being sucked into a world as a hero, saving a princess and defeating the evil overlord that is Gannon(dorf). Neil (Tony Janning) is the lucky one that...
12 tags
Farewell, My Lovely DVD Review
This is the third adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely but the first under its real name. The other two incarnations are the 1942’s The Falcon Takes Over and 1944’s Murder, My Sweet but this is the more faithful one of the movement to the big screen. In true, neo-noir fashion, it begins with the protagonist caught in a problem of him being blamed for two murders. It starts with...
