Author: Richard Gray
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The Green Hornet
In an interview with Total Film several years ago, legendary comic book creator Alan Moore said that “The main reason why comics can’t work as films is largely because everybody who is ultimately in control of the film industry is an accountant”. Those accountants have certainly been counting their receipts over the last few years,…
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Yogi Bear
Whether it is all some kind of marketing ploy or a genuine wave of nostalgia triggered by their sudden availability on DVD and retro-themed television channels, everything old is suddenly cool again. From the big-budget blockbusters of the Transformers films and the bafflingly successful Alvin and the Chipmunks films, through to the forthcoming revivals of…
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The Dilemma
Opening with a dinner conversation that discusses the very topic of knowing one’s friends and family, the film unravels the dynamic between smooth-talking salesman Ronny Valentine (Vaughn, Couples Retreat) and his scientist buddy Nick Brannen (James, Grown Ups). With Ronny’s girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Connelly, Creation) and Nick’s wife Geneva (Winona Ryder, Black Swan) the pair…
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The evolution of the western: Part 1 – the last gunslingers
With the release of the Coen Brothers’ True Grit, a remake of Henry Hathaway’s 1969 John Wayne late-vehicle, the American western has been brought back into focus. Set to become the second highest grossing western of all time, behind Kevin Costner’s revisionist western Dances with Wolves, True Grit may be just the blockbuster the genre…
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Polishing the canon: the importance of lists
The history of film can be told in lists. At least, that is what you’d be forgiven for thinking if you were a regular buyer of popular film magazines or were to wander the aisles of any book store’s collection of tomes on film. The American Film Institute has an entire section dedicated to lists…
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Gulliver’s Travels
Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels, a parody of the popular travel literature at the time, has been endlessly adapted since it was first published back in 1726. A satire on British society and human nature in general, Gulliver’s travels took him to lands of giants, pirates…and even Japan. However, it is his voyage to Lilliput, a…
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127 Hours
After conquering space (Sunshine) and fighting back zombie hordes (28 Days Later), Danny Boyle achieved what was seemingly impossible by winning no less than 8 Academy Awards for an English/Hindi Slumdog Millionaire, an adaptation of Vikas Swarup’s Q & A. After taking out such a prestigious haul, including statuettes for Best Picture and Best Director (and…
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Tangled
When Walt Disney and his animators created Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, it was labelled “Walt’s Folly”. The idea that audiences would want to watch an entire feature length animated film was preposterous to pundits, yet its instant success led to the foundation of Walt Disney Studios and an empire that spans the cinema,…
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Black Swan
Director Darren Aronofsky is not known to play by traditional Hollywood rules. After attending both Harvard University and the AFI, Aronofsky went on to create his debut feature π (or Pi) for a mere $60,000. The film, about a mathematician on the brink of insanity, defied expectations and sold to Artisan Entertainment for $1 million,…
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