21
May
This post is sponsored by It only takes a small, insignificant moment to completely change the course of a life. It’s that premise from which The Blacktongue Thief starts. Kinch Na Shannack, working thief, is spared when a banditry gig goes south. The Spanth warrior who spares him, Galva, is on a quest—and the Taker’s Guild, for which Kinch works, assigns him to accompany her, gain her trust, and wait for further instruction. As he travels with Galva, and, soon after, a witch companion Norrigal, he begins to question just where his allegiance lies, and what he owes his newfound…
18
Sep
“Anchors, rigging, shackles,” lists Katy Wix down the phone, “poop deck, wheelhouse, three sheets to the wind…” The comedian and writer has had a productive year. Filming wrapped on Ghosts series two just as UK lockdown began. Since then, she’s finished one book – Delicacy: A Memoir – due out next April, is pitching another, writing a TV show, and thanks to a new-found obsession with Netflix yacht-based reality show Below Deck, has also managed to acquire an enviable grasp of nautical terminology. Wix is an established UK comic actor, with credits across the board, starting with cult hit Time Trumpet and going mainstream as witless,…
08
Sep
“It’s a classic ghost story with one of the best filmed jumps ever,” sums up Andy Nyman of Herbert Wise’s 1989 TV movie of The Woman in Black, “It properly delivers, and it properly delivers in a fantastically old fashioned way. It’s a proper ghost story at Christmas.” He’s not wrong. Now restored and released on Blu-ray with a load of new extras, the movie is still incredibly effective. Nyman has recorded a new commentary for the film along with fellow horror experts Kim Newman and Mark Gatiss. Nyman has a personal connection to the film too – it was…
16
Jul
Australian thriller The Secrets She Keeps, currently airing on BBC One and iPlayer, takes the audience to a very dark place says Laura Carmichael. Her character Agatha, a supermarket worker who befriends a pregnant blogger, ‘does such unbelievable things, the most irresponsible things’ driven ‘by the impulse of motherhood’. Building a crime thriller around that impulse makes the series relatable, says Carmichael. At its heart, the show is about ‘wanting to be a mum and wanting to be the perfect mum.’ As her character’s backstory unfolds, ‘you understand her’ says Carmichael, though ‘she absolutely puts people through hell.’ Whether Agatha…
11
Jul
The Capture is fundamentally a show about screens. Screens are the first things viewers see as the series heads behind the scenes at a CCTV control center where workers remotely take in something horrific happening on the streets of London. Those same CCTV cameras and the screens they broadcast to are ever-present throughout the show’s six episodes, which tell the story of U.K. Special Forces Lance Corporal Shaun Emery (Callum Turner) who was failed by video surveillance technology once before and may be on the verge of being failed by it once again. The Capture wrapped up its compelling run…
08
Jul
‘You ordinary bitch!’ snarls Sarah Phelps, ‘put your cheap knickers on and get out of my house!’ The interview hasn’t taken a strange turn; she’s laughing down the phone, quoting along with memorable lines from her BBC One Agatha Christie adaptations. ‘Oh, it brings me so much joy. It’s like The Witness for the Prosecution’s Romaine screaming in court ‘You fucking men! You fucking men!’ and then hissing at Mayhew like a cat!’ One of Phelps’ friends downloaded Andrea Riseborough’s hiss in that scene to use as her text message alert. ‘I get such a thrill out of it.’ Phelps’ screenwriting is built on thrill.…
06
Jul
‘He pops up absolutely everywhere doesn’t he?’ says Daniel Mays about his Code 404 co-star Stephen Graham. You could say the same of Mays. A draw on any cast list, between them in the last year alone they’ve appeared in almost 20 major titles – 1917, Good Omens, White Lines (Mays), The Irishman, The Virtues, Line of Duty, Save Me (Graham) to name just a handful. Why Mays and Graham are in such high and regular demand is no mystery; they’re two of our best. Mays has an instant affability on screen that he’s able to turn to tragedy or…
01
Jul
‘When somebody decides to call a character Brock Blennerhassett,’ says Michael Smiley, ‘you think, well, that hasn’t just come off the top of your head, there must be something going on there!’ What’s going on with Blennerhassett, his lead role in new darkly comic Victorian drama Dead Still, is strange, timely and layered, says Smiley. Dead Still, available in the UK now to stream on Acorn TV, is ‘a dark, funny, proper period drama set in Dublin in Victorian times’ Smiley explains. His character Blennerhassett is part of the Anglo-Irish landed gentry who’s broken away to work in the experimental…
21
Nov
Rent It Director: Perry LangStarring: Brenton Thwaites, David Strathairn, Yael GrobglasYear: 2018Faith-based films are making their appearance known far too often, masquerading as real cinema, when all they really are is propaganda for a religion that is slowly dying and is desperate to reach new audiences before it blinks out completely. Or at least, that's a pessimistic (and potentially atheist) take on the genre; an optimist (or Christian/believer/hopeful soul) might see it in a completely different light. That's the inherent problem with this modern movement; you can talk about God in a movie, but making your story completely about one…
03
Apr
Mark Hamill interview: The Last Jedi, Twitter, Slipstream Ahead of The Last Jedi's release on Blu-ray, we talk to Mark Hamill about Skywalker, Slipstream, Sushi Girl and social media... Interview Apr 3, 2018 From http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/mark-hamill-star-wars-the-last-jedi/56445/mark-hamill-interview-the-last-jedi-twitter-slipstream
13
Dec
Liam O'Donnell interview: Skyline, Beyond Skyline We chat to writer-director Liam O' Donnell about the process of making both Skyline films, and the future of genre cinema... Interview Dec 13, 2017
