Frank Capra | 100 mins | TV | 4:3 | USA / English | U
It Happened One Night was the first film to win the Oscar “grand slam” (Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, Screenplay), and is still one of the few to have won everything it was nominated for (alongside The Last Emperor and Return of the King), yet everyone involved seemed to think it would be a disaster: several people turned it down (five actresses); Claudette Colbert only agreed because she got double her salary and would be done in four weeks (and didn’t bother to attend the Oscars — when she won, she was rushed to the ceremony to make her speech); on the first day Clark Gable declared “Let’s get this over with”; and so on. So is it a multi-Oscar-worthy triumph, or the mistake so many cast and crew thought it to be?
Firstly, it’s the archetypal rom-com: two mismatched people are forced together, initially hate each other, fall in love. I don’t know if it was such a well-known set of events back then, but today it’s a formula we’ve seen repeated a thousand times in cinema. Despite that, its execution here feels fresh. Partly it’s the way the narrative cunningly draws the stars closer and closer together: losing suitcases, switching modes of transport, running out of cash… Partly, it’s the ineffable charm of a well-written, well-performed story. Gable and Colbert light up the screen like true stars. Their chemistry is immense, and though both characters could be intensely dislikable, instead they’re captivating.
It’s often credited as the first screwball comedy, and there is an element of that, though it’s no His Girl Friday in this regard. Still, numerous sequences work really well comically, like the motel argument (a particular stand-out). 
The Walls of Jericho running motif is also nicely executed, leading to perhaps the sauciest final scene not to feature a single shot of human beings that I can think of.
Fortunately, It Happened One Night‘s successes are nearer the truth than the opinions of those who made it. Even 80 years on, this stands up firmly as a gloriously entertaining film.
Just when you think the Underworld series is dead, it suddenly lurches back to life with a new instalment. Fitting for a series all about vampires & that, I suppose.
By taking such a bold move with the plot, meanwhile, the story pushes the series’ mythology in new and relatively interesting ways. It’s becoming a bit dense and fan-only (unless you let it wash over you and just enjoy the punching), but at least they’re not regurgitating the same old stuff. It manages a few twists along the way too, which is always nice. The plot seems to have been half worked around Speedman’s non-involvement, leading me to wonder why — he’s not too busy, surely? Perhaps he’d just had enough? But no, apparently it was genuinely just written this way. I guess he couldn’t be bothered to turn up for some cameo shots, because the stand-in is really obvious.
means the next one will probably turn up out of the blue with little hype, much as Awakening did last year. Plus, though this is the most expensive film to date (double the budget of the preceding one!), it’s also the most financially successful: $160.1 million worldwide, beating number two’s $111.3 million. Assuming Beckinsale still feels up for it, I imagine 2015 will bring us a continuation — and, hopefully, a conclusion.
Also worthy of commendation: new-style ‘evolved’ Lycans; a small role for Charles Dance (always worth seeing); the evocative near-future setting; good quality action sequences; some nice steel-blue cinematography/grading. Some of it was shot at 120fps on brand-new pre-alpha never-used RED cameras — take that Peter Jackson, eh. Plus it’s only a little over 1 hour and 18 minutes long without credits. Some would bemoan such brevity, but it has its positives.
The Pearl of Death is one of the better-regarded films of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes canon, but somehow it didn’t quite click for me. That doesn’t meant there isn’t a lot to enjoy, however.
Elsewhere, Nigel Bruce gets to indulge in a slapsticky scene that, as ever, people who dislike this interpretation of Watson would be happy to do without. Also worth noting is the female lead, British actress Evelyn Ankers: she was a regular fixture of Universal’s horror features, terrorised in no less than 
Neill somehow managed to pick one of the least dramatic. Neither of these reveal fudges are ruinous, of course, and are outweighed by the handling of sequences like Holmes setting off the museum’s alarm, the ensuing robbery, the villains stalking round a potential victim’s house, and so on. Still, I was surprised to find them so wanting.
For many Westerners of a certain generation, Akira was their first (conscious) exposure to anime. Not so me: a step or two down, 
The visuals remain something to be savoured; they’re probably the film’s strongest point, in my opinion. Akira was an expensive production and it pays off on screen. It’s not just the bike chases that I appreciated either, while an extra decade of experience made the ending a bit less freakish! The other strong point is the audio. The BD’s booklet goes on about “hypersonic” sound. I’ve no idea if that worked on my system, but it sounded fantastic regardless.
Classic spoof from the makers of 
US Air Force pilot Jon Travolta crashes a plane, steals a nuke, and former friend and colleague Christian Slater must stop his dastardly plan in this ever so ’90s actioner.
In this big screen live-action version of some old US cartoon, a dog gets superpowers and, naturally, becomes a superhero. That’s pretty much it.
Final Destination 5 is the latest Final Destination film. Do you really need a plot description? They all have the same story.
although on reflection it’s meaningless; a clever nod that isn’t really clever, but is neat. And perhaps means the series is finally going to rest.
Andrew Garfield dons the webbed onesie for an unwarranted reboot of the only-one-decade-old Spider-Man film franchise, retelling his origins… but with a twist! Cos, y’know, the last version was only out about 10 minutes ago.
some of the action sequences are alright. Mercifully, the much-trailed first-person segments are cut down to a minimum; kind of a “we made this so we ought to use it, but we’ve realised everyone was going to hate it”.
Not that it pays off — instead it just feels like the action scenes were bunged together because, hey, some of the fans want that stuff, right?
Notorious (to me) for unjustly beating 
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