5 December 2019
I’ve had some cinematic experiences that have stayed with me. Not just the quality of the film itself, but the entirety of the visit and the effect it had on me. I wept openly in a critic’s screening of Good Will Hunting. I rippled with nostalgic awe watching the re-release of Star Wars on the big screen with old friends.…
19 November 2019
I saw Captain Marvel on the opening weekend, and I was glad to be part of the huge opening weekend, the >$1 billion box office and the overwhelming positive reviews for a movie that the (male) haters were negative-review bombing without seeing the film and trying to stop from becoming the huge success that it is. It took too long…
7 January 2019
Ranking lists of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. There are many like it, but this one is mine. The MCU has changed the nature of cinematic franchises – every studio is trying desperately to ape the model that they have created, without truly understanding what they’ve done and how they’ve done it (which is standard operating procedure for Hollywood, but…
17 August 2018
In a way, I feel a bit sorry for Ant-Man and the Wasp: it’s a film of less substance in the MCU, being a fun caper movie in the same vein as Ant-Man; it’s coming after the huge events of Avengers: Infinity War; and it’s arriving after a tremendous run of MCU films in the past eight months (Thor: Ragnarok,…
30 April 2018
This is a spoiler-free review of Avengers: Infinity War, the 19th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the film 10 years in the making, so I’m not going to be a dick and ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. I just want to share my reactions to having watched the film and basically telling you how much I…
17 April 2018
The fact that a Black Panther film exists is a great thing. The fact that it is a massive global success is a fantastic thing. The fact that it’s also a very good film is a wonderful thing. The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to be the most reliable place to get enjoyable superheroic films, as Black Panther provides the action,…
17 November 2017
Imagine someone telling you that, after the cinematic debut of Thor: The Dark World, the third Thor film would be an out-and-out comedy, and it would be as funny as hell – you would not believe them because it would sound bonkers. Well, now you have to apologise to this fictional person I’ve just invented for not saying that to…
26 May 2017
If you ever need a sure-fire test to work out if a film is truly enjoyable, I have it for you: watch it the first time with the audio description/subtitles in your own language on-screen. Because, based on watching Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 in the cinema where that actually happened, I still enjoyed the hell out of this…
4 November 2016
Despite all the horrible things that are happening in the real world at the moment, there are some things that help – the fact that we live in a world where a Doctor Strange film is in cinemas and is an anticipated event is one of the nice things. The fact that it’s an entertaining and enjoyable film makes it…
9 May 2016
Things have been hectic at Clandestine Critic Casa, with lots of decorating and gardening and associated stuff getting in the way of reading and reviewing comic books (I’ve got a stack of first issues to write about that’s piling up, so consider yourself warned). So it was nice to have an afternoon to view the latest film in the Marvel…