About Steve Harcourt

Made around the same time as Danny Boyle was creating the 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, Trance is multi layered concept film, that makes you think about memory, history and perception, much like the Opening ceremony.

Some movies are awful. Some movies are so awful they’re good. ‘Pain & Gain’ is not one of them and it is of an awfulness that I haven’t seen for a while. Failing to be either a comedy or a drama, it manages to fall between the two, leaving you aghast and desperate for the end.

Ginger Baker has lived an intriguing life, with dizzying highs and unbelievable lows. Journalist Jay Bulger, decided to investigate where others have previously feared to tread, in an effort to uncover the real Mr Baker.

If a film could be described as channelling ‘Mannequin’, ‘Weird Science’ and ‘Stranger than Fiction’, whilst also having its own identity, this would be it. ‘Ruby Sparks’ is an unusual film, with a heavy dose of wish fulfilment, but can it fulfil the wishes of the audience and make a connection?

Although made in a 90s ‘B-Movie’ style, Acción Mutante can be either viewed as a schlocky, gore laden, science fiction romp, or a politically astute piece of social commentary in an innocuous wrapper. It could also, potentially, be both.

Like his last film, SightSeers, Ben Wheatley’s new film is a particularly English affair. With plot elements and characters surrounding alchemy, divination, psychedelic mushrooms and the English Civil War, it could not be considered a ‘Hollywood chasing’ mainstream effort.

If a film contains drug addicts with a harebrained scheme, an inept Satanic Cult and a car full of re-enactment knights, chasing around after a stolen safe, it is a good bet that it is an independent comedy. Weirdsville is indeed one such film, with the characteristics of a farce in the tradition of Cheech And Chong & Jay And Silent Bob.

As Sci-fi plot devices go, the ‘time loop’ is an old and trusted friend, that has reappeared many times over the years. So the question is: is ‘Repeaters’ something we’ll want to watch again and again, or is it the meal that unfortunately repeats?

When the pressure of life, and all that it has thrown at you, begins to bear upon your family, who can you turn to? ‘Kabluey’, a left-field comedy, looks at this very situation, and asks the questions ‘who can you rely on?’ and ‘is anyone ever a lost cause?’.

The ‘found footage’ genre of movie making has been around for quite a while, but ever since its resurgence in the late 90s following the success of ‘The Blair Witch Project’, many have tried to use this method, but not always with great success. Does ‘The Troll Hunter’ stand out from the crowd, or was the footage best left ‘undiscovered’?

Although they existed before, the 1930s and 40s was the classic production period of what is known as the ‘serial films’, epitomised by such titles as Flash Gordon, Dick Tracy, …
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Iain Banks is a writer with two sides, producing both mainstream novels, and novels of an altogether more science fiction nature, which he produces under the slightly altered name, Iain M. Banks. While the content may differ slightly, the general style, wit and excellent writing remain in both streams of work.