Stuart Young Investigates…

Mad about Alice?

Alice in Wonderland arrives this Friday on a wave of hype, controversy, and marketing. Foremost is the dispute over which cinemas would agree to show the film – Disney intends to release the DVD in a lightning-fast three months which will cut into movie audiences. Then there’s the impressive volume of press coverage, the promising trailer, the big names attached; from every angle, the expectation associated with Alice threatens to overwhelm the film itself.

Based on the children’s books by Lewis Carroll (the rather less snappily titled Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There) this version is directed by Tim Burton, the eccentric filmmaker responsible for The Nightmare Before Christmas, Sweeney Todd and several other classics of the beloved-by-teenage-girls-who-wear-too-much-eyeliner variety. Read More

Ellie Robert is here to review the latest Disney re-release:

Re-released Toy Story 2 is among the barrage of recent films to be given the silly glasses treatment. Following the return of the original Toy Story and pre-empting the arrival of Toy Story 3, nostalgic 90’s kids and excitable little ones are now donning 3D specs to return to the now visually enhanced world of Andy’s room, and beyond.

As a rare good sequel to the original, everyone’s favourite animated cowboy, Woody (Tom Hanks) returned to the big screen in 1999. Now he’s back again, only more vivid. Read More

Tim B-G lays one down on the new film ‘Youth In Revolt’.

review by Richard Hanrahan and Scott Lucas

Bob Wilton (Ewan McGregor) is your average Joe – he has a happy life working in a small town for a local newspaper – that is until someone in his office dies and his wife runs off with a man with one arm. Wilton decides to lose himself in the romance of War, and travels to Iraq to become a war correspondent.
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Another week, another Fresh Air Film Show. This week, the studio takes a turn towards animation and children’s adaptation. Be sure to check out the show next week, from noon on Wednesday, or if you can’t wait that long, why not check out the very latest from the team here.
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Review by Tim Beardmore-Gray
9, the latest animated blockbuster, is the first feature length film from director Shane Acker and is based on his 2005 short of the same name. The main protagonist is the character 9 (Elijah Wood), a hessian rag doll that is made and brought to life by a scientist during a war between man and machine. After watching a monstrous machine capture one of his kind he eventually finds a small group of similar dolls and embarks on a mission to rescue the captured doll, against the warnings of the stern group leader 1 (Christopher Plummer). The story follows 9 and the other dolls as they attempt to survive in the post-apocalyptic world, fight off machines and try to come to terms with their existence and their purpose. Read More

Halloween! Scary stuff. This week on The Film Show:
This week its Halloween, so the Film Show kicks off with a haunted flavour. We had some scary reviews of cinema releases including Zombieland, Halloween 2 and the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, plus we re-capped DVD releases worth checking out for a scary weekend, and everything you can catch from the Film Society. For all the latest on the weeks films, including reviews, discussion, listen to the Film Show every week at 12 noon, every Wednesday. Check in this Wednesday for an animation special.

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Whats this? Another review from Chris Madden, how Fantastic…

I must confess I’ve never been a massive fan of Wes Anderson. All of his previous films have missed the mark with me and I’ve never really been able to get on board with the way he seemingly sacrifices content for collections of episodic off beat scenes that never really give us a satisfactory view of characters or the situations they find themselves in.

It is with great humility then that I put my hands up and say that, if this film is anything to go by, Wes Anderson is a genius. If there ever was a form that his style was supposed to be captured in, it’s this. All the things that grind me about Anderson’s filming style; whether that be the construction of awkward characters, the pause riddled silent heavy beats or the off topic asides, simply work so well in an animated animal based environment. Read More

Chris Madden from www.castalavista.co.uk is here to review two films this week:

Two Days, two films, two lands, two performances from Jesse Eisenberg, one review. “TWO FILMS IN ONE REVIEW! YOU MUST BE MAD!” I hear you shout.

Not Mad. Madden.

Somewhat coincidentally I happened to watch Adventureland on Saturday, then Zombieland Sunday and, although unconventional, there doesn’t really seem any harm in reviewing them both at once considering the fact that the lead role in both instances is essentially the same. Read More

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Review by Will C

If versatility is a desirable quality in film-makers, then Shane Meadows – arguably the brightest talent in British cinema – is on the precipice of greatness. After bringing us the gritty, and at times terrifying, realism of Dead Man’s Shoes and This Is England, Meadows and long-time collaborator Paddy Considine return with Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee, a “mockumentary” which follows Considine’s Donk character – a foul-mouthed and luckless roadie – as he attempts to juggle fatherhood, managing a young rapper’s career and the dawning realisation that he might not be quite as rock ‘n’ roll as he thinks. Read More

Chris Madden from www.castalavista.co.uk is here to tell us about Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs:

Now this is what I’m talking about! Let’s start on a high this time, Cloudy… is easily the best animated film I’ve seen this year. Saying that though, I haven’t seen Up yet… And the only other ones I’ve seen have been Ice Age (thoughts here) and Bolt, which I actually quite liked. So… er…yeah…

ANYWAY!  Read More

Disney Pixar’s latest offering ‘Up’ may be my favourite film of the year, quite a statement in a year with ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘Coraline’, and ‘District 9’. The film takes an old man, a young boy, a floating house, a talking dog and a colourful bird and throws them at the screen in one of the most fun, moving and uplifting films I have seen in a long time. Read More