Category Archives: Film

The Substance. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Edward Hamilton-Clark, Gore Abrams, Oscar Lesage, Christian Erikson, Robin Greer, Tom Morton, Hugo Diego Garcia, Yann Bean, Daniel Knight, Jonathan Carley, Akil Wingate.

Satire does not have to leave the audience with laughter echoing around them, thighs slapped raw, grins as wide as they are knowingly wise, sometimes it comes with the firm slap of recognition, it comes with anger attached, it displays unknown emotions to the very fore and each time the effect of mockery hits home so hard, with venom, that we are allowing others to live in a world filled with delusion, with image that is unsubstantial, and the guilt of it all is reflected in the awful truth, we believe that we are too old, and too ugly, to be of any use to the world.

The Substance. Film Review. full post

(598 words, estimated 2:24 mins reading time)

Books Of Blood. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Britt Robertson, Anna Friel, Rafi Gavron, Yul Vazquez, Freda Foh Shen, Nicholas Campbell, Andy McQueen, Kenji Fitzgerald, Paige Turco, Saad Siddiqui, Glenn Lefchak, Brett Rickaby, Matt Bois, Etienne Kellici, Cory Lee.

Clive Barker is one of those rare horror writers to whom any adaption of his work seems to transfer to the medium of cinema with consummate ease, unlike many of his peers and associated writers, he has found the transfer one of unregulated temptation, of knowing that the thrill is in the blood and one that the readers of his books take with them to their heart when they immerse themselves in the big screen view.

Books Of Blood. Film Review. full post

(452 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Salem’s Lot (2024). Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

Cast: Lewis Pullman, Mackenzie Leigh, Jordan Preston Carter, Alfre Woodard, Bill Camp, John Benjamin Hickey, Nicholas Crovetti, Spencer Treat Clark, Pilou Asbæk, Alexander Ward, Danielle Perry, Debra Christofferson, William Sadler, Timothy John Smith, Mike Kaz, Cade Woodward, Joseph Marrella, Declan Lemerande, Oliver Dauberman, Rebecca Gibel, James Milord, Fedna Jacquet, Marilyn Busch, Michelle Steven Costello, Avery Bederman, Derek Mears, Jim Patton, Kellan Rhude, Sage Rudnick, Anna Rizzo, Celeste Oliva, Fred Robbins.

Salem’s Lot (2024). Film Review. full post

(515 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Predator: Killer Of Killers. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Lindsay LaVanchy, Louis Ozawa, Rick Gonzalez, Michael Biehn, Doug Cockle, Damien Haas, Lauren Holt, Jeff Leach, Piotr Michael, Andrew Morgado, Felix Solis, Britton Watkins.

Mean, full of rippling muscle, a film that reignites the fear that first came way of the cinema goer almost 40 years ago, Predator: Killer of Killers is a surprise inclusion to the long running franchise, but one like the previous feature of Prey, holds the ethos of the monster up on a pedestal and with the highest of respect.

Predator: Killer Of Killers. Film Review. full post

(415 words, estimated 1:40 mins reading time)

Venom: The Last Dance. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 5/10

Cast: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Clark Backo, Alanna Ubach, Cristo Fernández, Jared Abrahamson, Hala Finley, Dash McCloud, Andy Serkis, Reid Scott.

Like many Sony attempts to fulfil the needs of the Marvel fans’ expectations of how the surrounding Spider-Man players would fare in their own film, the downgrading of Venom over time has seriously demolished what was perhaps the finest character outside of the MCU, and whilst the initial story of the alien symbiote who melded with Eddie Brock was startlingly good fun, offering Tom Hardy the chance to play a part for fun, in its third outing, Venom: The Last Dance, the enjoyment has become at best a middling affair, given a small dosage of high craft in its appearance, but very little else to give the creature, or Tom Hardy, the gravitates they both deserve.

Venom: The Last Dance. Film Review. full post

(506 words, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, Henry Czerny, Holt McCallany, Janet McTeer, Nock Offerman, Hannah Waddingham, Tramell Tillman, Angela Bassett, Shea Whigham, Greg Tarzan Davis, Charles Parnell, Mark Gatiss, Rolf Saxon, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Cary Elwes, Katy O’Brian, Stephen Oyoung, Tomás Paredes.

The mission, it seems, is never over, and if a franchise still appeals to the vast majority of cinema goers, then who can truly say when the curtain should be drawn and the opera singer given the instruction to sing the closing title.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning. Film Review. full post

(542 words, estimated 2:10 mins reading time)

The Phoenician Scheme. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Alex Jennings, Jason Watkins, Benedict Cumberbatch, Scarlett Johanson, Jeffrey Wright, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Richard Ayoade, Riz Ahmed, Willem Defoe, F. Murray Abraham, Bill Murray, Donald Sumpter, Rupert Friend, Mathieu Amalric.

What it is to live in the mind of Wes Anderson, what it would be as a writer to sample the sense of creativity of the absurdly connective narrative and see it as a critique of the overblown dramas that use verbal interchange as a mission to dull the intellect of the masses as they substitute shock value for false cool; for only in the way that Mr. Anderson portrays the ordinary and adds beautifully entrancing possibility of language does truth show its true colours in the characters and logic of the piece.

The Phoenician Scheme. Film Review. full post

(388 words, estimated 1:33 mins reading time)

Thunderbolts*. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Lewis Pullman, David Harbour, Geraldine Viswanathan, Olga Kurylenko, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce, Hannah John-Kamen, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gabreille Byndloss, Violet McGraw, Stefano Carannante, Alexa Swinton.

Where Captain America: Brave New World felt for large parts of the audience was by introducing characters to the screen too quickly, forcing a team dynamic where there had not been one in place for the audience to become accustomed to, to have a vested interested within.

Thunderbolts*. Film Review. full post

(487 words, estimated 1:57 mins reading time)

Final Destination: Bloodlines. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Kaitlyn Santa Juana, Tony Todd, Teo Briones, Rya Kihlstedt, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Anna Lore, Alex Zahara, April Telek, Tinpo Lee, Brec Bassinger, Gabrielle Rose, Max Lloyd-Jones, Brenna Llewellyn, Natasha Burnett, Jayden Oniah, Mark Brandon, Yvette Ferguson, Garfield Wilson, Justin Stone, Noah Bromley.

To present horror on screen those behind the scenes must do so with an element of dark humour attached to the project. It is all well and good having the ability to scare people, but with the sense of uncomfortable must come the notion that you want the viewer to laugh without realising, to find themselves regretting the slip in emotions as they witness in the revulsion at first hand.

Final Destination: Bloodlines. Film Review. full post

(441 words, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

Smile 2. Film Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Lukas Gage, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson, Dylan Gelula, Raúl Castillo, Kyle Gallner, Drew Barrymore, Trevor Newlin, Zebedee Row, Robert Jekabsons, Sean Stolzen, Jon Rua, Vladimir Duthiers, Kristine Johnson, Margot Weintraub, Christopher Bailey.

To undergo the transformation from being considered a family friendly actor to being someone who can hold their own in the melee of a decently told horror stories to which cinema has constantly probed takes an aptitude of unrelenting talent to which the actor is unafraid of exploring.

Smile 2. Film Review. full post

(337 words, estimated 1:21 mins reading time)