Review: Cowboys and Aliens

One of the summers many big, highly anticipated blockbusters looks into a question many of us have wondered about; mainly what would happen if cowboys took on aliens. This cross genre mash up set in 1870s Arizona sees mysterious outlaw, Jake (Daniel Craig) and town bigwig Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) battle an alien invasion to save the town and as is always the case the entire world. Daniel Craig pulls off his best Clint Eastwood impression, silent, rough around the edges, ‘don’t mess with me or I’ll mess with your face’ action star and he confidently leads the film although perhaps he’s more James Bond in a Stetson than Blondie. Still he is entertaining and offered some of the best bits in the film.

Review: Project Nim

Project Nim is the latest documentary offering from Oscar winning director, James “Man on a Wire” Marsh. Using archived footage and the occasional dramatic reconstruction, it follows the story of a chimp named Nim Chimpsky as he is taken from his mother by behavioural psychologist, Herbert Terrace, and placed with a quintessentially ‘hippy’ human foster family with hopes of teaching Nim American Sign Language (ASL) as a human child would acquire language, shedding light on the mysteries of language acquisition. The ironically named ‘Nim Chimpsky’ is a ‘punny’ reference to language theorist, Noam Chomsky, whose theories on language acquisition as exclusively the domain of and innate within, humans, Terrace and his team sought to challenge. In the proceeding years, Nim is moved from house to house, trainer to trainer, until after 5 years the experiment is called off and Nim returned to captivity. The experiment is preceded by ‘Project Washoe’ in which a chimp was raised in a human family, acquiring approximately 350 words of ASL, which Washoe was able to combine to form some sentences. For instance on seeing a swan for the first time, he signed ‘water bird’ showing some grasp of syntax. The Nim Chimpsky project ultimately failed in its attempt to replicate the results of Washoe. The failure is attributed to poor teaching, and to Nim being consistently isolated in a sterile laboratory environment, and often confined in cages, for his entire life. Nim did not receive the same level of nurturing, affection, and life experience as Washoe, and many have suggested that this impaired his cognitive development, as happens with human children subjected to such an environment. Herbert Terrace rejected the non-experimental approach of ‘Project Washoe’ and sought to gain more ‘scientific’ results. While Nim did learn 125 signs and learnt to use them in the appropriate context Terrace concluded it was nothing resembling human language and communication.

Review: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tales of espionage are all about knowing conversations in 
shadowy rooms, double agents and mundane tasks like reading government files becoming heart pounding risky situations with danger around every archive block. Tinker Tailor has all these things in full force but with added shadows, twice the knowing conversations and a risky archive scene that isn't ironically heart pounding, it's just stressful brilliance.


Mr. Smiley (Gary Oldman) is a MI6 agent forced into retirement which turns him into the perfect candidate for seeking out a double agent in his old offices, 'The Circus'. And from that point the film jumps around from place to place, time to time in an attempt to unravel the mystery.

Review: Kill List

   There are at least six promotional postcards for Kill List that can be found in the foyer of any good cinema showing Ben Wheatley’s visceral hitman thriller. On one side is the poster (a friggin’ ace poster. see above) and on the other side is a stark black and white image of something that plays an important part in the film; images range from a hammer to a noose to some malevolent woods. I have all six of these postcards on my wall, not only that but I have laid out twelve of them in a, if I do say so myself, aesthetically pleasing poster kind of format displaying the poster six times next to each of the aforementioned black and white images. That should give you some sense of my feeling towards this film. I absolutely, positively loved it. It is easily my favourite film of this year.

  So, this is a somewhat biased review. However I will do my darnedest to tell you why I love this film so much and not simply put “It’s excellent. Go and see it” over and over again.  

  Kill List tells the tale of two ex-soldier/hitmen who are carrying out their first job together in months. As the story unravels it becomes clear that their last job didn't exactly go according to plan and that Jay isn't the most calm and collected man you'll meet. After a tension filled dinner party and a quick chat in the basement Gal (Michael Smiley) persuades Jay (Neil Maskell) to “get back on the horse” and Jay firmly and aggressively gets back on that horse, and then proceeds to ride, flog and smash the crap out of said horse before using it to kill a guys face in… metaphorically of course.

Review: Troll Hunter

In the credits to this Norwegian Found-Footage-sort-of-spoof it says "No Trolls Were Harmed In The Making Of This Film" It also encourages you to come forward regarding any Troll related knowledge and uses the Forest Gump technique in an absolutely inspired way. If you go into Troll Hunter knowing that you are not about to see Cloverfield levels of disaster and turmoil, you will witness a cult classic in the making. It's more of a political message wrapped up in a homage to fear, fairytales and big ass trolls 


An admittedly slow and repetitive opening introduces three students investigating the poaching of bears in the area. A man driving a big truck is the suspect and they hope find him and grab a few choice words. After tracking him down to a caravan park and following him out into the woods they hear noises in the trees and then a figure comes running toward them shouting "Trrrolllll" Before long we are seeing massive beasts rivaling Lord of the Rings levels of CGI, and being thrown into the world of Norwegian Troll related bureaucratic cover-ups.