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BlogalongaStarWars: Episode 4: Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace

We reach the guaranteed nadir of BlogalongaStarWars with this upsetting exercise in fanboy childhood molestation: a film which, because I am a Star Wars fan and an idiot, I have seen maybe fifteen times now, and each viewing has been less enjoyable than the last. After watching it for this ill-judged exercise in blogwaffling, I promised myself this would be the final time. Life is too short to

Legend

It's worth bearing in mind, as you settle in to watch Brian Helgeland's take on the story of the Kray twins, that it's called Legend. It's also worth bearing in mind one of Google's convenient definitions of the word 'legend': "a traditional story sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated" Because a warts-and-all documentary about London's best-known villains this is not

Six films I'll be giving a shit about in

AAAAAAAAH! I'm hoping so hard that this is the first in a series of five films whose titles consist almost entirely of repeated vowels. (4th) ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL Looks lovely, like Boursin risotto. (4th) LEGEND So Tom Hardy reckons he's as good as BOTH Kemp brothers, does he? Well we'll see about that. (9th) EVEREST The story of how a group of brave men

BlogalongaStarWars: Episode 3: Star Wars: Episode VI: Return Of The Jedi

Phase One of the Star Wars Cinematic Universe comes to a close with Return Of The Jedi, a film which, by necessity, must be all payoff for the two-hour setup of The Empire Strikes Back. And pay off it does, in ruddy great space-spades: Jedi delivers on an increasingly huge scale, even as its supporting characters become increasingly smaller. twats The first point of order is obviously to

Advertorial: Selling my soul to Backyard Cinema for a burger and a beer

Londoners would be hard pressed to make it home from work this summer without inadvertently wandering into an open-air cinema screening, so prolific are they at this stage. They're happening literally everywhere: in fields, on rooftops, in markets, in ladies' changing rooms, underwater, in bowls of soup, in space and in the space between spaces. But only one of the brands currently peddling

BlogalongaStarWars: Episode 2: Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

The battle is over, but the Wars have just begun. As amazing, exciting and innovative as A New Hope was, it was an introduction, a mere prologue to the expansion of its own universe which is executed on such an epic scale in its sequel. This is the birth of the space opera; the moment where the fun kids' film matures, bringing all the agony and adventure of adolescence to the movies in wave