Penrose Film Critiques

It is the year of 2020 and cinema is reaching its last breaths. The overlords of Disney have fled to streaming sites while huge franchises like James Bond and Marvel refuse to release globally until COVID 19 has been removed. It all seems hopeless for cinema fans (including myself) but there is one last hope, and his name, is Nolan. With his eleventh feature film after his dive into genre filmmaking with sci-fi epic Interstellar and war time thriller Dunkirk . Nolan once again returns to his roots with a new action packed spy enigma that plays with the concepts of time and narrative, Tenet . The title itself is a giveaway to the films main attraction as a palindrome, a sequence that reads the same backwards and forwards. This is explored by our protagonist played by John David Washington, a CIA operative thrown into a secret Cold War between the present and their future. The film unfolds more in the vein of a James Bond experience, darting from one expensive location to another, thwar

As someone who was born decades after the golden age of Hollywood, I doubt I can ever truly understand the impact that Alfred Hitchcock had on the world of film. He had his critics but the man presented a cinematic style and presentation that most film scholars would consider to be termed as "Perfect storytelling". Whether it's in the form of withholding information from the audience, breaking the levels of shock and awe from horror to beauty, or just having the foresight to balance all these elements of cinema flawlessly. Hitchcock's ability to hang the audience on every scene, with every bit of dialogue, with every moment of suspense, is something that has never truly been repeated. Until now. And after the end to a fairytale award season and a well deserved reputation as "The film that made history", here are my thoughts on Bong Joon-ho's Parasite. This is Korean director Bong's sixth feature film, after his early native speaking films Memories of

Continuing on from my awards for the alternate Oscar picks for films in 2019. A quick recap of the rules, you can only win a category if you aren't nominated for an Oscar in that same category. We've done the technical awards, now onto the acting and the big two, directing and best picture. Best Supporting Actor First up is our best supporting actor and with Mahershala Ali absent this year, its back to the academies favourites with Al Pacino and Joe Pesci both close to a win for The Irishman . However it looks like its finally time for Hollywood favourite Brad Pitt to receive his dues for his gruff machismo performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood . Yet my best supporting performance goes to an actor who has been passed along by the academy year after year, with 2019 giving by far his biggest challenge with Willem Dafoe in The Lighthouse . Both Dafoe and Pattinson gave a staggering performance as two Lighthouse keepers driven mad by isolation and misery, but it was Daf

With the awards nominations announced and the internet prepare to complain on the outcome, we must remind ourselves that there is more to the world of film than the old crusty academy says it is. So here in the UK, one of the most notable figures in film journalism, Mark Kermode, designed an award specifically to counter the Oscar system known as the Kermode Awards. Simply put there is only one rule, you cannot win in a category you are already nominated in for the Oscars, thats it. Since me and Marks opinions have differed in the past, I thought to make my own winners for films that deserved a chance in the spotlight. Now remember to think about this less as a top 10, and more of a compilation of recommendations for the best of cinema in 2019. So here are my picks for the Penrose "Kermode award" winners, with some added thoughts of the Oscar nominations too. Best Cinematography So firstly comes the cinematography award and this year we have nominations for academy favo