Netflix Recommendation Of The Week!

Sundays are made for chilling on the sofa with some chocolate in one hand, a cup of tea in the other whilst enjoying an incredibly lazy movie marathon. So it seemed only appropriate that my recommendation today had to be a perfect Sunday movie.

When Ned gets released from jail prematurely, after being caught attempting to sell marijuana to a police officer, he has no choice but to rely on his family to help him get back on his feet, after his girlfriend breaks up with him, kicks him out and worst of all keeps their joint dog, Willie Nelson. But his sister's aren't too pleased about having their bum of a brother barging in to their grown-up lives!

Oscars 2015 Winners - the short version

As the winners are crowned, All Things Screen offers up a no-fuss winners list...

Netflix Recommendation Of The Week!

Courtroom dramas have never been my thing. I've never watched an episode of Law & Order in my life and the genre doesn't usually appeal, so whenever I saw an article about how The Good Wife was one of the best television shows of the moment or no matter how many people recommended it over Twitter, I fervently ignored it.

If truth be told, unless I really like the sound of a new series' storyline, its the cast that draws me in. Seeing as I only really knew Christine Baranski from things such as Mamma Mia and The Grinch, I never liked Chris Noth in Sex & The City anyways and don't hate me, I always thought Julianna Marguiles always came across as a little stuck up. So quite frankly, I was put off. I now realise that impression was COMPLETELY unjustified.

New Year, New Awards!

Eddie Redmayne in The Theory Of Everything

There's a reason why I love the turn of the new year; the later months of 2014, mixed together with the first couple of 2015. Not just because Christmas has just been and we're still in that overly full, overly spoilt and over-joyed stupor. Nor is it because it's the start of a new chapter, thus presenting a fresh new start. No, it's because the movies that are released around that time are normally of high calibre, and that's because it's a time we movie-nerds like to call "award season". 

Everything we know about "Bond 24" so far...

Skyfall director Sam Mendes took to the stage at Pinewood Studios last week to release some long awaited news on the new movie via official live-stream announcement. Here's the breakdown of what we found out...

Fury review

The last time we saw Brad Pitt as a wartime hero, it was in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds as the brutal, caricatured, Lt. Aldo Raine, but now in Fury, Pitt leaves the comedy behind and gives a visceral, rugged and more importantly, realistic performance of a battle-wearied Sergeant hellbent on protecting what's left of his squad from the Nazis.

A Walk Among The Tombstones review

I don't really need much encouragement to see a Liam Neeson film. Okay, so his back-catalogue of movies has had a fair few misses as well as hits (I'm looking at you, Unknown and The Grey), but films I love him in such as Taken and Non-Stop are more than enough to convince me that this actor is actually a talent and despite being relatively typecast, does still make some good'uns.

Unfortunately for me, I think this blind admiration for Neeson may have shot me in the foot when it came to his latest drama. Despite many people telling me it looked a bit naff, I refused to listen and wandered into the cinema with a spring in my step to see A Walk Among The Tombstones.

Before I Go To Sleep review: A well-executed thriller... but not one you'll want to relive again and again

When a best-selling book gets turned into a movie adaptation, as it hits the big screen, viewers are usually split into two camps. Those who have read it and want to see a book they enjoyed created, within the medium of cinema, and those who haven't read it at all and are simply looking for a few hours of immersive entertainment of a film they like the look of. 

But as odd as it may sound, I fell into both categories when I went to see Before I Go To Sleep. You see, I was about half way through the book when I went, which put me in an unusual position of knowing some of the story but not all of it, and I am undoubtedly glad of that fact having now seen the film.

Guardians of the Galaxy review: I-I-I-I-I'm hooked on a franchise!

The unusual suspects 

The master moviemakers at Marvel must have been so determined not to let DC show them up with their upcoming Batman V Superman, that before the rival production company even had a chance to release their first superhero ensemble movie, Marvel released it's second. And what a corker of a second it is! 

Having been randomly abducted by galactic thieves and outlaws when he was just a boy, and forced to live a new life in space, now grown-man Peter Quill spends his days stealing and doing odd-jobs for people who want stuff done that isn't quite, let's say, legal within the galaxy.

After taking a job for a niche collector, Quill goes after an orb he knows absolutely nothing about, when he unwittingly runs into a few others who are also desperate to claim the object themselves. He soon realises he'll have to shrug off his lone wolf demeanour and work with his rival criminals in order to save the power of the orb from falling into the (even more wrong than his) hands.

The Nut Job review

First question: hasn't this movie been done before?! Whilst watching the 3D animation by Canadian director Peter Leponitis, I couldn't shake the fact that The Nut Job bares an uncanny resemblance in storyline to 2006's Over The Hedge.

Cute little animals with huge cartoon eyes and even bigger teeth on a seemingly impossible mission to get food for the winter? The leader of the gang of woodland creatures is trying to redeem himself to the rest of the group? Oh, it's about a racoon, a squirrel, a dog and some other not-so-important animals? And they're all voiced by actors who really shouldn't be associating themselves with such twaddle? Yeah, they're definitely the same movie.

Judged: Emmy Nominations 2014

This may not come as a shock after seeing the content of my blog, but I am a massive award show buff and try to watch every single ceremony related to such subjects or at least try and know everything about them if I can't in fact, watch them. After all, I am the girl that pleaded with her Mum to ring up Sky and request they give us the movie channels for a night just so I could watch the Oscars. (It worked though, don't judge).

And because I watch a crazy amount of television shows, I always feel a little more involved with the ones that focus on that category, like the Emmy's for example. I feel like because I've actually watched 99% of the shows that are in the running for awards, I feel like I can judge it a little more than film awards. 

So when they announced all of the nominees for the 2014 Emmy Awards, I couldn't help but pick holes in the nominations I really didn't agree with. I always come to the conclusion that the Emmy's just can't let go of some shows that they clearly think are still good but most viewers have switched off and gotten bored. Biased about their noms much? In this years case, I sadly think so. So here's the lowdown of the things I think are totally wrong (and right) about this year's nominations...

What I'm Watching This Month...

If truth be told, there was one reason I bought the first season box set of a show I'd never even watched before and that was Laura Prepon. Orange Is The New Black had left a massive Alex Vause shaped hole in my heart, and after re-watching both the first and second season and having already watched the entirety of Are You There, Chelsea? twice, I wasn't sure what else would successfully fill the void. 

How To Train Your Dragon 2 review

[*Warning* Watching this film may cause obsession with all things dragon and result in crippling disappointment that there is a) no such existing thing and b) you do not, and cannot, in fact, ever ride one.]

When How To Train Your Dragon came out in 2010, no-one would have expected that it would become one of the most well-loved animations of the last decade, but it almost instantaneously became a fan favourite after children (and adults) everywhere fell in love with the movie's heart-felt charm and witty wonder.

Netflix Recommendation Of The Week!

I usually recommend a film or a fictional television series when it comes to Netflix but documentaries have had my attention this past week and I've thoroughly enjoyed learning as I've watched them. Makes a change from the usual comedy that I normally just put on in the background when I'm busy doing something else.

Along with a few others, one that I found very interesting was Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine. Made in 2002, the feature focuses on gun crime and violence in the US, whilst exploring the reasons behind the 1999 Columbine High School massacre which killed 15 people.

Netflix Recommendation Of The Week!

After binge watching all of Friday-released season two within a day, I couldn't recommend all of you with a little more self-control than myself, anything other than Netflix original show Orange Is The New Black.

If you've watched the first season already, and for some unbeknownst reason to me, haven't started the second yet, then I wholeheartedly give you permission to start on the new series immediately. You can thank me later! If you haven't however, you're gonna need a little encouragement. I guarantee you though, once you're a few episodes in, you'll wonder why it took you so long to check it out. 

X-Men: Days of Future Past review - Franchise gets revamped under Singer's reign once more

In the last few years, Bryan Singer has made it quite obvious that he is not a fan of Brett Ratner's edition to the X-Men franchise, The Last Stand. So it comes as no surprise that the film that brought him back to the mutants is one that completely goes against any plot that X-Men 3 put into place and sees him literally rewriting the story that had unfolded in the third instalment.

Ratner's The Last Stand was dark, (really dark in terms of Marvel), and Singer has voiced frequently that not only would he have 'done things a little differently' but he certainly wouldn't have had so many characters written off.

Now, fans would have been pretty outraged if he just did a remake of X3 with a completely different plot (even though they weren't too pleased with it to begin with) but Singer saw a way around this obstacle. Using the comic 'Days Of Future Past' as a basis for his script, he had the characters themselves do his dirty work, and had them go back in time to change their future, technically rendering The Last Stand as, well, non-existent in the X-Men universe. Well played, Singer, well played.

Edge Of Tomorrow review

You've seen Tom Cruise in a lot of action movies. We've certainly seen him wielding a gun in more films than not and we're well used to him being the hero sporting the gleaming Hollywood smile in nearly all of his pictures. But what we definitely haven't seen him play is the coward, let alone the coward that is upstaged in the tough stakes by a woman. And that's pretty much the entire premise of Edge Of Tomorrow in a nutshell.

Based upon the Japanese manga novel, All You Need Is Kill, but with a few details changed of course, the film almost plays out in a game-like way with action sequences so involving, you feel exhausted just watching them!

Maleficent review: Hell hath no fury like a woman horned

I first heard rumours that Angelina Jolie was going to play Maleficent in a film by the same name a few years ago now and the long wait was agonising, being such a big fan of both hers and Disney alike. As roles started to be confirmed and images and shots started to surface, I was almost beside myself with excitement that one of the best Disney villains was going to be played by what seemed like the perfect person to play her.

With a similar idea to the "the villain's not really that bad" premise of Broadway musical, Wicked, Maleficent unveils the previously untold story of the dark fairy who seemingly put a curse on an innocent baby for no reason. Making you realise that her actions, despite coming from an evil place can be understood. And that, someone hurt her so deeply that she actually became this way rather than was born with such a wicked heart.

Netflix Recommendation Of The Week!

Robot & Frank

If you seen and enjoyed films such as Garden State, Up In The Air and The Way Way Back, then I encourage you to watch endearing indie-drama Robot & Frank.

The plot is relatively simple as it touchingly relays the life of Frank, an ex-jewel thief who is bought an advanced robot by his son to look after him and keep him company in the hopes that it will bring him out of his shell and back into the real world again. Proud at first, Frank reluctantly gives in to the idea of having an animatronic friend and soon realises he can be more of a help than he first thought, as the pair embark on an ambitious jewellery theft. 

Stretching across a number of genres, this drama/comedy/sci-fi/heist movie is truly heart-warming and brilliantly executed, whilst also featuring some great performances so check it out! 

Bad Neighbours review

Being that the two of the leads found fame in some of my favourite comedy films of all time, I was instantly eager to watch Bad Neighbours. Whilst Seth Rogen is known to be a funny film favourite with a back catalogue that includes Knocked Up, Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Pineapple Express, Rose Byrne only really came on to the scene when she cracked us up as uppity Maid Of Honour, Helen in Bridesmaids.

Whilst it was obvious the two would fare well in yet another slapstick comedy, Zac Efron came across as somewhat of a curveball in the casting, yet the High School Musical alumni holds more than his own as chiseled douchebag student, Teddy and warrants a lot of the film's laughs. (Not to mention, the boy is absolutely beautiful and nobody is going to complain about watching him cockily flex his muscles for an hour and a half!)