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Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) is Colorado Springs first black cop and just the catalyst to herald a daring new mission for the sleepy precinct. Infiltrating the KkK. After Ron strikes up telephone contact through a, ‘Do you believe in White supremacy’ newspaper ad, he enlists Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver) as his white avatar to meet with the Coloradan chapter. The film begins with an Americana style infomercial video, black and white aesthetic, White over Black meaning. Alec Baldwin channels his SNL take on Trump - the first but by no means the last skewering of the caustic man-child - as he offers ultra-right-wing Conservative rhetoric as The Birth of a Nation (DW Griffith’s landmark 1915 film that didn’t just advocate white supremacy but perpetuated it) is projected behind him, on him, through him. This scene sets the tone for Blackkklansman. Funny, frightening and fierce. Ron’s idealism and integrity are alluded to within his initially perfunct roles as a Police Officer filing reports and doling out profiles to his racist counterparts. He insists on black suspects being called ‘human beings’ and refuses to agreeably objectify an actress that his colleague is pining over in a magazine. Then comes the self-realisation of his character when, undercover in an excited crowd to gain intel on Corey Hawkins’ charismatic turn as Black Rights activist Kwame Ture, Ron finds agreeance with the man although his duty may deny him holding those views. This being a Spike Lee joint, it is rife with social commentary, polemic politics and scathing satire. He explores much in the two-hour run time, but a central question is, What would you do when faced with this systematic subjugation? Black people must always - lest they be labelled animalistic, sub-human, inferior - exude composure in the face of animalistic, sub-human, inferior behaviour. Even when that comes from cops. And yet, they still aren't allowed to meet the white yard stick they’re always measured against. Lee understands the hypocrisy of citizenry and the expectations toward black people, of course he does – check his filmography- but here he isn’t as much holding a portrait of racism as he is a glistening mirror. One with more stinging truisms than the that which is asked, Who is the fairest of them all? The answer is screamed throughout the film by slack-jawed, blindly ignorant supremacists. Amidst scenes of police brutality, cross-burnings and many a moronic meeting, rhetoric is shown as the villain. Words don’t have to be true to brutalise. It isn’t just racism against the African American peopple on show here, as is usually synonymous with portrayals of the KkK. Anti-Semitism is rife within the drooling rhetoric and is as timely a takedown as white supremacy. The tension of the film can often be found in the infiltration scenes of the Klan meetings. Driver’s Zimmerman is a secretive, apathetic Jew and only in having to fervently deny his heritage does he realise that he shouldn’t have to. As ever, it’s a pleasure to watch Driver. Zimmerman’s arc is as moving and empowering as Ron’s and the actor’s chemistry is charged with a quiet camaraderie and respect. Blackkklansman as a whole is a little imbalanced, in pacing and humour. Whereas some of the tension during the infiltration scenes is deftly managed, some feels too forced, tries too hard to make the audience gasp. There is plenty on show to do that and those scenes showcase weaker dialogue and erratic cuts attempting to juggle the shifting tones. This is a shame as Blackkklansman has the potential to be a masterpiece, but its second act is too rickety. It’s a good film but a great movie. There are shots that miss the mark and take you out of the story, and small conceits that delve into Sit-Com which this definitely is not. But there are three great scenes for every one that doesn’t quite hit the mark. Monologues and speeches from varied Black cast - verbal gems often pouring from Laura Harrier’s Patrice) contrast those of the bigoted Whites. Empowering where the Klan’s are defamatory. Unity over division. Beauty over ugliness. Equality not supremacy. The third act is titanic. Lee and Co. showcasing the other times times lacking balance and dexterity. The power of a movie is exposed in the Third. Not only within the movie itself but about the aforementioned The Birth of a Nation. Ron/Zimmerman’s initiation ceremony is intercut with a soft yet rousing speech from Harry Belafonte’s Jerome Turner, speaking on a lynching of a disabled friend as a child. This sequence is perfectly drawn out, taking its time with the hard-hitting beats and wringing them for emotional gravity. Whilst the Klansmen whoop and holler at the ritualistic screening of The Birth of a Nation - reminiscent of Jarhead’s soldiers getting riled up from Apocalypse Now but more sinister - Patrice and her fellow activists and Panthers listen to Turner contextualise the film, revealing its tragic impact on America, then and now. The influence of Film, how it can incite and empower, coax and deny, enrich and destroy, is showcased wonderfully in metaphor and, prodigiously in the form. Whilst Blackkklansman isn’t a masterclass in filmmaking, it is a masterful insight into a social history damned to repeat itself. From the same team as Get Out, the material mines a similar vein of bigotry, social hierarchy and racial prejudices. Whilst not as thrilling as its counterpart, Blackkklansman may stand to have a greater legacy. And if ever a film should be shown at the Whitehouse to exemplify a social climate for having its finger on the pulse, its this. Though this true story happened in the 1970’s, Spike Lee has stitched it into our conflicted times with many nods to Trumpian populist rhetoric but also a sobering ending, showcasing our real world. Flip the flag and raise your fist, its time to fight the power.

After more than 30 years as one of the Navy's top aviators, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell is where he belongs, pushing the envelope as a courageous test pilot and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him. Training a detachment of graduates for a special assignment, Maverick must confront the ghosts of his past and his deepest fears, culminating in a mission that demands the ultimate sacrifice from those who choose to fly it. ★★★★ Directed by: #JosephKosinski Starring: #TomCruise #MilesTeller #JenniferConnelly #JonHamm #GlenPowell #LewisPullman #EdHarris #ValKilmer Released: 27th May 2022 Film review by: Ahmed Abbas | Published: 25th May 2022 It was only two months ago when a friend of mine approached me, raving about the new Top Gun movie finally releasing in May. At this point, I had not seen the original film, but was familiar with it, having noted references to it time and time again in popular culture. With its cult classic reputation and the sequel imminent, I decided it was finally time to set foot in the Top Gun franchise. With the rising trend of sequels being made to decades-old releases, there is a common trap of said sequel behaving less like a follow-up and more like a remake, repeating the story and shifting the original lead character in the mentor role. Plenty of recent sequels are guilty of succumbing to this oversight. Despite its plenty of call-backs to the original 1986 film, Top Gun: Maverick is not one of them. The film makes standout use of characters from the original. For example, Maverick (Tom Cruise), the title character from the first, is not reduced to a mentor role that watches from the side-lines as the new characters fill his role, he remains the lead in the sequel, while new characters are still introduced and given plenty to do. Nearly four decades later, none of the characters are left the same. Time has passed and everyone’s lives have moved on – the film remembers this and uses it to its advantage, evolving relationships between characters, such as that of Maverick and Rooster (Miles Teller). This is a bond that takes centre stage and is a phenomenal, tear-jerking journey throughout – forget fighter jets, this reunion of the pair is the movie’s core story. Miles Teller reminds the world why he is one of Hollywood’s most sought-after actors One of the newly introduced characters is Penny (Jennifer Connelly), Maverick’s love interest. Penny replaces Charlotte, the romantic interest from the 1986 original, and does so without explanation. While their relationship has touching moments, I did find the chemistry in the first film to be noticeably stronger and felt their relationship could have been tied to the main story in a more meaningful way. Having later learned that a relationship with Penny was mentioned in a line from the original, it may have worked in the film’s favour to refer to this romance in a flashback, making their reunion all the more momentous. The film takes great advantage of its newly developed miniature IMAX cameras, filming inside the jets in order for the viewers to genuinely feel trapped inside the claustrophobic cockpit moving at Mach 10 – this makes it a must for IMAX viewing. At no point in the movie did I question whether anything was computer-generated or green-screened, which is rare of an action feature of this calibre. Having later read that Tom Cruise (who also served as a producer) fought for there to be no green screen in the sequel is no surprise, with various behind-the-scenes clips displaying how much was shot practically. The labour applied to Top Gun: Maverick is to be respected, as most blockbusters would opt to recreate these scenes digitally. Researching all of this only highlights the care put into the movie, and the filmmakers’ efforts are certainly reflected on screen. This allows for action scenes better choreographed and easier to follow than the first, with the authentically filmed cockpit scenes accentuating actor emotion, raising the tension of the scenes. Despite the iconography of its predecessor, Top Gun: Maverick is one of the few sequels to improve on the original in almost every respect and is a feature worth the wait. The film understands what the fans want – a continuation of Maverick’s story, with him still as the focus, while showing how his relationships have evolved 36 years later. Mark my words: Top Gun: Maverick will become the template that sequels follow in the future. This wasn’t a film I would have taken an interest in beforehand but is an unexpected delight that will surely earn it status as one of the cinematic highlights of 2022. I had avoided reading the duration of the film prior to seeing it and was very surprised to find out the runtime was 137 minutes. The film breezed right past; it felt like a breath of fresh air in movie form. With a high number of media screenings and an embargo lifting weeks before release (a rare feat), Paramount show their hand, revealing their utmost confidence in the film’s quality; I can safely say their boldness is not misplaced. Kosinski and co make a statement, demonstrating to filmmakers around the world how a decades-later sequel should be made, delivering a slick, emotional, action-filled romantic family drama that takes your breath away. Top Gun: Maverick is now available, exclusively in cinemas.

(Bertha DocHouse, Curzon Bloomsbury The Brunswick Centre, London WC1N 1AW, United Kingdom, Showing from Fri 10 Sep, 20:30) https://dochouse.org/cinema/screenings/lost-leonardo-0 "The Lost Leonardo" "The Lost Leonardo" is the inside story behind 'The Salvator Mundi', the most expensive painting ever sold at $450 million. From the moment the painting is bought for $1175 at a shady 'New Orleans' auction house, and the restorer discovers masterful 'Renaissance' brushstrokes under the heavy varnish of it's cheap restoration, 'The Salvator Mundi’s' fate is determined by an insatiable quest for fame, money and power. As it's price soars, so do questions about it's authenticity; is this painting really by 'Leonardo da Vinci'? Unravelling the hidden agendas of the richest men and most powerful art institutions in the world, "The Lost Leonardo" reveals how vested interests in 'The Salvator Mundi' are of such tremendous power that truth becomes secondary. The whole story of the most talked about painting of the century. The main character is the painting. Brooding over it's restorer, Dianne Modestini, who began working on it just after losing her husband, Mario, a world-famous restorer himself. The restoration becomes a symbiotic process of mourning in which the painting and Mario at times become one. After she lets go of the painting, it's locked away in a freeport somewhere, leaving Dianne feeling alone, and criticized for her work. Did her restoration go as far as to transform a damaged painting into a Leonardo? She's forced to defend herself and her integrity, and seek closure on the painting and her grief. She's of the top art conservation professionals in the world, Modestini restored 'The Salvator Mundi' over several years in the period between 2005 and 2017 and became convinced the work was from the hand of 'Leonardo da Vinci'. Dianne Modestini comes under intense scrutiny but continues to fight for the attribution. In 2008, the world’s most distinguished 'Leonardo Da Vinci' experts gathered around an easel at 'The National Gallery' in London to examine a mysterious painting?, an unassuming 'Salvator Mundi'. Despite not seeking expert's formal opinions, 'The National Gallery' presents 'The Salvator Mundi' as an autograph 'Leonardo da Vinci' painting in their 2011 blockbuster exhibition, setting in motion one of the most beguiling and perplexing art stories of our time. Filmed over a three-year period, "The Lost Leonardo" meticulously unveils the whole story behind 'The Salvator Mundi' and unfolds as a real-life thriller featuring major characters from the world of art, finance, and politics including the restorer Dianne Modestini; who speaks in the film about her role in the evolution of the painting for the first time. 1500 A.D. 'Salvator Mundi' is commissioned, possibly for 'Louis XII Of France' after his conquests of 'Genoa' and 'Milan'. There's no evidence from 'Leonardo da Vinci’s' lifetime that he painted it himself. The first certain sighting of 'The Salvator Mundi', when it's purchased by a wealthy textile manufacturer, 'Sir Francis Cook'. Cook bought the painting, as a work by 'Leonardo’s' follower 'Bernardino Luini' for £120 in 1900 from 'Sir Charles Robinson', who was the 'Surveyor' of 'Queen Victoria’s Pictures'. Art historians are still not sure of 'The Salvator Mundi’s' whereabouts between c. 1500 and 1900. There's a photo of the painting from 1911 with an old and amateurish restoration which makes it difficult to recognize it as the same painting. After having hung in 'The Cook' family house, 'The Doughty House' in 'Richmond', until 1958, the painting is sold at 'Sotheby’s' in London to an 'American' businessman, 'Warren Kuntz', for £45. 'Warren Kuntz' and his wife 'Minnie' lived in 'New Orleans'. After their deaths the painting was inherited by their nephew 'Basil Clovis Hendry Sr.' and he kept it in his house in 'Baton Rouge' until his death in 2005. It was then put for sale at 'New Orleans Auction' where it's discovered by the sharp and speculative eye of 'Alex Parish', a 'New York' art historian and dealer. Parish partners with 'Robert B. Simon' to buy 'The Salvator Mundi' for just $1175. 'The National Gallery' in 'London' asks five 'Leonardo' experts to look at 'The Salvator Mundi' over an afternoon. During the informal conversation, the scholars are open to the painting being by 'Leonardo', but they're not asked to examine the painting thoroughly or express formal opinions. 'The National Gallery' in London presents 'The Salvator Mundi' as an autograph 'Leonardo' in their blockbuster exhibition 'Leonardo da Vinci: Painter At The Court Of Milan'. 'Russian' oligarch 'Dmitry Rybolovlev' buys 'The Salvator Mundi' on May 3rd, 2013 for $127.5 million. 'Rybolovlev' later learns that his art adviser 'Yves Bouvier' had acquired the painting the day before from a consortium led by 'Robert Simon' in a private sale brokered by 'Sotheby’s'. 'Bouvier' paid the consortium $83 million before flipping the painting to 'Rybolovlev' at a markup of $44.5 million. On February 25th, 2015, 'Bouvier' is indicted in 'Monaco' on charges of fraud and complicity in money laundering. According to 'Rybolovlev', Bouvier had defrauded him of more than $1 billion, often reselling paintings to him in a matter of days at markups as high as 70%. The dispute over 'Rybolovlev’s' collection of 38 paintings spawned civil and criminal litigation in at least five jurisdictions around the world. The legal battle is still going on today. Ahead of it's auction, 'Christie’s' create an extensive marketing campaign for 'The Salvator Mundi', sending the painting New York, where it sells on November 15th, 2017 for a world record auction price of $450,300,000. 'The Salvator Mundi’s' buyer was the crown prince of 'Saudi Arabia', 'Mohammad bin Salman'. The painting’s first public appearance is scheduled at 'The Louvre Abu Dhabi' in September 2018 but the show is cancelled at the last minute. The unveiling is postponed indefinitely with no explanation given. The painting is sent instead to the 'Centre For Research And Restoration Of The Museums Of France (C2RMF) for a scientific examination..In October, 2019, 'The Louvre' in Paris opens their blockbuster 'Leonardo da Vinci' exhibition to mark the 500th anniversary of 'The Renaissance' master’s death. 'The Salvator Mundi' fails to show up despite 'The Louvre' requesting a loan. 'The Art Newspaper' reports on a secret 46-page booklet, 'Léonard de Vinci: Le Salvator Mundi', prepared by 'The Louvre' and printed in December 2019. The publication of the book was cancelled when 'The Salvator Mundi' loan was refused but some copies of the book were purchased at 'The Louvre' bookshop. The booklet provides detailed conclusions of 'The Louvre’s' scientific examinations. The results of the secret book is published by 'The French Art Newspaper', 'La Tribune De L'art', in April 2021. This is a film about the incredible journey of a painting, 'The Salvator Mundi', 'The Saviour Of The World', possibly by 'Leonardo da Vinci'. It's a true story, yet a fairytale worthy of 'H.C. Andersen'. A damaged painting, neglected for centuries, is fortuitously rediscovered and soon after praised as a long-lost masterpiece of divine beauty. At it's peak in the spotlight, it's decried as a fake, but what's revealed most of all is that the world around it's fake, driven by cynical powers and money. The story lays bare the mechanisms of the human psyche, our longing for the divine, and our post-factual capitalist societies in which money and power override the truth. The painting becomes a prism through which we can understand ourselves and the world we live in. To this day there's no conclusive proof that the painting is, or is not, a 'da Vinci' and as long as there's a doubt, people, institutions, and states can use it for the purpose that serves them the most. It's a fantastic voyage into secret worlds that are otherwise entirely inaccessible. Worlds in which anything can be bought and sold, where prestige, power, and money play out beneath the beautiful surface of the art world. What fascinates and disillusions is that art is being used for economic speculation and as a token in political games. Art is a beautiful manifestation of human feelings and expressions throughout history. Art belongs to humanity. Instead of being publicly accessible, it's hidden away in freeports and used for cynical and speculative purposes. The supposedly independent scientific and scholarly approach to the painting is under enormous political pressure. In the end, not only the painting is lost, but also the truth itself. The painting, a product of the very 'Renaissance' that valued freedom of science and art, ultimately becomes a victim of vested interests and power games. The story is a telling fable of our time. The film engages surprises and intrigues the viewers who themselves become detectives in the story, leaving them with a question: What do I believe to be the truth'? The documentary positions this stranger-than-fiction story squarely at the intersection of capitalism and myth-making, posing the question; is this multi-million dollar painting actually by 'Leonardo', or do certain powerful players simply want it to be?

Have you ever watched a film and constantly questioned every single thing that you are watching? Have you ever watched a film and afterwards thought to yourself ‘did that really happen?’? If not, then please watch Venom so you know what I am talking about. Right about now you’re probably reading a lot of different things about Venom. The critics have absolutely slammed it. Some have gone as far as calling it Catwoman bad. Fans, on the other hand like it. So what is it? Well, it’s not Catwoman bad, but it is pretty awful. You know things are bad when everyone associated with the film tries to not be. Whether that be through a review embargo, Tom Hardy saying the best bits were cut, Riz Ahmed just calling it fun, or the Marvel logo not being hugely present at the start of the movie. 📷Originally posted by queeniecatart As films go, Venom is very bizarre and I don’t really know how to start this or structure it. I think that’s a similar problem the film faced. OK we’ll start with the casting. Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock was a huge mistake for me. Superhero films, through all their faults that I find with them normally cast brilliantly. Robert Downey Jr is Iron Man. Chris Evans is Captain America. Chris Pratt is Star-Lord. What I mean is that the actor is that character. RDJ is cocky and knows it. Evans is the responsible, social justice hero. Pratt is a prat. But Tom Hardy playing an awkward, emasculated, week male is not Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy is buff. Tom Hardy is macho. He wasn’t convincing playing the role of Eddie Brock because he is not that character. So that change to Venom was unimpressive. Now, Topher Grace, who played Venom in Spiderman 3, an under-appreciated and actually good film, would have been a much better choice in this role. He is all the characteristics for the Eddie Brock/Venom role that an actor like Tom Hardy isn’t. Also, his voice was annoying and was bugging me after 10 minutes. Michelle Williams, poor Michelle Williams. What an actress. She is incredible. But my god did this film not do her any justice. Poorly underused. A positive though was the villain. Riz Ahmed did have enough screen time and he was a slight anti-hero. He wanted to save the world but at any cost.  📷Originally posted by bustedphotographer Has anyone seen Big Mouth? If you haven’t, watch it! If you have, you will know that Venom sounds exactly like the hormone monster. Am I right? The symbiote attaches itself to Tom Hardy and starts to talk to him. But it’s very odd. Venom will say one word to say what he wants ‘food’ ‘hungry’ and it was really out of the blue and in the same voice as the hormone monster. It was so bizarre! Also, at the start of the film Venom wants to destroy the earth. But after meeting Michelle Williams it changes its mind and wants to save the Earth from Riot (the other symbiote that escaped). My guess is that it saw how desirable Michelle Williams was and thought ‘wow, Eddie gets to have sex with THAT, we want some of the action’ so decides to stick around. As a plot twist, that’s pretty mental. It’s also bizarre how when Eddie turns into Venom he becomes huge and muscular. When Riz Ahmed (who is a very skinny actor) turns into riot, he becomes huge and muscular. However when Michelle Williams turns into Venom it becomes this sleek, stealthy, highly sexualised alien creature. Erm, hello toxic masculinity?! What’s that all about? Why can’t female Venom be buff, why is she sexualised so much. Is it to please the male gaze. I know there are right freaks out there who think that Venom is sexy, but I do think that. Again, another odd moment.  📷Originally posted by baelzemon Sexism and joking aside, Venom doesn’t do its 15 rated film any justice. Deadpool is a 15 and he is swearing all over the shop. I was expecting a really dark and violent film that pushed the boundaries of Marvel film-making. But it didn’t. There was no gore or bodies being ripped apart, to be honest there wasn’t really much action at all. The end fight scene was shockingly short, luckily there wasn’t much of a build up to it wasn’t that disappointing but still, it would’ve been cool to see a big boss battle. I found it quite disappointing and this was after seeing the trailer and my expectations being massively lowered.  1/5 Unfortunately Venom for me massively flopped. I’d still urge you to go see it because you’ll either won’t care from a fan side and will enjoy it. Or you’ll find it so bad (like I did) from a critic side that you’ll enjoy watching a load of rubbish. Hey, I’ve just realised. This is the superhero version of The Room!

(Release Info London schedule; January 15th, 2020, Curzon Home Cinema) https://www.curzonhomecinema.com/film/watch-mlk-fbi-film-online "MLK/FBI" "MLK/FBI" is the first film to uncover the extent of 'The FBI's' surveillance and harassment of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Based on newly discovered and declassified files, utilizing a trove of documents obtained through 'The Freedom Of Information Act' and unsealed by 'The National Archives', as well as revelatory restored footage, the documentary explores the government's history of targeting 'Black' activists, and the contested meaning behind some of our most cherished ideals. Featuring interviews with key cultural figures, including former 'FBI' Director James Comey, "MLK/FBI" tells this astonishing and tragic story with searing relevance to our current moment. This documentary is about 'The Civil Rights Movement' to date. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of the most iconic symbols of civil rights in 'The United States'. In 1987 and 1988 Dr. King went to Chicago to bring 'The Movement" from 'The South' to 'The North'. It's a wake up call to know that Dr. King wasn't always loved and embraced by 'The American' public. It's a continuation of our understanding of the contradictions in terms of how King is looked at today by most Americans, and how he was really looked at back then. One of those interesting things in the film is when Beverly Gage mentions the fact that there was a poll taken after King and Hoover met, the only time they ever met, about who was more popular. Hoover was much more popular than Dr. King. Most people forget that now, because Hoover is looked at as a pariah, but most Americans back then thought he was a hero. We embraced 'The American' notion of what 'The FBI' was all about. Watching 'The FBI' show on television, watching an old movie from 1959, Jimmy Stewart. 'The FBI' were heroes; beating the gangsters, fighting communism. 'The FBI' was so frightened and afraid of this man they're willing to go to any lengths to destroy his reputation. Something people overlook, is that the civil rights movement was not just Dr. King. America always has to create one person who takes us to the mountaintop, when there were lots of foot soldiers in 'The Civil Rights' movement who got us to the ‘64 and ‘65 'Civil Rights Act', 'The Voting Rights Act', Fred Shuttlesworth and Ralph Abernathy and Dorothy Cotton and Fannie Lou Hamer, there were so many people, it wasn’t just King. He’s been made into the titular head. There’s more than one way to look at Dr. King, and at 'The Movement'. There's a very important distinction at the end of the film that 'The FBI' wasn't a rogue agency. King was pitted against the entire power structure of the government, in that 'The White House' was privy to the surveillance. But it goes back to this decision that was made in 1992, that in twenty-five years some of the documents collected by 'The Congressional Committee' investigating assassinations would be unsealed. Because they investigated both Kennedy and King's assassinations, when documents are released about one, there's always the other. 'The Congressional Committees' all knew about it. Nobody stopped it. So it was something that went just beyond 'The FBI-Headquarters' and the suspicion of King in the halls of power persisted for so long. You know, Reagan didn’t even want to sign the holiday into law. We know, of course, there were allies in 'The Movement' who might be tipping off 'FBI' agents about King’s plans, but the new discoveries make it plain how coordinated and vast the bureau’s sources were. You get to a point where, on the night he died, for example, they’re not even tapping his phones anymore, they've such good informant coverage. All the same, it’s important to note that, given Hoover’s motives, you can never take anything that's in these files, even once they're declassified, at face value. One must always remember the source; where it comes from and why. What happens to people who are very important in our history is that over time they're revisited. A great example is how we grew up thinking Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves. Now, we learned over time that Lincoln didn’t initially want to free the slaves. It just became something that was necessary to win 'The Civil War'. In some ways he wasn’t 'The Great Liberator' or 'The Great Emancipator'. But has it really tarnished his reputation? Not really. You know, he's still considered one of the great American presidents. So the fact that we've known this already about Dr. King, that he was not a monogamous man, that he was a human being like everybody else. It's always interesting to learn the true story behind these organizations that we mythically make so heroic. The film looks at the complexity and the accuracy of 'The American' landscape in terms of the federal government. This film is a wakeup call for America, to understand how complicated this notion of being American is, and how complicated 'The FBI' is today.  It’s eerie how similar the crisis over 'Black' safety inequality in the period covered by the film feels today. And 'Civil Rights' issues are once again at the fore of 'The American' consciousness. We're a country that's always constantly struggling with the issues of race, because this country is founded on the backs of slaves. We've what we call a tipping point and a reckoning in America with Trump in office, with 'The Black Lives Matter' movement and the protests after the murder of George Floyd and the horrific murders that are taking place in this country. So it's extremely timely. But this film will always be timely, because America and the issues of race never leave. 'Black' men being murdered in the streets of America, by the police, is endemic. It happens every damn day. The work of administrations is to say there's chaos in the streets, get your weapons out because America is going to fall apart, it happens not only in 'The Republican' administrations, but it happens in 'Democratic' administrations. This is not unusual, but it's like a huge avalanche now.  What Dr. King went through and what America's going through today is so connected. The importance of protesting speaks directly to what's happening in the streets of America today. Because this is America, quite honestly, and unless we've a real revolution, it's going to be the same cycle over and over and over again. Above all, it's what this story tells us about the American character. Especially right now.

(Release Info London schedule; September 7th, 2018, Electric Cinema, 64 - 66 Redchurch, 18:15) "The Seagull" One summer at a lakeside Russian estate, friends and family gather for a weekend in the countryside. While everyone is caught up in passionately loving someone who loves somebody else, a tragicomedy unfolds about art, fame, human folly, and the eternal desire to live a purposeful life. The estate is owned by Sorin (Brian Dennehy), a retired government employee, and his sister Irina (Annette Bening), a legendary actress of the Moscow stage. Irina is imperious, narcissistic and selfish, and anxious about holding on to her star status and the affections of her younger lover, Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll), a successful writer of short stories. Irina constantly belittles her aspiring writer son Konstantin (Billy Howle), perhaps because his existence as a grown man reminds her that age is catching up with her. While he adores his mother despite her cruelty, Konstantin acts out his insecurity and anger by rejecting both her style of theatre and Boris’s writing, declaring them old-fashioned and banal. A dreamer, Konstantin declares he will create bold and superior new forms of theatre and literature. Konstantin, who grew up on the estate, is head over heels in love with Nina (Saoirse Ronan), a beautiful and naïve local girl who dreams of being an actress. Nina is flattered when Konstantin gives her the starring role in his newly written play, but soon after encountering Boris, she rejects Konstantin, and pursues the handsome and famous writer instead. Masha (Elisabeth Moss), the forlorn, black-clad, self-medicating daughter of Sorin’s estate manager Shamrayev (Glenn Fleshler) and his wife Polina (Mare Winningham), suffers an unrequited love for Konstantin, who insensitively spurns her. She scorns the insipid schoolteacher Medvedenko (Michael Zegen), who refuses to be discouraged by her rejection and accepts any crumbs of attention she drops him. Polina aches for the charismatic country doctor Dorn (Jon Tenney), who, pays her some attention, but still relishes the connection with Irina with whom he had an affair years ago. The elderly Sorin, long past any hope of romance, lives in a languid state of regret over roads not taken. Adapted from Anton Chekhov’s classic play "The Seagull" explores, with comedy and melancholy, the obsessive nature of love, the tangled relationships between parents and children, and the transcendent value and psychic toll of art. The story of “The Seagull” follows the tangled relationships of a group of people who assemble at a provincial lakeside estate and farm owned by Sorin, a retired civil servant and his sister, Irina, a celebrated Moscow stage actress. Irina and her younger lover, Boris, a successful writer, have come to watch a play written and directed by Irina’s son Konstantin and performed by his girlfriend Nina, who lives nearby. Desperate to get out of his mother’s shadow and win her love, Kontantin acts out by attacking her and Trigorin’s work as lifeless and old-fashioned. His abstract and symbolistic play, which he sees as a higher form of theatrical expression, is rejected as pretentious by his mother, and as impenetrable by Trigorin. Even his beloved star, Nina, is unimpressed by the work, and soon her affections drift from Konstantin to Trigorin. Despite everything, Irina is fully human because you can see all of the pain and the fear and the vulnerability there. She’s also incredibly funny. Almost against your will, you enjoy and appreciate the wit of her cruelty. Irina is a passionate woman who's trying to get every last drop out of life that she possibly can. She’s always trying to move toward joy and love and connection, but she doesn’t always get there. She didn’t achieve the stature that she wants. That’s part of what all of us who are trying to do something creative live with; how long will I get away with this, and is there something that’s gonna come up and take everything away? She feels good about herself until her son attacks her and then suddenly that part of her that's wondering where it’s all gonna go suddenly roars to the front of her consciousness and she’s confronted with her own vulnerability. She feels threatened and so she lashes out. Konstantin has been starved of his mother’s attention his whole life, as her first love has always been the theatre. He has genuine talent, however his ego has been damaged beyond repair. Irina will never take him seriously as an artist or a peer. Konstantin starts to do what a lot of young artists who aren’t recognized do, he denigrates the world that has rejected him. He wants to create new forms and make a new theater that has nothing to do with his mother. He's deeply in love with her and also hates her with great vehemence. As for Irina, that like all actresses, she wants to hang on to her youth for as long as possible, and as long as she has a 20-something son hanging around her, then she’s older in the eyes of that community. And now that Irina’s second love, after the stage, is unquestionably Boris, Konstantin channels his frustration with his mother into hatred of her lover. Boris Trigorin isn’t quite 40 and is already famous and wealthy and successful as an artist, so to Konstantin, he poses even more of a threat. He has an almost compulsive need to observe and filter that observation to language. He’s got this detachment, this desire to break outside of that detachment and just be a part of the world. A lot of tension in him is his inner fight between wanting to really participate in his life and in the world, and wanting to retreat from it. Nina is the daughter of a wealthy neighbor who has remarried and disowned her financially and emotionally. She enjoys coming to Sorin’s house, appearing in Konstantin’s play, performing in front of his glamorous mother and the famous writer Boris Trigorin. This starts her fantasizing about the possibility of becoming an actress like Irina. Nina is a bit of a dreamer. She’s someone who's stuck in one place and yearns for something different. To her, like a lot of people, acting and the theater offer something exciting and new. She seems full of life, but Nina is a sad girl, actually. Boris’s desire for a renewed engagement with life is stirred when he encounters the brimming youthfulness of Nina. He feels attractive in a way that Irina never could make him feel. He has something to say, and he’s not familiar to her, so that mystery that he has excites her. And of course he can make that dream of acting come true for her. Infatuated with Nina, Boris approaches Irina and asks her to set him free. He’s convinced it’s going to be easier than it turns out to be. He's shocked at the level that she humiliates herself and begs him. He makes his argument with such reason and kindness. There’s no cruelty in it. Of course, it’s deeply cruel in the way that we've to be with each other sometimes. Boris’s request reveals Irina’s true fragility in a more stark way than any other time in the film. Her power is perforated by the potential loss of Boris. But then you watch her will her power back and manipulate him to stay. It's a defining moment of who this woman is. Boris gives in easily, but his assent may be less than meets the eye. He's supremely conflict averse. He gives in, but then twenty minutes later he’s making arrangements to meet Nina. He desires a life where he can be completely honest, but that’s just not available to him. Masha is the black-clad, snuff-taking, heavy drinking daughter of Sorin’s estate manager Shamrayev and his wife Polina. Masha is the most modern of the characters. She’s a real badass. She can be angry and stubborn one minute, and then the next dissolve into tears, and then make a joke. There’s something wonderfully Bette Davis about her. But at the same time she’s the most self-aware character in the play. She has accepted that she’s not going to be happy; that’s just the way things are gonna go. The main reason for Masha’s sadness is that she's helplessly in love with Konstantin, who won’t give her the time of day. She's miserable because she does believe in love, and does believe in true love, and knows it’s not gonna happen for her. At the same time, Masha brushes off the schoolteacher Medvedenko, in a way not altogether different from the way Konstantin treats her. She sees this man who she doesn’t believe is as smart as her, and she cannot respect him because of that. Medvedenko has done something completely unforgiveable, which is that he isn’t Konstantin and he never will be. Sorin has spent his life working in a government office and now, with his health fading, pines over the paths he didn’t take in his life. Sorin is kind and wise, a good friend to Konstantin. "The Seagull" is something that gradually deepens into an increasingly complex metaphor as the story unfolds. We first encounter it when Konstantin literally shoots a seagull. Konstantin is mortified that his play didn’t go over well; and so devastated by Nina’s preference for Boris over him, that he shoots a seagull and lays it at Nina’s feet as a demonstration of how depraved she has made him. Later, after Boris and Nina have spent an afternoon on the lake, Boris comes up with an idea for a story; a young girl who has spent her whole life on the shore of a lake, a lake that she loves, where she feels happy and free like a seagull. And by chance, a man comes along, and with nothing better to destroys her. While Nina doesn’t hear the last words of Boris’s story idea, when she returns to the house years later, she refers to herself as a seagull. By that point, she has completely fallen apart. She’s gone mad. In her mania, she connects her situation to the seagull that Konstantin shot. It's such a careless act in the hands of a man and she feels that a similar thing has happened to her. That’s the only sort of scenario she can use to make sense out of what happened to her. But Nina doesn’t just call herself a seagull; instead she alternates back and forth between calling herself a seagull and an actress. She’s been told so many different things about herself, that she doesn’t quite know what to believe, but she’s very good at holding onto hope, and that’s what keeps her going. Everything she has to hold onto now is this dream that she has and the purity of that. She’s trying to remind herself that she’s got a purpose other than to be that girl that Boris destroyed or that seagull that Konstantin shot. She’s still got a spark, she’s still alive, and she still has a purpose; the hard work and craft of acting. In October of 1895, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, a doctor and popular Russian writer of short stories and novellas, began work on a play. His previous theatrical work, 'The Wood Demon', had been so roughly panned by critics that he had previously declared he would never write anything for the stage again. When “The Seagull” opened in 1896, the naturalistic style of his writing was so contrary to the melodramas of the time that the first night was a legendary debacle. The play was trying to do something surprising and new; to show people behaving in naturalistic ways, to eschew histrionics and telegraphed emotions for something more nuanced; to allow the actors to truly live inside the characters they were playing, and to introduce the concept of subtext to world drama. It's life itself onstage, with all it's tragic alliances, eloquent thoughtlessness and silent sufferings. Chekhov didn’t live to see cinema emerge as an important global art form. He would never know how significant his contribution to writing and acting would be. The sort of everyday life that is accessible to everyone and understood in it's cruel internal irony by almost no one. It’s a comedy with three female roles, six male roles, four acts, a landscape, much conversation about literature, little action, and five tons of love. The audience talked loudly and jeered the play, rattling the actress who played Nina so much that she lost her voice. In the first act something special started, and a mood of excitement in the audience seemed to grow and grow By the third act the booing was so intense that Chekhov fled the theatre and retreated backstage. The critics savaged the play. Today he's universally recognized as one of the greatest and most influential playwrights in history. 'The Seagull' is a game-changer. You would be hard-pressed to find a drama scholar today who doesn’t think that it marked the beginning of what we call modern drama. No one had even attempted this kind of psychological naturalism. It's a new way of showing behavior that seems very contemporary to an audience now. The camera can capture subtle gradations of emotion and experience in ways that are impossible to do in theater. Cinema can control time differently, and the viewer can experience the actions and reactions of characters in a very particular order. The yearning for love, yearning for connection, yearning for immortality, trying to figure out what it means to live a full life; these are central questions for human beings. "The Seagull" doesn’t necessarily give answers but it asks the question; how do we live our lives? The film remains relevant to audiences for over a century because some things, like the contradictory way human beings feel and behave, never really change. Most of us don’t live on estates with servants. The actual moment to moment reality of the story is not what our every day contemporary life looks like. But our own relationships have in are experienced in very much the same way, and that’s what makes the play, and the film resonant. All of the feelings that the characters have insecurity, fear, hope, longing, and unrequited love; these are human, timeless. These characters express a huge range of emotions. The severe narcissism of Irina; the tragic consequences of irresponsible adult behavior and it's impact on youth are particularly relevant right now. The fact that Nina comes to understand that it’s not about fame, but it’s about endurance, is a huge lesson in life. The film reminds us of the value of art and dreams and how they can elevate one’s experience of the world. It's about love and that’s the subject in which we’re all the most interested in the end. If you’ve ever fallen in love, or had your heart broken, or fallen into a misguided passionate romance, it’s very easy to get swept up in the story of "The Seagull". We’re so capable of such generous behavior towards each other, and such terrible, awful behavior towards each other, and we so easily fall in love with the wrong people. The film shows the glory and the messiness of what it means to be a human being.

Desire is an intriguing game and the first chapter of this interesting series. The game takes a click and point style mechanism, and you must move through the story with various characters. Play more game on basketball legends. It is an emotional story, and you will find yourself wrapped up in the events that unfold. You have to solve a myriad of puzzles and also interact with different people. This is a fantastic and immersive game and is available on all devices including smartphones. Controls A story-filled point and click game Visual novel style Many puzzles to solve People to interact with Black and white background

The fifth instalment in this now boring and close to extinct franchise is given a new fresh level of fun from Spanish director J. A. Boyana. It’s certainly done things we’ve all seen before and there wasn’t anything new to add to the Jurassic franchise but it was an enjoyable and exciting film for dino lovers. The story is set 3 years after the chaos that occurred in Jurassic World (who could have guessed that would happen), the dinosaurs left on the island are about to go extinct, again, because of a volcano thats going to erupt. Which really makes you question the guy in charge of a location for this place. If he was only going to get 3 years from an island because they didn’t realise there was a massive volcano around he should’ve been sacked. Anyway, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) wants to save them all and with the help of Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), who was best buds with old John Hammond, and Eli Mills (Rate Spall) she goes back to the island with the wonderful Owen (Chris Pratt) to save all the dinosaurs including Blue, which is why Chris Pratt is going.  Anyway turns out Rafe Spall is stabbing the old guy in the back, or SPOILER suffocating him with a pillow, and is actually rescuing the dinosaurs so that he can then sell them off to multiple armies. So Claire and Owen head off with two young, friendly, one dimensional characters who are so so so dull. The volcano erupts, the bad guys get the dinosaur, the four guys head back. Before witnessing a sad dino get burned alive by the volcano, really wasn’t that sad but whatevs. Back at the old guys mansion and the dinosaurs start getting sold, we find out about this huge creepy ass dino that is super enhanced. The old guy granddaughter is actually his daughter who he cloned. Or something like that, its really not explained at all and makes no difference to the plot, really pointless and not needed. Old guy dies, dinosaurs escape and start causing havoc. End of film two.  Fallen Kingdom as a whole wasn’t a bad film, it was enjoyable in places in terms of it’s sets and action. The volcano scene was cool and the ending with the new killer dino. I’m genuinely surprised it had a 12a rating, I found it very thrilling and tense and it some scenes, bloody petrifying. If I was a 8 year old, like a lot of the audience are, that scene in the bedroom would’ve freaked me out. You know where the hand goes up to her face. That’s terrifying. The dialogue is cheesy throughout the film, especially between the two minor characters whose story arc is so obvious. The granddaughter being a clone seems so odd, and unless it plays a part in the next film I don’t really understand what the point was of it. It just seemed like a filler film for the the Jurassic World franchise, it’s quite clear the film-makers wanted the dinosaurs back to mainland as quickly as possible without much consideration for this film.  p.s How annoying was it that this hunk was such a key component in the trailer but then was in the film for like a minute at the start and beginning of the film.  3/5 It was a fun addition the Jurassic franchise but it really didn’t have any wow moments are do anything different that we’ve seen in the last 4 films. We’ll probably end up with some rampage style finale that will again, try and make us care about Chris Pratt being friendly with a velociraptor and honestly, I don’t know if I would actually care. You know what, I wouldn’t.

(Release Info London schedule; Sun Jul 11, Mon Jul 12, Tue Jul 13, Wed Jul 14, Thu Jul 15, Fri Jul 16, Sat Jul 17, Picturehouse Central, Piccadilly Circus, 13 Coventry Street, LONDON W1D 7DH, United Kingdom, 3:30 PM) https://www.picturehouses.com/movie-details/022/HO00010945/summer-of-soul "Summer Of Soul" The documentary is part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated 'Black' history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in 'The summer Of 1969', just one hundred miles south of 'Woodstock', 'The Harlem Cultural Festival' was filmed in 'Mount Morris Park' (now 'Marcus Garvey Park'). The footage was never seen and largely forgotten; until now. "Summer Of Soul" shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, 'Sly & The Family Stone', 'Gladys Knight & The Pips', Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, and 'The 5th Dimension'. A song isn’t just a song. It can capture a moment in time. It will tell you a story, if you look close enough. Stevie Wonder and David Ruffin, products of 'Motown’s Hitsville USA' system, each have a style intended to appeal to both 'Black And White America', and both are in the process of remodeling their careers in 'The Summer aof ’69'. Ruffin has recently parted ways with 'The Temptations' and is forging ahead as a solo artist, while Wonder is moving from the feel-good love songs of his earlier days to a politically tinged funk sound. Nowhere is the bursting of Wonder’s new identity feels more than in the film’s cold open, where he unleashes a drum solo whose every strike clears the way for the oncoming philosophies that would define his later career. Probably no artist encapsulated this period of transition more than the mix-gendered, mixed-raced race supergroup, 'Sly And The Family Stone', the only act to play both 'Woodstock' and 'The Harlem Cultural Festival', a fitting fact for a band that seemed to straddle the two separate worlds, and gives new definition to 'Black' artists. 'The Apollo 11' moon landing occurred on July 20, the same day Stevie Wonder, David Ruffin, and 'Gladys Knight And The Pips' take to the stage. Nina Simone deliverers a sharp edge in her fearless set, wherein she sings her anthem 'To Be Young, Gifted And Black' for one of the song’s first public performances. Of great importance is how the composition articulated the tenor of 'Black America' as it transitioned into 'The 1970s'. In 1969, vast socio-political headwinds swirling around the country came to 'Harlem’s Mount Morris Park'. During 'The 60s', 'Americans' witnessed 'The Vietnam War', a rising drug epidemic, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy. Only a year earlier, in 'The Summer Of 1968', parts of 'New York City' went up in flames following the death of Martin Luther King Jr. While the film focuses on performances, "Summer Of Soul" uses past footage as a catapult for real-time change and reflection. Nearly overlapping with 'The 1969 Woodstock Festival' 100 miles away, these seminal 'Black' artists performed for over 300,000 people at a once-in-a-lifetime event. From 'June 29th' to 'August 24th', 'The Harlem Cultural Festival' played for six Sundays in 'Harlem’s Mount Morris Park'. Unlike that other music festival upstate, the footage from 'Fhe Harlem Cultural Festival' could not find a home that summer of 1969, and instead sat in a basement for over 50 years, keeping this momentous celebration hidden until now. The film seeks to recover the meaningful spirit of the past, when the biggest names in 'African-American' music, culture, and politics came together for six consecutive weeks for a landmark, transformational 'Black' cultural event. "Summer Of Soul" documents the moment when the old school of 'The Civil Rights Movement' and new school of 'The Black Power' movement shared the same stage, highlighted by an array of genres including soul, 'R&B', 'Gospel', 'Blues', 'Jazz', and 'Latin'. 'Blacks' have always been a creative force of our culture. But sometimes those efforts are easily dismissed. It goes to show that revisionist history and 'Black' erasure, be it mean, spirited or on purpose or by accident is very real. The initial directive for the festival was laid out by 'The City Of New York' to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination under 'The Banner Of Black Unity'. 'New York City' had thrown smaller versions of 'The Harlem Cultural Festival' in ’67 and ’68, though the smaller events felt more like casual, block parties. But the festival in 1969 was supersized; some thought the expanded version was intended to divert the local population from additional rioting brought on by the anniversary of King’s death. 'New York City Mayor John Lindsay' walked the streets of 'Harlem' in a bid to quell the unrest, and became a key backer of the festival. The film represent the evolution of 'Black Music', not necessarily in a linear way: from it's roots in gospel, to the blues and feel-good soul, to the futuristic hybrid of soul represented by Sly Stone, through to the activist music of the late '60s'. “But gospel ended up in the middle because it’s importantly heavy, telling the story of 'The MLK' killing for instance. And the gospel in the middle becomes the pivot point or fulcrum where 'Black Music' and 'Black Identity' tip over into a new post-'MLK' world. After 50 years, are we truly back at square one with the exact same unrest, protests, deaths, shootings, and injustices? "Summer Of Soul".is a searing testament to the cyclical and constant nature of racial prejudice. The same urban decay inflicted upon Harlem during the 1960s exists in urban areas housing people of color across the nation today. There's simply too much happening off-stage, in Harlem, in New York, in America, for us to focus on just what's happening on-stage. Progress was being made in 1969, but there's still so far to go. The war on poverty, job equality education, all those things. To 'The Harlem Community', there were a lot more important issues than putting a man on the moon. The bedrock non-violent strategy of 'The Civil Rights Movement' receded to a charged 'Black Power' philosophy. 'African-Americans' transitioned from suit and ties to bell-bottom pants and dashiki shirts. Chemically relaxed hair gave way to natural afros. And younge 'African-Americans' began defining themselves separate from a white lens. The wider we zoom out, the more similarities we see with what's happening in America even today, 50 years later.

(The Nest, 2021 | 1h 47m | London, Fulham Road Picturehouse, 142 Fulham Road, Sun 22nd Aug @ 14:00) https://we-love-cinema.com/movies/49401-the-nest/ "The Nest" Rory (Jude Law), an charismatic ambitious entrepreneur and former commodities broker, persuades his American wife, Allison (Carrie Coon), and their children Benjamin (Charlie Shotwell) and Samantha (Dona Roche) to leave the comforts of suburban America and return to his native England. He relocates his family to England with dreams of profiting from booming 1980’s London. Sensing opportunity, Rory rejoins his former firm and leases a centuries-old country manor, with grounds for Allison’s horses and plans to build a stable. But as his wife, Allison, struggles to adapt, and soon the promise of a lucrative new beginning starts to unravel, the couple have to face the unwelcome truths lying beneath the surface of their marriage. The family buckles beneath an unaffordable lifestyle and increasing isolation as they head toward a seemingly inevitable breakdown. "The Nest" is set in 1986 to explore the link between America and 'The UK'.  Pre-financial crash, the emerging global market, and London at the height of deregulation. The film wants to intrinsically link the celebrated values of the time, such as risk and ambition, to the issues at the core of the family’s conflict. It's an era of capitalist opportunism that promised plenty, and Rory sees it as a way to have the life they always dreamed of. But the move to England quickly erodes the equality that Rory and Allison have in America, and Allison’s identity is subsumed by being his wife. They slip into traditional gender roles, propping each other up in co-dependency. As he tries to face his past she becomes the silent enabler, succumbing to his mythomania, all at the cost of her family’s wellbeing. Within this setting the film reflects on personal experience to create an unsettling, naturalistic family drama that explores how a move across 'The Atlantic' uproots the dormant truths that lie beneath this family’s dynamic. Within the family, the priority is to explore a marriage in a truthful way. Rory and Allison are a complex couple, deeply in love and attracted to each other, they've a seemingly equal partnership that is slowly unmasked as a co-created myth. Their individual dualities make them both perfect partners and polar opposites. They're respectively plagued by aspirational values of the society around them, and the duty handed down to them by previous generations. The film contemplates the corrosive value system of the 1980s and it's human toll, as it spreads like a sickness nobody realized is there. Rory is it's embodiment; the unrepentant capitalist for whom wealth and status become the measure of self-worth. This moral poison enters his home, sending everyone down their own self-destructive paths. Growing up between America and England in the 80’s and 90’s, you experienced a stark difference in atmosphere between the two places that has long stayed with us. We always feel the contrast provides a haunting tonal shift in a film and this backdrop sparked the conception of "The Nest". Blurring social critique and character drama, "The Nest" reflects on the moral and spiritual emptiness of an unselfconsciously aspirational society, one in which we forsake everything to get what we want, even when we no longer know why we want it. "The Nest" explores themes of masculinity, gender roles, family structure, and 'The American Dream' by examining a family at a very specific time and place that's both a unique moment in history and one that reflects today.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to carry on reading this, about a film starring an absolute nutter, in which he tries to kill himself by jumping from helicopters and other modes of transport, to stop a nuclear bomb, but in all fairness, ends up being a being a pretty decent action film.  📷Originally posted by mastersofthe80s Yep, everyone’s favourite Scientologist returns as Ethan Hunt in film number 6 of Mission Impossible. It’s a very good film, I don’t remember seeing 5, these films just blend into one big mash up of Tom Cruise running around saving the day now. But you didn’t need to see 5 to see 6, it was pretty self-explanatory about the recent events, who the bad guys were, and there is a lot of exposition to give newer audiences an idea of what is going on. So the story itself was rather good, it didn’t feel dragged out (despite being nearly 2 and a half hour long) nor did it skip over the narrative and just get to the action. There were enough twists and turns to keep you guessing, although it is pretty obvious what the main reveal is.  The action scenes are very impressive. You know how you normally watch a film and you can pretty much guess that there is a stunt double or a huge green screen backdrop being filmed somewhere in Luton, well in Mission Impossible, I genuinely don’t have an idea anymore. I mean there’s no way that Tom Cruise, the actor, the megastar, the millionaire would willingly dangle from a helicopter by himself. I know there are supports and stuff (I think) but who knows what could happen. I know the man is absolutely nuts, and that Scientologists probably don’t believe in gravity or death but I was seriously impressed watching the stunts. Fair play to the guy. The epicness of each action scene was an improvement on the previous one, and technically it looked stunning. I don’t really get excited about stunts now because they are all pretty much the same, few booms and a bit of fire but this was another level of craziness.  📷Originally posted by gothamsreck0ning We have to talk about this guy. Firstly, look at all that masculinity. How incredible that the more masculine he is e.g. reloading his guns to punch someone, the more prominent his manly features are. LOOK AT THE BEARD! Honestly I’ve been looking at this for a solid 5 minutes and I can’t quite get over how hilarious this looks. How does the beard change like that? Could it be an accident with the lighting? Is it because he puffs out his cheeks therefore showing more beard from underneath? Who knows. But we do know that he doesn’t kill the guy, but his recent comments about the #metoo movement probably has killed his chances with women. Who am I kidding, look at the man, he looks like a bloody God. I feel sorry for him because he has come under a lot of stick with what he has said, it’s quite clear what he has meant to say but unfortunately it’s come across in a bad way. He’s worried about flirting with women in case they don’t want a flirt and it then makes him look like a bad guy. Look mate, just don’t be a creep with women, that’s all women want. Just respect them, talk to them without being weird, don’t grope. We all like a cheeky flirt Henry, especially me wink wink. Just kidding, I don’t fancy people who can magical grow a chest pocket out of thin air.  4/5 You know, I went into this film after an incredibly long, stressful and frustrating shift at the cinema where I work and I really wasn’t expecting a lot. I was hoping for some decent action film that has got some good moments, nothing special but something that passes the time. And I was pleasantly surprised that it had some very good moments that turned out to be a very good action film.