Month: October 2015
Top 5 Time Travelling Films
In the second instalment of cult sci-fi adventure film series ‘Back to the Future’, Marty McFly and Doc crashed the future landing at 21st October 2015. On this day, we celebrate the film by taking a journey back through time to pick the best time travelling movies around…
5. Looper
Set in 2044, Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in ‘Looper’ as a contract killer who shoots victims sent to him from the future so he can can dispose of their bodies in the past. Still following? It’s when his older self played by Bruce Willis arrives to be killed that things get really complicated.
4. Midnight in Paris
Bored and creatively unfulfilled in the present day, screenwriter and novelist Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) finds himself travelling back to the 1920s using a car in the backstreets of Paris as a portal. At a party in the roaring decade he encounters a host of famous artists and writers including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Salvador Dali. When he meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), he has to decide whether he wants to exist in the 21st century. Woody Allen directs.
3. Twelve Monkeys
Bruce Willis features again on the list, this time starring as James Cole alongside Brad Pitt in Terry Gilliam’s neo-noir sci-fi flick ’12 Monkeys’. Set initially in Philadelphia in 2027, Cole goes back in time to 1990 to gather information on a deadly virus that wipes out nearly all of humanity in 1996.
2. The Terminator
It’s hard to talk cinema time travel without hitting on James Cameron’s action classic The Terminator, a franchise which is still going today! Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the titular role as a cyborg assassin sent back from 2029 to 1984 to take out Sarah Connor, in order to prevent her son’s actions decades later.
1. Back to the Future II
Of course, taking top spot is the Robert Zemeckis film that inspired the article. ‘Back to the Future II’ follows the original’s protagonist Marty who, after time-hopping to 2015, has to jump back to 1955 and take the same trip as he did in the first movie without affecting 1985. Easy!
DVD review: Jurassic World
Carrying on the trend of not leaving perfectly good film franchises alone, Spielberg’s 1993 dinosaur epic is next to get the 21st century makeover, only this time it is a sequel rather than a remake. With much anticipation surrounding it, the unenviable but exciting task of directing falls to relatively unknown Colin Trevorrow. This instalment, set a whopping twenty-two years after its predecessor is ‘Jurassic World’, and stars man-of-the-moment Chris Pratt following his success in Guardians of the Galaxy. Brothers Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins) are packed up and sent away to Jurassic World by their feuding parents to be looked after by their Aunt Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard). This clashes with a busy weekend for the theme park, and when the ‘unthinkable’ happens and a genetically modified hybrid dinosaur branded the Indonimus rex escapes from its enclosure, it is up to velociraptor trainer Owen Grady (Pratt) to save the day. This has the intense action that all good blockbusters should and excellent special effects to boot, but has the inexperienced Trevorrow bitten off more than he can chew?
DVD review: Mad Max: Fury Road
After a two decade break in the series, madcap Australian director George Miller has revisited the post-apocalyptic world of Mad Max with new instalment ‘Fury Road’. Now with a bigger budget to throw at the project, his vision has the scope to reach new heights, and on this occasion Tom Hardy takes the titular role of Max Rockatansky, following in the footsteps of Mel Gibson. The story of survival takes place on desert wasteland in the aftermath of nuclear war, and ex-police officer Max is captured by a gang known as the War Boys, led by Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), and is used primarily as universal blood donor. When Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) rebels against the regime, driving her tanker truck off-route with five of Joe’s hand-picked wives, a chase ensues to retrieve them, and sick War Boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult) also heads out in hot pursuit of the escapees, taking Max along for the ride as his own personal human blood bag.
DVD review: Danny Collins
Of late it wouldn’t be unfair to say that acting legend Al Pacino has made some questionable decisions in which films he has involved himself with. Thankfully, 2015 appears to mark a turning point or as close as he’s going to get to a return to form at his age. He’s already taken part in classy ‘An Evening with…’ events in the UK this year, and is now starring in comedy drama ‘Danny Collins’ written and directed by Dan Fogelman. The film is loosely based on the true story of British folk singer Steve Tilston. Pacino takes the eponymous role as you might expect, playing a fed up has-been rocker who dines out on his past successes – mainly his hit record ‘Hey Baby Doll’ which is surprisingly catchy! When his manager Frank discovers an old handwritten letter addressed to Danny from none other than John Lennon, he is forced to reflect on his life decisions. Turning his back on the sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, he chooses to track down his long-lost son and looks for love and redemption along the way.
Cinema Perspective 