Film & TV – Page 7 of 14

2Feb

By Jordan ThorneNo Comments

Can our technology be predicted?

One thing is clear in the society that we live in, and that is technology is increasingly pervading our everyday lives. Seemingly everywhere you go, you will witness people of all ages in public, blank-faced and glued to their phone screens (and I can’t say that I’m not guilty of this). The television show Black Mirror somewhat prophetically explores the intricate ways in which technology affects human relationships and interaction. Every single episode has its own individual story line and they seem to be at different points of technological progress. Some display the technology that is very similar to what we currently have, but other episodes provide a bleak view of what our future has to offer. *Spoiler alert* In episode one of the newest series, people give each other ratings in th...

30Jan

By Ruby_rogersNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Doctor Who?

Ruby Rogers discusses the decline of BBC’s ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Sherlock’ “Doctor who?” – the famous question, that has been asked by almost every character on the BBC’s favourite family sci-fi drama, has suddenly gained new meaning for me. I, like many other people my age, remember vividly when the Doctor returned to our screens in 2005, in the form of the leather-jacket-wearing, more-intense-less-eccentric Christopher Eccleston. My brother and I watched it every week without fail for years, and, when it wasn’t on, we’d spend countless hours re-watching previous episodes, playing with my brother’s TARDIS set or running around the garden pretending to be aliens. Then, the question “Doctor who?” was nothing more than a plot device, a question to which the answer was simply ‘the (italics) ...

19Jan

By Joanne ArcherNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

A Mainstream Love Affair

Joanne Archer discusses the inevitability of cheating in mainstream film. I’m pretty lucky really. Unlike a lot of lonely souls out there, I have been in a very happy relationship for the last four years. You would think this can only mean Happily Ever After. My life is a Disney film and my days are filled with birdsong and baking apple pies. Reality check. We live in the 21st century and as much the above is fairly accurate, I am very aware that the course of true love never did run smooth. What exactly, I hear you ask, is it that fills me with a perpetual dread for the future? The normalisation and romanticising of cheating in mainstream film. You only have to look as far as Alan Rickman in Love Actually to see what I mean. Evidently we are supposed to feel bad for Em...

22Dec

By Harry BrownNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Hail, Caesar! Review

The Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! is one of their most hilarious, absurd and grand films yet. What the film lacks in emotional depth is more than made up for in laughs and often stunning spectacle. Taking place in 1950’s Hollywood, the film stars Josh Brolin as Eddie Mannix, the man who makes sure everything at fictional studio Capitol Pictures runs smoothly. His day to day work ranges from trying to rescue rumour-ridden star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) from a kidnapping, to managing the pregnancy of starlet DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson). While the subject matter could treated as a biopic in other hands, the Coen Brothers inject these stories with a silliness often bordering on parody. It is actually this aspect of the historical period’s depiction which is one of the film’s str...

14Dec

By Georgia BeithNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Netflix & Diversity

Orbital's Georgia Beith gets to grips with an issue bigger than Netflix and Chill: the topic of Netflix and Diversity. Netflix is widely recognised as the future of the entertainment industry - it’s not news to anyone. It’s a way of watching film and TV that has rapidly increased in popularity. But it isn’t just its quickly garnered success that sets Netflix apart; it also far outstrips traditional forms of media in terms of representation. TV and film’s lack of diversity is not a new issue by any means but, more recently people have finally been taking notice of this problem. The #OscarsSoWhite controversy, a response to the lack of diverse acting nominees at last year’s Oscars, highlights the limited opportunities and recognition given to actors of ethnic minorities. The lack o...

12Dec

By Laura LawrenceNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Ho Ho Christmas Adverts

Everyone has their favourite thing that they love about Christmas time. There is so much to choose from: the food, the films and the presents! However the thing that finally makes it feel like Christmas for me is the much anticipated Christmas commercials. So here are just a few of my favourites this year: ‘Santa Forgot’ from Alzheimer’s Research UK- Stephen Fry narrates the heartbreaking story of a Santa who has been struck by the currently incurable disease of Alhzehier’s and the little girl who wants to save him from its all too common fate. This could perhaps be the most important advert on our televisions this Christmas. It raises the message of how crucial funding and research is to the disease- and that maybe with it we can make it curable. I urge everyone to watch this advert. J...

1Nov

By Harry BrownNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

War on Everyone Review

John Michael McDonagh moves to the United States for his third feature film, following the very Irish ‘The Guard’ and ‘Calvary’. Such a transition often brings an implication of a larger emphasis on action and spectacle, and while that could certainly be said for ‘War on Everyone’, the film doesn’t lose any of McDonagh’s cynical wit or ethically dubious characters. Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña star as detectives Terry and Bob who, quite simply, don’t play by the rules. That might sound rather banal, but the two characters will seemingly do almost anything in order to make their job easier, while making it fun in their own belligerent and carefree way. They carry on with their indulgences hassle free until they cross paths with a new local crime boss played by Theo James. Th...

31Oct

By Isabella MansellNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Anti-Halloween Film Picks

The Orbital's Arts journalists give you their favourite films to watch to combat the spooky season of Halloween and the cold wintry nights to come! Beth Carr - Love Actually You can't not smile while watching a load of people fall in and out of love and connect their lives in unexpected ways. The music is sublime and the storyline is extremely clever, brought to life by a stunning cast of cinematic favourites. Plus, Halloween means it's basically almost Christmas, right? Isabella Mansell - Mamma Mia Who doesn't love an Abba singalong? The feel-good plot of love and comic wit leaves everyone with a smile on their face and a toe-tapping experience! Why not escape the British cold and drizzle through the Grecian Summer and nothing could be further away from the t...

28Oct

By Olivia AtkinsonNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Suffragette: the fear of change

Family movie night premiered Sarah Gavron’s latest film, "Suffragette"; a raw, eye opening success that has introduced significant thought and discussion both within the public eye and my own living room. Not a single word was spoken as my family and I were fixated on the motion picture. In my awestruck eyes, this interpretation of the development of our democratic history perfectly encapsulates the lengths it took for the women of the past 100 years to get to 1 vote for the women of today. The film highlights the immense effort, thought and planning that went into protests, both passive and violent. Beatings carried out in the streets and the death of world-renowned martyr, Emily Wilding-Davison, were incredibly intense moments and were, at times, rather grotesque and shocking, yet w...

27Oct

By Georgia BeithNo Comments

Culture & Literature, Film & TV

Review: HBO’s Westworld

Imagine a show set in the near future in a high-tech, ultra-realistic, Wild West themed amusement park populated by artificial beings known simply as ‘hosts’, and visited by guests referred to as ‘the newcomers’ who are free to do as they please. That show is Westworld, HBO’s attempt at filling the hole that will be left when the astronomically successful Game of Thrones finally draws to a close. So, can Westworld succeed in meeting such high expectations? Produced by sci-fi heavyweight JJ Abrams and starring household names such as Anthony Hopkins, the odds look good for Westworld to become HBO’s next big hit. Based on the 1973 film of the same name, directed by Michael Crichton (screenwriter of probably the best known film about a fictional theme park; Jurassic Park), Westworld is cer...