TheRetroCritic

We are not impressed.

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk is a WWII movie following several characters including soldiers, pilots and civilians as they try to survive during an evacuation in the North of France, just before German forces close in. This story is told from different perspectives and periods of time as a British mariner sails a boat towards Dunkirk in order to help the Allied troops while a Spitfire pilot faces numerous potentially deadly challenges in the air and soldiers on the ground try everything they can to stay alive and make it home. The intensity of the expanding war is captured perfectly by showing the humanity and heroism involved alongside the pain and misery these soldiers face every single minute that goes by. No matter how flawed the main characters are, we still understand them and feel for them since none of what they're dealing with is their fault: they just happen to all be stuck in the grimmest mess. These are people who are so tired and beaten that

I talk briefly about Christopher Nolan's latest: Dunkirk .

After the runaway (and deserved) success of Birdman , director Alejandro Iñarritu is back with yet another Oscar-nominated effort, this time taking on a bigger project following a mad journey of survival and revenge from legendary frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio). Set in the early 1800's, The Revenant is a grim, bloody, cruel piece of work set in beautiful snowy, frozen backdrops which makes for an interesting contrast. Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight also went for a wintery feel but it's hard to call Iñarritu's film a Western since it really feels like something else entirely. The first big sequence involves a large group of frontiersmen being overrun by Native American opponents: it's an epic scene in the old sense of the word complete with arrows piercing through people's faces, horses getting sliced-up and bones breaking left and right. It's an extremely detailed battle filmed in such a sweeping, steady way that it all feels lik

I finally rant briefly about Mad Max: Fury Road on this loveliest of days.

The problem with sequel/reboots (sequoots, if you will) is that you never know what you're going to get but, most likely, you're not getting the good stuff. And just when you're getting sick and tired of those reboots (and sequoots), obviously a great one comes along to make you rethink the validity of the whole thing. Yes, Mad Max: Fury Road is pretty awesome. With Tom Hardy taking over the role of Max Rockatansky, a role which put Mel Gibson on the map back in the day, George Miller returning to directing duties and a killer trailer promising great things, this looked set to be a good time, at the very least. Then again, the Conan The Barbarian remake had a cool trailer too so it could have all gone pear-shaped very quickly. Thankfully, Miller's insistence that all the cars in the film would have to be built for real along with often stunning cinematography by John Seale, a great cast and some brilliant character design means that Mad Max: Fury Road is, in fa

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 15th episode, we discuss the 11th episode of  Gotham , The Electrocutioner, Tom Hardy and we finally review Birdman . (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

Ah Nemesis... The last of the "old school" Star Trek movies, Star Trek: Nemesis had the misfortune of following the least liked film of that franchise so it was either going to confirm that Insurrection was no accident and the Picard crew had really gone as far as they could or completely the opposite. And although critics and audiences had nothing too positive to say about Nemesis and the film ended the Star Trek franchise promptly, never even giving the Voyager , Deep Space Nine or Enterprise crews a chance to make it on the big screen, for me Nemesis did exactly what it set out to do and delivered something as good as First Contact , if not better. Now I won't pretend that Nemesis doesn't have its problems, every Star Trek movie does. For one thing, Tom Hardy's villain, a young Romulan-made Picard clone, is a bit more cartoonish than he probably should be and looks nothing like Patrick Stewart. He's not bad, it's a decent, very entertaining