Sorry to Bother You , the directorial debut of The Coup frontman Boots Riley, is part of a growing trend of Afro-surrealism in film and television. Donald Glover's brilliant Atlanta series has dabbled in surreal comedy and last year's Get Out saw Jordan Peele take advantage of the style's horror potential. Whilst this could be seen as an effort to escape reality, most of these artists have actually utilised surrealism as a means of better understanding it. Let's face it, it's futile trying to understand the current state of the world through logic and rationalism. Sorry to Bother You is easily the most absurd yet, blending both comedy and horror to evoke the unsettling mixture of hilarity and dread regularly brought on by a glance at the day's news. It's also a brutal and uncompromising evisceration of capitalism and its insidious ability to corrupt those rewarded by it. Lakeith Stanfield's protagonist Cassius Green ('cash is green’) is present...

Computer animation is a wonderful art form and many of the most enduring and universally loved films come from the medium. The trouble is, ever since Pixar established its feature film potential with Toy Story , computer animation has looked rather… same-y. Most of the artistic variation has been confined to 2D and stop-motion animation, whilst the majority of 3D animation has played it disappointingly safe. 2014’s The Lego Movie - directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller - is really the only notable animated feature that's deviated from the standard look and that was only to imitate stop-motion. Oddly, it's also a style that has been largely untouched by the comic book genre. Aside from The Incredibles  -  which doesn't really count as it's an original idea and not an adaptation - animated superheroes have mainly found themselves in 2D, straight-to-DVD films. Once again, the Lego films are the only major exception with The Lego Batman Movie , which you could ...

As I've mentioned in my review of Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born , there are a number of films I tragically didn't get the opportunity to review whilst Doctor Who was on. There are still a couple more I want to give full reviews to (hopefully before the end of the year) but right now I'm going to catch up on the majority of the films I missed with another collection of capsule reviews. It's a Christmas miracle! The Post I somehow forgot to write about this one when I did my last catch-up, but that doesn’t matter, because I can write about it now! The Post is a Spielberg film in a similar vein to 2015’s surprisingly brilliant Bridge of Spies . With the content itself not being as fantastical as what Spielberg is known for, his brilliant filmmaking skills are given extra space to shine. This is most noticeable in the incredible way the cinematography reflects the discomfort Meryl Streep’s Kay Graham feels when entering a room filled with stuffy ...

Whilst writing my Doctor Who reviews, I unfortunately overlooked a number of films that I didn't have the time to take a look at. To make up for that, I'm intending to do another collection of capsule reviews to catch up on everything I missed. However, there are also a few films I want to give full reviews to. Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born are the first two I want to tackle and I've decided to review them together. As always, laziness (I mean, uh, efficiency) certainly plays a part in combining their reviews. However, I also think these two work very well alongside each other. Both of them are massively successful sort-of-musicals following the career trajectory of a lavish rock star. However, they both go about it in intriguingly different ways and the reception each film has received has been noticeably different. In other words, it's the perfect mix of similarities and contrasts for a side-by-side review! The most notable contrast between Bohemian...

For all the criticisms that can be levelled at Steven Moffat, you can't say he didn't know how to write a finale. Okay, well, you can, if you really want to, but I was always impressed with his finales. By Capaldi's series, Moffat had developed a very clear rhythm, writing two-part finales that explored trippy, timey-wimey ideas in the first part and delivered dramatic, emotional action in the second. It's a format that was perfected with the series nine finales Heaven Sent and Hell Bent . Both of these are simply astonishing episodes of Doctor Who . Heaven Sent features an unbelievable solo performance from Capaldi - who carries the whole thing with outstanding intensity - amidst a fascinatingly mysterious plot that doesn't reveal every detail until the very last shot. Hell Bent then took the Doctor to Gallifrey for the first time since the Time War*, but the real focus was on his struggle to let go of Clara. Despite her rocky start, by Hell Bent , I was f...

As much as I'm enjoying the new direction Doctor Who 's going in, I can't help but miss some of the more bonkers elements of the Moffat era. I know that when Peter Capaldi was the Doctor many viewers reached the end of their tether with Moffat's elaborate plots and story arcs. Chibnall clearly recognised this and responded accordingly, streamlining the plots and ditching the overarching narratives. There's nothing wrong with this and it's certainly made space for a more character driven series. However, I still quite like it when Doctor Who 's weird because Doctor Who is inherently weird. So far, this series has kept its ideas relatively down to earth and has consequently been weakest when trying to be sci-fi. When episodes are grounded in emotionally powerful historical moments the series has flourished, but when working with more futuristic ideas it's lacked a certain inventiveness. The Witchfinders is really the only episode so far featuring an a...