cliches

An inspirational drama and an Oscar nominee from Italy for best international feature top our list of what to watch this week. And if you’re in the mood for ridiculousness, how about a B&W silent film with actors in beaver costumes running about in the snow? Yes, you read that right. Here’s our roundup. “Ordinary Angels”: Jon Gunn’s faith-based soul quencher feels almost heaven-sent, gracing us — just when we need it — with an uplifting, truth-based story that promotes compassion and encourages us to extend a helping…

Just admit it, you were also annoyed that, for example, the powers of characters in the same Marvel film could differ radically throughout... no, not the entire franchise, but simply from scene to scene of the same movie - just to maintain a balance between the dozens of characters, almost each of which is an 'imba-' in themselves.However, not only comic book movies suffer from such problems. Even many movies and TV series that fully claim to be a realistic reflection of life are, in fact, crammed with all sorts of…

Cr. Sasidis Sasisakulporn/Netflix © 2022 Sometimes, audiences have no interest in watching anything groundbreaking, demanding, or thought-provoking, with the cinematic equivalent of comfort food and a warm hug taking precedence. Fortunately for those with a taste for the formulaic, Netflix released A Tourist’s Guide to Love at exactly the right time. Rachel Leigh Cook stars as a high-flying travel executive dealing with a breakup that came right out of the blue, which leads her to accept an undercover…

Image via A24 It wouldn’t be Hollywood without a staggering amount of clichés. What was once groundbreaking cinema over 30 years ago are now tiresome tropes that have been through the wringer one too many times. It’s long been debated whether filmmaking peaked in the ’80s and ’90s or if the 2000s are just getting started. Either way, films have evolved over centuries, spanning all the way back to 1885 when the first-ever motion picture production was shown to a paying audience. You’d think in all that time that…

By 1988, the average East German drank 142 litres of beer a year, double the intake of the average West German. The obvious explanation is they drank to escape the unbearable awfulness of being in the German Democratic Republic, with its omnipresent Stasi, clown-car Trabants, travel restrictions, gerontocratic rulers, grim Baltic holidays and laughable elections.Not so, argues East German-born historian Katja Hoyer. Most East Germans drank not to forget their worries but because they had so little to worry about. She…

When you think of iconic acting duos that starred in multiple films together, your mind may conjure images of Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, or Simon Pegg and Nick Frost to name but a few, but more than likely not Colors of Love duo Chad Michael Murray and Jessica Lowndes. As well as co-starring in the insipid romance, the former teen heartthrob and the Canadian singer-turned-actress have become Lifetime’s go-to pairing for…

via Sony As you’ll no doubt be aware, the desire for fresh horror content has reached its zenith today, which is about the only reason we can think of as to why streaming subscribers are actively seeking out last year’s The Unholy. Think of a dozen cliches, throw them in a blender, sprinkle over a garnish comprised of talented actors who are above this sort of material, and then launch that motherf*cker as hard as you can at the nearest wall, and that’s pretty much what writer and director Evan Spiliotopoulos’…

A magnet for explorers, climbers and seekers of enlightenment, the Himalayas have drawn swathes of travellers over the years. The resulting outpouring of stories can leave one wondering quite what more there is to say.But at the outset of this extended travel narrative, Norwegian anthropologist Erika Fatland, whose previous books include Sovietistan, distinguishes herself from the stereotypes. She is not a “spiritual tourist” on a mystical journey, she explains, nor is she a climber, or a star travel writer looking to…

Sex work has been a staple topic of cinema practically since the invention of the medium, and French cinema has contributed to that corpus as much, if not more, than any other film-making nation. You might even say it’s helped to forge some of the great cinematic cliches about prostitution, going as far back as Sarah Bernhardt’s turn, adapted from a stage production, as a courtesan-with-a-heart in a 1912 adaptation of Dumas’ La Dame aux Camélias.French director Cécile Ducrocq takes some of those cliches and shreds them…

It’s quite a feat for a British ensemble older than the Proms to be making its debut at this year’s festival, but such is the case of Tredegar Town Band. Formally constituted in 1876, and with a performing CV stretching from Rambert Ballet to Matthew Warchus’s Bafta-winning film Pride, there’s a sense of making up for lost time with not one, but two Tredegar Proms this week . First, the band teams up with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Ryan Bancroft for Gavin Higgins’ massive Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and…