6 February 2014
The year is 1841, and Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free man living with his family in upstate New York. Then he’s offered two weeks touring work as a fiddle player; only at the end of the tour the (white) men he’s with get him drunk and he wakes up in chains in a Washington D.C. slave trader’s basement. He’s shipped south to New Orleans where he’s sold by Theophilus Freeman (Paul Giamatti) to plantation owner William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch).
6 February 2014
For a franchise based around one idea – found footage of creepy hauntings – the Paranormal Activity series has proved to be surprisingly consistent when it comes to quality. That is to say, every second film (the second and fourth) are a waste of time, while the first, third and now fifth actually manage to find new ways to get scares out of the old formula. Here the initial twist is that it’s an all-Latino cast: the year is 2012, and in the Los Angeles suburb of Oxnard high school graduate Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) lives with his dad and grandmother in a block of flats above a creepy woman named Anna, who everyone thinks is a witch.
6 February 2014
Everyone loves fan fiction. Well, everyone in Hollywood loves fan fiction. It’s a great way to give people exactly what they want – or more accurately, exactly what they’ve already had – without having to pay out the big money in licensing fees. So 50 Shades of Grey is basically Twilight with the numbers filed off (and the vampires left out), Mortal Instruments: City of Bones started out life as Harry Potter fan fiction, and Grudge Match?
