Even though we’re only half way through the year, 2015 has been a very good year for movies. We’ve had the incredible Jurassic World and even more incredible Mad Max: Fury Road, Pixar’s return to greatness with Inside Out, heavy drama with Fury, Nightcrawler and all the other Oscar nominees, plus sequels aplenty with Pitch Perfect 2, Fast and Furious …

I got thinking about fan-made theories as I watched Inception for something like the fourth time this weekend (as an aside that movie is still excellent, easily in my top ten). I love a good conspiracy theory about plot points and details in a movie or a TV show. Granted, sometimes fan-made theories run more into the realm of “what …

There’s no denying that product placement in movies can do wonders for whatever they’re shilling. Risky Business helped bring a line of Ray-Bans back from the brink, E.T. gave Hershey a 65% boost in profits and GM specially made and sold over 60,000 Chevrolet Camaros thanks to Transformers. That being said, obvious product placement can completely ruin the immersion. Very …

The year of 2015 is the worst performer in recent memory for box office releases – and we’re only in JUNE. Or we are ONLY in June. This is a strange business…

Stephen King is a prolific author, and he’s had more than his fair share of books adapted for movies and TV – the latest adaptation on the cards being The Stand, which might even be adapted for both. To list but a fraction, there’s Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Carrie, The Shining, Dreamcatcher, Stand By Me, Cujo and even the …

Is Hollywood still too fond of white faces? Whatever the answer, more people are starting to take notice…

This might sound like an odd topic, but hear me out. You get your well loved movies right, the ones you’ll watch over and over again, the ones you basically know every line to and still get the feels at the end. Or even the ones you’ll watch repeatedly to get every hidden detail, the ones you’ll want to revisit time …

I said it last week, and I’ll say it again, trailers are tricky things. We all know they’re supposed to show you the best of whatever it is you’ll be watching, with the right cuts and a selection of the best clips and sound-bites. When they’re done well, they’re fantastic. But when it comes to watching the full movie, it …

It’s difficult to get a movie trailer right, and trailers for TV shows are even harder, given the amount of material they have to work with. You need to show enough to get a decent amount of hype, but you don’t want to overplay your hand and give everything away. You also need to piece it together juuust right. It’s …

Rating systems are pesky little devils. I know studios think that by lowering a rating more people will be able to see your movie, but is it still the same movie? Let me get it out of the way first by saying that in no way can things like swearing, sex, blood and violence replace the power of a good …

Whatever happened to straight forward filming? Between 3D, continuous shots, found footage, heck even shooting a movie over an eleven year period a la Boyhood, there are lots of different gimmicks to choose from when making a movie. Some work, some don’t. Now, we have an entire movie shot on an iPhone. Granted, it was mostly done with budget and …

Sequels are tricky things. Quite often, they don’t live up to the “wow” of the first film, and when the first film isn’t very “wow” to begin with, then you wonder why they made a sequel in the first place. Case and point, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 is going into production pretty soon, and one can only hope that …