Films @ Dave’s Info Cafe

I thought I would just put down a few thoughts about what I call “The New Epics” – films with scope, ambition, flair, scale, and energy – that tell gripping stories of the human condition in a way that grabs the eyes and senses. You won’t find these at the cinemas regrettably but on TV. [...]

This film has always intrigued me. I am drawn to it like a moth to a flame. It is quite intoxicating in a very strange way. Its origins are from a book by the acclaimed science fiction author, Robert Heinlein, but, after seeing the film, you might think it came from a comic book or [...]

As you can see from the first part of this I am a fan of the old style epics which are usually historical stories with universal themes involving large scale conflict, and where no expense is spared, either on the costumes, settings or numbers of extras to fill the screen. However, apart from Gladiator and [...]

No, I’m not talking about his drunken rants against Jews but the dark side of his more recent films. Has any one noticed that you have to have a fairly strong stomach to watch the films directed by Mel Gibson? Of course you have. You have to wade through a lot of gore. It obviously [...]

It is quite common now to see graphic violence in films. You can even watch it on prime time television in the UK – just sit through a few episodes of Rome. We are used to going to the cinema now and seeing buckets of blood and gore, limbs and heads being hacked or sawed [...]

Well, I took my son to see 300 at the local Empire multiplex on Wednesday to see for myself what all the hype was about. I have to admit that it was far better than I had imagined. As long as you watch it  as a fantasy rendition of a true life event, then you see a stunning [...]

I’ve just been taken back to my childhood this afternoon. “The 300 Spartans” has been shown on ITV1. A friend and I saw this at one of the cinemas in Scunthorpe (my home town) when I was 11 during a wonderful and formative time in my life. I guess this latest TV showing is tied [...]

It must be a great time to be a young energetic and imaginative film-maker at the moment. “The world is your lobster!” as Derek Trotter might have said. Why do I say that?  Because it seems to me that they have more options now than their predecessors ever had. It was not so long ago that [...]

I am not a great fan of film remakes as they rarely live up to the original but when I heard that George Romero’s cult classic “Zombies – Dawn of the Dead” (or better, Zombies at Woolworth’s) was to be remade then my ears pricked up a little. I first tried to see the original [...]