The decade that British film forgot

There’s obviously not a lot of film news about at the moment because my colleagues in the national press have gone film list crazy during the past week. One paper has started compiling the Top 100 films of all-time (again), while another lists the top...

Patrick Swayze gave fans the time of their lives

Just weeks after the death of writer-director John Hughes, it’s sad to be reporting the death of yet another 1980s icon; the dancer/actor Patrick Swayze – the man who swept his female fans off their feet in such romantic weepies as Dirty Dancing and Ghost....

Is it time to bring foreign films into the mainstream?

The wonderful Cambridge Film Festival is almost upon is, the line-up for the London Film Festival has been announced, why then is it so hard for independent films and foreign language films to find a screen in our local cinema? Multiplexes were supposed...

Is there more than Avatar this autumn?

The arrival of Avatar, James Cameron’s spectacular digital fairytale, has already got the film fans buzzing. Sneak previews of select pieces of footage and trailers have been unleashed in cinemas and online. There is a genuine sense of expectation building...