Neon Camera Reviews

The Northman (2022)  By Calum Whitfield  A visceral, violent vignette of Viking vengeance that’s sure to entertain 4/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥🎥 Starring: Alexander Skarsgard, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman, et al Directed by: Robert Eggers  Where to find it: In select cinemas now  No Copyright Infringement Intended  When I saw Robert Eggers’ was making a (relatively) big-budget Viking epic I was surprised; his track record to date consists of The Witch, a highly effective folk horror set in the time of the first pilgrims landing in the USA, and The Lighthouse, a tight and strange but thoroughly engaging story about two men going crazy in a lighthouse. To go from those brilliant, but small features to a film with the scale and ambition of this seemed crazy to me but needless to say I was intrigued. Loosely based on the story of Amleth, the tale that also inspired Hamlet, The Northman recently got its wide release, but is it worth the price of admission? The...

West Side Story By Emily Hubbard Steven Spielberg’s first foray into musicals is a throwback to old Hollywood, that seamlessly adds a modern flare.  4.5/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥🎥.5 Directed by: Steven Spielberg  Starring: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, et al  Where to find it: Disney + No Copyright Infringement Intended  In recent years, remakes of beloved films have become somewhat of the norm. Many have criticised this onslaught by saying filmmakers have run out of fresh ideas, an argument fuelled by the fact that many of these remakes are poor in quality (take 2017s The Mummy, for example). However, every so often a director manages to get a retelling of a classic film right by keeping the essence of the original, whilst also adding just the right amount of modern filmmaking gloss. This is a rare feat to achieve, and yet with his version of West Side Story, Steven Spielberg may have just done it. The second on-screen feature-length adaptation of the 1957 m...

Death on the Nile By Calum Whitfield A fun murder mystery with a stellar cast. It doesn’t do anything new, but it does most of it well. 3.5/5 Cameras🎥🎥🎥.5 Directed by: Kenneth Branagh  Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Emma Mackey, et al Where to find it: In cinemas now  No Copyright Infringement Intended  Agatha Christie is by many counts the most successful author of all time and Hercule Poirot is far and away her most famous creation, having appeared in 33 novels and numerous film and television adaptations. I’ve never read or seen any of them, beyond maybe a few minutes of the ITV series starring David Suchet. That is until I decided to give the latest version of Death on the Nile a go, a sequel to a version of Murder on the Orient Express released a few years prior, and I must say I’m rather glad I did. Death in the Nile begins with Poirot (Kenneth Branagh, who also directed the film) visiting a bar in London where we are introduced to several ...

The Batman By Calum Whitfield A superhero spin on Seven that manages to somehow be the most comic book accurate Batman while still holding its own as a grounded crime thriller. 4/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥🎥 Directed by: Matt Reeves Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Jeffery Wright, Paul Dano, et al Where to find it: In Cinemas Now No Copyright Infringement Intended  Batman is one of the, if not the most, popular comic book characters ever created. As a result, there have been a lot of adaptations of him going in all kinds of directions, from gothic fantasy to high camp, to serious crime epics. Strangely, despite debuting in Detective Comics there hasn’t been a live-action Batman that was a detective story. Fortunately, Matt Reeves has also spotted this gap in the market. The Batman spares us another origin story, picking up two years after he first put on the cowl. We see The Riddler murder the mayor of Gotham on Halloween night, leaving behind a note directed to Batman. This spiral...

Peaky Blinders (Season 6, Episode 1) By Emily Hubbard  Birmingham’s finest export begins its’ final season in an explosive, yet emotional way. 4/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥🎥 Directed by: Anthony Byrne  Starring: Cillian Murphy, Finn Cole, Anya Taylor-Joy, et al  Where to find it: BBC iPlayer  No Copyright Infringement Intended  Cast your mind back to September 2019. Stormzy has just performed a stellar headline set at Glastonbury, the world was yet to hear the word ‘Covid-19’, and season 5 of one of the BBC’s most popular shows, Peaky Blinders, had just aired its final episode. Fast forward 888 days and the world is a completely different (and far scarier) place. After what has felt like a never-ending onslaught of horrible news, it will come as a relief that Birmingham’s finest current export is able to provide a much-needed familiarity with its long-awaited season 6 premiere. With previous seasons of the show involving a range of storylines, ranging from the Italian M...

Texas Chainsaw Massacre By Calum Whitfield  A trashy, c-tier slasher movie that completely misses what made the original a classic, but those in search of some mindless, silly gore can still get a kick.  2.5/5 Cameras 🎥🎥.5 Directed by: David Blue Garcia Starring: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, et al Where to find it: Netflix  No Copyright Infringement Intended  The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is a horror classic. Often seen as one of the original slashers, its dirty, video nasty look, coupled with an unsettling and shocking (certainly for the time) concept led to a film that still holds up today as an intense watch despite a, at least in my opinion, fairly weak final 20 minutes. Over the years there have been a million sequels, remakes, rip-offs, and the like, but none have really lived up to the original, misfiring when trying to hit the tone and feel that made the original such an unsettling watch. Has someone finally managed it? Not by a long shot...

Last Night in Soho By Calum Whitfield  Edgar Wright’s foray into thrillers is a vintage delight, blending a 60s style with a 70s tone in one tight modern package. 4/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥🎥 Directed by: Edgar Wright  Starring: Thomasin Mackenzie, Anya Taylor-Joy, Matt Smith, Diana Rigg, and Terrence Smith  Where to find it: Buy or Rent on Amazon Prime No Copyright Infringement Intended Edgar Wright is one of my favourite directors. Known for quirky comedy which he masterfully blends with other genres to create brilliant, fast-paced, kinetic movies in my opinion he hasn’t put a foot wrong so far in his film career. Last Night in Soho marks him moving into new, darker territory; does his winning streak continue? Last Night in Soho follows Eloise (Thomasin Mackenzie), a girl with a particular interest in 60’s music and culture from a small town in Cornwall where she lives with her Grandmother following her mother’s suicide when Eloise was young, who moves to London to pursue her ...