Top 5 of 2025

My 2025 has been a decent year for work and progressing with personal projects and ideas. As listed from 2021, I was intrigued to have a go at the film a day challenge and have been very active with that. The list can be seen below and I have managed the 365 in 365. But firstly My Top 5 of the year (based on UK release dates as always...

5. Steve

- I'm going to give no5 to this fairly lowkey film starring Cillian Murphy. The whole cast feel profoundly natural within the setting of a school for boys with societal and behavioural difficulties. It's a film that feels important and hopefully resonates with many people. Schools at large are a talking point in our ever changing society and this shows just how it affects those teaching and those being taught, in our education system. I also feel the teachers being interviewed by a camera crew within the film itself is a good choice compared to the film actually being the camera crew. Quite powerful stuff.

4. Frankenstein

- Del Toro's take on the modern Prometheus story is quite an interesting watch. Wonderfully creative set design within a costume period drama world. The split of story being told from 2 perspectives made for a refreshing take on a story told many times in film form. 

3.  Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere 

- I do like a biopic. And I'm fully aware these films are still a fictionalised version of someones story. But its also great to go into a film like this knowing so little as I did. My knowledge is non-existent when it comes to The Boss so I was very much in the hands of the film makers and for that reason its so nice to watch a story thats at least about something or someone real that I have no idea where its going (in terms of a story arc). I'm a big fan of director, Scott Cooper (he was the pull for me to see this actually) and Jeremy Allen White is outstanding as a Bruce going through personal struggles while riding the huge success from a recent tour. It's a tad long but I was engaged the whole way through. Also, like the film Air a few years back, I have such a sweet spot for watching the creative process happening so seeing Bruce and his team in the studio trying to capture magic is so enticing.

2. Weapons 

- In the same week, I caught Weapons and Together which shows how alive and creative the horror genre is right now. But I'll give the position to Weapons for its genuine creepiness in the first half and the surprising finale that just takes it to laugh out loud moments. I had a great time with this!

1. Sinners 

- I think it has to go to Sinners. A mulit-layered piece of film-making told from a personal place. Ryan Coogler used the whole canvas; used all the tools available to make a movie that is inherently large in historical scope and, tightly contained in an almost stuck-in-a-haunted-house styling for the third act. Loved, loved, loved the musical number, conjuring the many depictions of genre-defining styles over the 19th/20th century. Its shot beautifully, has a great soundtrack and brilliant performances.

I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up in many a end of year list, even end of decade list...

An extra mention to F1: The Movie for just being an absolute blast and what the big screen experience is all about.

I want to give a big shout out to a brilliant animated series on Netflix, Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight. I read a fair few of the comics growing up and I feel this show got the tone of the comics absolutely spot on.

So on to this years attempt of 365 films in 365 days. And this year I smashed through the 365 barrier somehow! Once again, regular font, I've seen the film before; in Bold, its a new watch and with an asterix (*) was a film viewed in the cinema...

Wicked (2024)*
Santa Claus is comin to Town (1970)
The Big Sleep (1946)
It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955)
A Hard Days Night (1964)
Interstellar (2014)*
The Andersonville Trial (1970)
Loch Ness (1996)
Aftersun (2022)
Carry-On (2024)
- 10
A Complete Unknown (2025)*
We Live in Time (2025)*
The Lost Weekend: A Love Story (2022)
Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
Angel Face (1952)
Cat People (1942)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)
Here (2025)
Relic (2020)
Curse of the Cat People (1944)
- 20
Horror Express (1972)
Funeral for an Assassin (1974)
The Thing from Another World (1951)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Nosferatu (2025)*
Mrs Doubtfire (1993)
Puss in Boots (2011)
Threads (1984)
The Art of Getting By (2011)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958)
- 30
Sense & Sensibility (1995)
Top Gun Maverick (2021)
Suspicion (1941)
Yellow Canary (1943)
The Brutalist (2025)*
Pearl (2022)
Infinity Pool (2023)
A Farewell to Arms (1932)
Bob Marley One Love (2024)>
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024)
- 40
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
The Gold Rush (1925)
The History Boys (2006)
Soul (2022)
Kinda Pregnant (2025)
A Goofy Movie (1995)
The Duke (2020)
Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Stepbrothers (2008)
Seeking a Friend for the end of the World (2012)
- 50
Toy Story (1995)
Alien Romulus (2024)
Turning Red (2022)
Toy Story 2 (1999)
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (2025)*
Bridget Jones: Edge of Madness (2004)
The Monkey (2025)*
The Banshees of Inisheran (2022)
Larry Crowne (2011)
Leon (1994)
- 60
Cars (2006)
The Aftermath (2019)
The Da Vinci Code (2006)
Peter Pan (1953)
The Last Showgirl (2025)*
Another Earth (2011)
Toy Story 3 (2010)
Toy Story 4 (2019)
Nightbitch (2024)
Mickey 17 (2025)*
- 70
Bend it Like Beckham (2002)
Forrest Gump (1994)
Shirley (2024)
Escape from Alcatraz (1979)
Next (2007)
The Miracle Club (2023)
What's Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)
Cars 2 (2011)
Civil War (2024)
Lancelot and Guinevere (1963)
- 80
Moana 2 (2024)
Mamma Mia (2013)
The Package (2018)
Snow White (2025)*
Waking Sleeping Beauty (2009)
The Last of the Mohicans (1936)
The Electric State (2025)
Star Wars A New Hope (1977)
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
The Nan Movie (2022)
- 90
American Graffiti (1973)
Just Cause (1995)
Animals (2019)
Flow (2025)*
Mr Burton (2025)*
Death of a Unicorn (2025)*
The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
Paddington in Peru (2024)
Jules Vernes Rocket to the Moon (1967)
Empire of Light (2022)
- 100
John Q (2002)
Pinocchio (2022)
TMNT: Mutant Mayhem (2023)
Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008)
Silence of the Lambs (1990)*
Second Chance (1953)
The Abyss (1989)
Death Promise (1977)
My Left Foot (1989)
King of Kings (1961)
- 110
Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Mr Destiny (1990)
Ghostbusters Afterlife (2021)
Mother's Instinct (2023)
Havoc (2025)
Insidious: The Red Door (2023)
Disney Tarzan (1999)
Luther: Fallen Sun (2023)
Concrete Cowboy (2021)
Star Wars Ep3 ROTS (2005)*
- 120
Stronger (2017)
The Big Short (2015)
The Power of the Dog (2021)
The Graduate (1968)
Alto Knights (2025)*
Life of the Party (2018)
Sinners (2025)*
The Single Mom's Club (2014)
Hawk the Slayer (1980)
A Night to Remember (1958)
- 130
Beastmaster (1982)
Sophie's Choice (1983)
Almost Famous (2000)
A Simple Favour (2018)
His Girl Friday (1940)
One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
The Day Will Dawn (1942)
Francis Ha (2012)
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Hang 'Em High (1968)
- 140
Legally Blonde (2001)
While We're Young (2014)
Little Women (2019)
Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning pt 1 (2023)
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)
Marriage Story (2019)
The Relic (1997)
Mission Impossible Final Reckoning (2025)*
Back to the Future Part 2 (1989)
Dark Shadows (2012)
- 150
Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)
Lilo & Stitch (2025)*
Drew: The Man Behind the Poster (2013)
Jungle Cruise (2021)
Jaws 2 (1978)
Cars 3 (2017)
Jaws The Revenge (1987)
Jaws 3-D (1983)
Open Water (2003)
Is That Black Enough for You? (2022)
- 160
A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
Lion King II: Simba's Pride (1998)
Signs (2002)
Song of the Sea (2014)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Corpse Bride (2005)
Doctor Strange (2016)
The Crazies (2010)
How to Train Your Dragon (2025)*
The Company of Wolves (1984)
- 170
Judy (2019)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Absolutely Anything (2015)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Happy Gilmore (1996)
Fort Apache (1948)
Wagon Master (1950)
Big Fish (2003)
- 180
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
28 Days Later (2002)
The Magnificent Seven (1960)
28 Years Later (2025)*
F1 The Movie (2025)*
Countess Dracula (1971)
Twins of Evil (1971)
Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Vampire Circus (1972)
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)*
- 190
F1 The Movie (2025)*
TT3D Closer to the Edge (2011)
Benny & Joon (1993)
John Carter (2012)
Jurassic World Rebirth (2025)*
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
Daddy Day Camp (2007)
Cool Runnings (1993)
Saltburn (2023)
Operation Crossbow (1965)
- 200
Around the World in 80 Days (2004)
The 39 Steps (1935)
Shutter Island (2010)*
The Wonder (2022)
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023)
The Muppet Movie (1979)
Jim Henson Idea Man (2024)
The Fantastic Four: The First Steps (2025)*
The Aviator (2004)
Jaws @ 50 (2025)
- 210
Only the Brave (2017)
Clerks III (2023)
The Substitute (2024)
IT (2017)
Galaxy Quest (1999)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Happy Gilmore 2 (2025)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Deliverance (1972)
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)
- 220
Brigsby Bear (2017)
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
X-Men (2000)*
Chef (2014)
Empire Records (1995)
Barbarian (2022)
The Naked Gun (1988)
Weapons (2025)*
The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (1991)
The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994)
- 230
Leo (2023)
Beau is Afraid (2023)
Logan (2017)*
Fright Night (1985)
Copycat (1995)
The Natural (1984)
Silverado (1985)

Elemental (2023)
Smurfs (2025)*
Together (2025)*
- 240
Junior (1994)
All About Eve (1950)
KPop Demon Hunters (2025)
Grown Ups 2 (2013)
The Bad Guys 2 (2025)
Soul (2022)
The Haunting (1963)
Sinners (2025)
Elio (2025)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
- 250
Jaws (1975)*
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
The Iron Claw (2023)
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
Carry-On (2024)
Queen and Slim (2019)
The Three Faces of Eve (1957)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
The Jackel (1997)
Jumanji (1995)*
- 260
Heathers (1988)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
October Sky (1999)
Hot Fuzz (2007)
Jumper (2008)
Anger Management (2003)
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
Cobra (1986)
Hands of the Ripper (1971)
Asterisk & Obelix: Mansion of the God's (2014)
- 270
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Farewell My Lovely (1975)
Project A (1983)
Project A part II (1987)
The Nice Guys (2016)
Over the Top (1987)
Bones And All (2022)
Brief Encounter (1945)
Road House (2024)
Training Day (2001)
- 280
Unforgiven (1991)
Dunkirk (1958)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Le Mans (1971)
Scream (1996)
Scream 2 (1997)
Scream 3 (2000)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004)
The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)*
- 290
Army of Darkness (1992)
Halloween II (1981)
One Battle After Another (2025)*
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
The Smashing Machine (2025)*
Till (2022)
World War Z (2014)
Heretic (2024)
Jeepers Creepers (2001)
Saw (2004)
- 300
Heaven's Gate '151min (1980)
Saw 2 (2005)
Saw 3 (2006)
Rolling Thunder (1977)
Steve (2025)
The Ruins (2008)
Halloween (2018)
Mack & Rita (2022)
And So It Goes (2014)
Halloween (1978)
- 310
Buried (2010)
Life (1999)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
The Old Guard (2020)
The Old Guard 2 (2025)
The Woman in Cabin 10 (2025)
The Babadook (2014)
This is 40 (2012)
Urban Legend (1998)
Army of One (2016)
- 320
Ticket to Paradise (2022)
Oblivion (2013)
Imaginary (2024)
Deep Impact (1998)
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009)
Piggy (2022)
Enys Men (2022)
Late Night with the Devil (2023)
The Menu (2022)
Last Night in Soho (2021)
- 330
Wicked: For Good (2025)*
Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
White Noise (2022)
Being Eddie (2025)
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (2025)*
The Running Man (2025)*
Ricky Stanicky (2024)
Casper (1995)
Frankenstein (2025)
E.T. The Extra Terrestrial (1982)
-  340
The Greatest Showman (2018)
Vengeance (2022)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
50/50 (2011)
Smother (2008)
Jeanne du Barry (2023)
The Wooden Horse (1950)
Heat (1995)*
Wicked: For Good (2025)*
The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)
- 350
The Apprentice (2024)
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair (2025)*
Genius (2013)
John Candy: I Like Me (2025)
The Long Walk Home (1990)
Jay Kelly (2025)
In Your Dreams (2025)
The Santa Clause (1994)
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Last Breath (2025)
- 360
The Batman (2022)
A Real Pain (2025)
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025)
A Complete Unknown (2025)

Laura (1944)

Klaus (2019)

Jackass 4.5 (2022)

Bohemian Rhapsody (2018)

Rashômon (1950)

Scrooge A Christmas Carol (1951)

370

Man Up (2015)

Ghost (1990)

The Thursday Murder Club (2025)

Home Alone (1990)

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

Miracle on the 34th Street (1994)

Migration (2023)

Signs (2002)

Fountain of Youth (2025)

380

The Roses (2025)

Toy Story 4 (2019)

Top 5 of 2024

The start of the year was a continuation of 2023s strikes and the fallout from the affects of the on-going debate of Ai in our industry. Despite this, a number of films made their way to the big screen including Wicked part 1; a film I worked on and by most accounts was a resounding success critically and at the box office. within the 12 months I do seem to have seen less films this year than the previous few.

5. The Bikeriders - my bias to another time period is pretty evident in this years list. A bygone age of a time that at least appears to be of a simpler time (or is it?); the draw of taking a bike out on the wide American landscape is appealing to my British sensibilities that were at one time very enamoured with the US of A. But as this story shows, an idea can be born from an individual and escalate into something entirely different.

4. Poor Things - similarly to many other people, I found this film to be so quirky with its imaginative visuals. Admittedly, I think there's a point in the first 15mins that if you can 'go with it' then the rest of the film is a madcap Frankensteinian adventure.

3. The Substance - Demi Moore is great in this body horror attack on beauty, youth and stardom. It's dreamlike and nightmarish in equal measure. The glamour of industry is barely visible instead showing the lecherous grim reality of agents and their agenda's to find the next best thing. This films crawls and oozes into a finally that is frankly insane and extreme in physical effects. And I loved it the whole way!

2. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga - speaking with a few people, I wasn't aware of this film being quite so divisive as it was (certainly nowhere near as much as Joker 2...). Whether it was expectation coming off the back of Fury Road or the fact it simply had no Max in it for the audience to put themselves within a recognisable landscape, the film supposedly didn't do what was hoped for it. And yet I hope and pray that George Miller gets to put the final part of his planned triptych of modern Max films on the big screen sooner than later. This film is indeed following, in my opinion, the greatest action film of the 21st century (so far). But with a strong character in Furiosa and an intensely wild world with equally colourful side characters, I was all over this film and ready to take a step into the harsh wasteland of tribes, Warboys and Bullet Town once again. Dont let anyone tell you this film is MEDIOCRE. It certainly isn't...

1. The Holdovers - cast your mind way way back to the start of the year and a movie I was anticipating for a Christmas 2023 release arrived on UK shores for a January date instead, hence it making my 2024 list. A film beautifully set in a snowy 1970s with equally beautiful 1970s film grain. There was a trailer which felt it had come from a different era and excited me from the get-go.
A cast led by the great Paul Giamatti tells such an engaging story with humour and heartfelt turns along the way. It's one of those films that just let's you hangout with the characters and move through their life with them as apposed being pulled along on a roller coaster. I loved every minute of it!

Shout out and honourable mentions to Society of the Snow, American Fiction, The Iron Claw, Juror #2.

No more bottom 5. Why point out things you didn't like. It takes an army of people to make these films at any scale and the intention is never to make a 'bad' film.

Top 5 of 2023

And so another year passes and I have done little to add any meat to the bare bones of this blog (no one blogs these days, let's admit it).

Mostly I have been fortunate to remain busy with projects during what has been, another rocky year in very recent memory due to industry strikes from the writers (WGA) and actors (SAG) unions. I simply make a note of this for prosperity/my own record.

But despite this, seeing films has still been a much enjoyed activity during my down time. So what are my Top 5 of the year...

5. The Super Mario Bros Movie - despite being the ideal gamer age; I was in Camp Sega rather than Nintendo so my deep knowledge of the little plumbers game was fairly limited. That being said I was looking forward to this and it didn't disappoint. A lovely looking film and genuinely light and breezy with its humour, pacing and story al existing within a 'Mario' world. This is what I always wanted the Sonic Movies to be...

4. Dream Scenario - a quirky Nic Cage film should be a yearly expectation. This one plays far straighter than the more comedic leaning trailer that advertised it. I found it was littered with humorous observations and moments that were nicely wrapped around a relevant topic that we are living in right now. Sure, it's 3rd act aims at a less ambiguous resolve but ultimately how else could it finish up. It kept me intrigued and entertained throughout

3. The Fabelmans - a part Spielberg-biography movie from the man himself. It doesn't reach the lofty heights of his greatest works (an expectation almost unfairly placed by the audience) but I find this story, although a little nichè, to still be pretty universal and the specifics, including the love letter to film to be a massive personal draw for me. Its a film that I can relate to heavily and also feel the self-inflicted questions it asks being directed back at me also making for a self reflective film.

2. Air - arriving early in the year, I had almost forgotten about this title. But seeing its name and the cast list reminded me of the real fun I had watching this story about the licensing of a trainer (who'd have thought it hey...). Parts I knew about were dramatised in a light and entertaining way and the stuff I didn't know about kept me invested and looking forward to more of its story. There's nothing wrong in a film doing exactly what it's supposed to and taking its viewers along for a comfortable ride.

1. Past Lives - a beautiful telling of a friendship/relationship spread across 2 decades and how we act/react to the cards we are delt in life. The Korean culture adds layers of subtly to the complicated relationship that is forged. An amazing film for a first time feature director.

A little honourable shout out to some particular titles include the Arnold and Bill Russell: Legend docs, Leave the World Behind, The Creator and Killers of the Flower Moon among many others.

My bottom 5 based on what Ive seen this year are as follows

5. Rebel Moon Part 1
4. Meg 2
3. Your Place or Mine
2. Heart of Stone
1. Mothers Day

Top 5 0f 2022

Well there goes another year of inactivity on here (but who's keeping count or reading this anyway)
Not sure I've watched a whole lot this year or at least not as much as I'd have liked to. Here's my five favourites that I saw, released in the UK in 2022.

5. Del Toro's Pinocchio - the attention to the details and the craft in which this film is lovingly made makes it an easy top 5 position. A lovely take on the tale with some surprising melancholia

4. Violent Night - nice to have something festive in the list this time of year, I thought I'd throw it in for fun. Unashamably a love letter to Die Hard and Home Alone yet being its own thing in its own right.

3. Everything Everywhere All at Once - sometimes amongst the art films and the popcorn movies you need something that fuses/blends the 2 cinematic ends of the scale to excite and surprise you with something new or different. Nutty, multiverse, OTT extravaganza. Everyone plays their part brilliantly. False ends, alternate realities and talking rocks (amongst many other things...) leads to the most creative film of the year

2. Top Gun: Maverick - a few years ago 2 films were, perhaps unjustly, held up with the responsibility of 'saving cinema' due to the terrible impact of Covid. Neither No Time to Die or Tenet could pull off the lofty expectations put upon them by the culture at large but this year we saw the potential of having a film succeed in reinvigorating the box office AND be a worthy and exciting watch. Top Gun pulled the mammoth task off. A true cinema experience to be seen big and loud and multiple times! Brilliant stuff

1. The Banshees of Inisherin - hitting all the emotional range possible, this film is extremely funny, poignnant, sad across the course of its tale. Amazing performance from everyone (and a donkey). The drama plays out in and around beautiful Irish scenery and leaves you with a mixed bag of feelings. Beautiful film making...

Some honourable mentions to Trainwreck Woodstock '99 (an indepth and in some ways morbidly interesting look at how an event can go oh so wrong), Brian and Charles (brilliantly english in the best and most sombre ways), All of Us are Dead (love me some zombie action coming out of Korea) and The Batman, of which has been my favourite job to have worked on so far.

As usual I happened across some stuff I was not keen on; three of which are below 1. The Reef: Stalked 2. Disneys Pinocchio 3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Top 5 of 2021

Along with this list (and the only post of the year. What a pointless blog this is...), I'm including a list of every film I saw in full this year. Off the back of Edgar Wright's yearly list, I was inspired/curious as to how many movies I could or do watch in a year. For now here is my usual Top 5 that came out in the UK this year...

5. Riders of Justice
- Mads Mikkelsen plays an incredibly wound up soldier who, going through a family tragedy, exacts some revenge through the help of statistic experts. Odd right? Wait til you see the rest of the film. The blackest of comedic moments and at times horribly depressing made for a watch where you were never quite sure which direction the film would head. It's good to be kept guessing...

4. Dune
- can only really go off the one watch in the cinema but I enjoyed it enough as a big screen experience.

3. Free Guy
- accept for three minor plot issues I had, Free Guy represents the fun that can be had at the cinema. Anyone with a youtube account will probably be aware of the build up to this film thanks to Ryan Reynolds consistant and amusing teasings of the film. Marketed as if it was almost never going to arrive and RR being peak RR, you knew exactly what you were getting in terms of humour and action. I just really enjoyed it as a whole.

2. King Richard
- I went in to see this with little to no knowledge of its background and was genuinely entertained by the whole thing. An account of the tennis-pro William's sisters early beginnings and upbringing by their dad its by far the best performance from Will Smith in a long time. That's not to say Will hasn't been great recently but I can't remember when I last saw him not as Mr Smith but as the character he was playing. I think he may be deserving of at least a best actor nomination this year.

1. Another Round
- Mads Mikkelsen makes a second appearance. A brilliant ensemble shows the potential highs and many more realistic lows to pushing the limit of alcohol consumption. A deeply personal project for the director Thomas Vinterberg and yet again Mads proves himself to be one of the best acting talents of the past 15 years.

An honourable mention goes out to The Beatles: Get Back documentary, Bo Burnham's Inside, Moxie, Nobody and Raya and the Last Dragon. As always the bottom 3 for me are worryngly poor. I give you the title and nothing else.
1. Father Christmas is Back
2. Twist
3. Thunderforce


AND so to this list I compiled. This is the list of films watched in the order I happened to see them. Bold for new releases, standard text for rewatches. The only repeat was seeing No Time to Die twice in the cinema. Enjoy

Monsters Inc (2001)
Hellraiser (1987)
Dark Waters (2020)
Easy Rider (1969)
Mortal Engines (2018)
#Alive (2020)
Cats (2019)
Taking Lives (2004)
The Last of the Mohicans (1992)
Ghost (1990)
- 10
Inside Man (2006)
The Wife (2017)
Mank (2020)
Mindhorn (2016)
The Sixth Sense (2000)
What's Your Number (2011)
Monty Python's Holy Grail (1974)
A Dogs Journey (2018)
Semi Pro (2008)
The Nutty Professor (1996)
- 20
Widows (2018)
Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)
6 Underground (2019)
A Hard Days Night (1964)
Lucky (2017)
Jojo Rabbit (2020)
The Day After Tomorrow (2004)
The Drowning (2016)
Dredd (2012)
Bumblebee (2018)
- 30
The Gentlemen (2020)
Evil Dead (2013)
THX 1138 (1971)
The Boy with the Striped Pyjamas (2008)
Twist (2021)
Sputnik (2020)
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)
Forces of Nature (2000)
Instant Family (2018)
Just Mercy (2020)
- 40
News of the World (2021)
The Invisible Man (2020)
The Notebook (2004)
Sliding Doors (1998)
Table 19 (2017)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Dawn of the dead (1978)
Tag (2018)
Pearl Harbour (2001)
Pele (2021)
- 50
Witness (1985)
Arrival (2016)
Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm (2020)
I Care Alot (2021)
Black or White (2019)
Grosse Point Blank (1997)
Disciples of the 36th Chamber (1985)
Moxie (2021)
Eighth Grade (2019)
Cyrus (2010)
- 60
Carry On Screaming (1966)
Doctor Sleep (2019)
Ben-Hur (1959)
The Best of Enemys (2019)
Soul (2020)
S.W.A.T (2003)
Bird on a Wire (1990)
Back to the Future (1985)
Willy's Wonderland (2020)
Thunder Force (2021)
- 70
Ghost Ship (2002)
Stowaway (2021)
Baby Mama (2002)
The Duelists (1977)
Nobody (2021)
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)
I Origins (2014)
Sound of Metal (2021)
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
The Art of Self-Defence (2019)
- 80
Enough Said (2013)
The Quick and the Dead (1995)
Unhinged (2020)
Red Tails (2012)
Mission Impossible: Fallout (2019)
The Devil's Own (1997)
Nomadland (2021)
Promising Young Woman (2021)
Rambo: Last Blood (2019)
The Unholy (2021)
- 90
Things Heard and Seen (2021)
The Doors (1991)
There Will Be Blood (2008)
Angel Has Fallen (2019)
Cruella (2021)
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)
The Father (2021)
Legends of the Fall (1994)
Scary Stories To Tell in the Dark (2019)
A Quiet Place Part 2 (2021)
- 100
The United Way (2020)
Breakdown (1997)
Mad Max Fury Road (2015)
The Truman Show (1998)
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Army of the Dead (2021)
Ma (2019)
Palm Springs (2021)
Supernova (2021)
Another Round (2021)
- 110
The Comeback Trail (2021)
F9 (2021)
Luca (2021)
Yesterday (2019)
Space Cowboys (2000)
The Hunted (2004)
Black Widow (2021)
Midway (2019)
Raw Deal (1986)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
- 120
Old (2021)
The Fighter (2013)
The Mitchell's vs The Machines (2021)
Run (2021)
High Crimes (2002)
11:14 (2003)
Jungle Cruise (2021)
Callan (1974)
The Client (1994)
Unbreakable (2000)
- 130
Love and Monsters (2021)
The Dark Knight (2009)
Archive (2020)
Free Guy (2021)
'71 (2014)
Bad Trip (2021)
ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas (2019)
Seaspiracy (2021)
Candyman (2021)
Wonder woman 1984 (2020)
- 140
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Reminiscence (2021)
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Richard Jewell (2019)
Copshop (2021)
Malcolm X (1992)
Malignant (2021)
Kate (2021)
Summer of Soul (2021)
Deep Rising (1997)
- 150
Split (2016)
Barb and Star go to Vista Del Mar (2021)
A Clockwork Orange - 4k restoration (1971)
The Firm (1993)
Pale Rider (1985)
Minari (2021)
Coogan's Bluff (1968)
Man on Fire (2004)
Romy and Michelle's Highschool Reunion (1997)
Respect (2021)
- 160
The Fellowship of the Ring - 4k restoration (2001)
The Two Towers - 4k restoration (2002)
Bloodbath at the House of Death (1984)
Hidden Figures (2016)
I Feel Pretty (2018)
Quantum of Solace (2008)
Breaking In (2018)
Casino Royale (2006)
The Voyeurs (2021)
No Time To Die (2021)
- 170
No Sudden Move (2021)
Dune Pt1 (2021)
The Guilty (2021)
The Last Duel (2021)
The Loved Ones (2008)
Something Borrowed (2011)
Halloween Kills (2021)
Halloween (1978)
V for Vendetta (2006)
After.Life (2009)
- 180
The Founder (2017)
Last Night in Soho (2021)
Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)
Ransom (1996)
Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (1984)
For a Few Dollars More (1965)
No Time To Die (2021) x2
Coherence (2014)
Crazy/Beautiful (2001)
- 190
Red Notice (2021)
Halloween V: Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)
Ewoks: The Battle For Endor (1985)
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Christmas Chronicles (2018)
Rocky IV: Balboa vs Drago (2021)
Thor (2011)
Ghostbusters Afterlife (2021)
King Richard (2021)
House of Gucci (2021)
- 200
She's The Man (2006)
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
The Matrix re-release (1999)
Riders of Justice (2021)
Lovehard (2021)
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings (2021)
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
West Side Story (2021)
The Christmas Chronicles Part 2 (2020)
Last Christmas (2019)
- 210
Godzilla vs Kong (2021)
Mechanic Resurrection (2016)
Splash (1984)
Home Alone (1990)
Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)
Spiderman 3 (2007)
Ron's Gone Wrong (2021)
South Pacific (1958)
Highlander (1987)
The Rookie (1990)
- 220
The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019)
Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)
Encanto (2021)
Scrooge (1970)
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
The Haunting (1999)
Father Christmas is Back (2021)
Klaus (2019)


Some series I managed to get through this year...
Cobra Kai S3 (2020)
The Terror S1 (2020)
Black Summer S2 (2021)
Them S1 (2021)
Mighty Ducks: Game Changers S1 (2021)
Rick and Morty S5 (2021)
Vigil S1 (2021)
Final Space S3 (2021)
The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

Top 5 of 2020

I initially thought the look back on this is going to be limited. 2020 was crap and we all know it. But rifling through my watched films released this year, on IMDb, I have somehow caught 29 movies despite the limited availablity for the silver screen. So as usual, what follows is the best I personally saw in 2020 and then a short list of the drivel I also encountered...

5. The Gentlemen
- a genuinely fun time is had following the usual reprobates and charismatic characters from a new Guy Ritchie film. Just gets in there with a 1st Jan release date. Let's just forget he made Aladdin...

4. Calm with Horses
- a small but tough Irish family drama with a truely believable performance from actor Cosmo Jarvis about an ex-boxer who makes the mistake of not doing his master's bidding.

3. The Invisible Man
- somewhat of a surprisingly good remake but that feels unfair. Remake seems the wrong word as it's simply a modern telling of a classic story. The camera's lingering performance elevates the whole thing which reminds me of Carpenter's original Halloween...

2. Tenet
- this years "saviour of cinema" didn't quite live up to such a title but realistically what film would. The pandemic isn't going anywhere any time soon. A lot has been said of the film already. For now I think it's Marmite for many people. I feel that second viewing makes all the difference and in time, may be looked at with more favoured eyes. I do however agree with some views of whether a film should perform on first viewing for an audience unlikely to go for repeat screenings. It lacks the balanced entertainment and smart story telling that instant classic, Inception, has going for it but maybe this film is a fine wine in the long run.

1. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet
- a documentary film but a film nonetheless. And possibly the most important film of the year for the world to watch. If the message doesn't sink in after watching it then I can't the lesson being learnt in quick enough time. Sad, informative, entertaining, inspired.

An honourable mention goes out to Saint Maud, for a quietly unsettling envoyable time at the cinema and The Last Dance, for being absolutely brilliant across the board. As always the bottom 3 are the pants of what I saw this year. I throw little more than the title and no extra attention to them.
1. Dolittle 2. Bloodshot 3. Mulan

Top 5 of 2019

Well this is depressing. The one and only post of the year is my end of year round up...

To be fair, Ive been busy in the best of ways work wise this year having worked on Fast & Furious 9 followed by Batman so Ive had zero time to make any personal work.
As we end this decade Im definately coming out of it in a far different place than what I came in to it, for good, and sadly, for bad also (but that's not for here).

OK, so whats my Top 5 of the year? (As always based purely on what Ive seen released in 2019 in the UK...

5. Toy Story 4
- could they do it again. One more time. Apparently so. Some fun highlights like Duke Kaboom, the ventriloquist dummys and the high five soldier made this a fun film but it brought the emotion with a real sense of goodbye between Woody and Buzz that anyone who grew up with these characters could feel as well. But I will say Buzz is sorely under-used in this film...

4. Us
- I enjoyed Getout but perhaps not as much as the rest of the world apparently. Us on the other hand was a step up for me and it took Peele's horror sense to larger, national scale. Great stuff indeed!

3. Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
- is it long, yeah; self-indulgent, perhaps. Is it his best thing since Basterds, I think so. Also Brad Pitt has created the coolest QT character since Sam Jackson showed up in Pulp Fiction!

2. Le Mans '66
- this film was dramatic, exhilarating and above all else, damn fun. Seeing it on the big screen helps and I just really enjoyed a film that takes you comfotably through the story with solid performances and confident directing from Mangold.

1. Avengers Endgame
- was there going to be anything else? for story telling, juggling the size of it, emotional beats and sheer entertainment which is what these films sometimes forget to be. Also, so so satisfying. Something never to be under-appreciated. Marvel did it. Congrats. I can leave the MCU behnd now and be perfectly happy if I never saw another one. Amazing

Notable shoutout to The Irishman and Chernobyl which I'd love to have included in the list.

Bottom 5 as always based on what Ive seen and not particularly bad films. Just lowest rated by me...
1. Gemini Man
2. In The Tal Grass
3. Men in Black International
4. Godzilla King of Monsters
5. Dumbo

Top 5 of 2018

Time once again for my personal Top 5 of the year based purely on UK releases that I have managed to catch within the year; so before you ask 'why no SpiderMan?' it is because I haven't seen it yet!

5. Mission Impossible Fallout
One of, if not the only film series to be getting better as they go on. It's easy to have gotten caught up in the media surrounding just how practical this film was to be and how much of the work in camera was done by the Cruise himself but it all paid off massively with great story callbacks and continuations from previous entries which made me very happy. Ive been vocal to people about my theory on how you can rate the quality of an MI film based on the length of Tom Cruise's hair in each particular film so I was pretty confident going into this one. Equally, director Chris McQuarrie's Epic Empire Podcast Part 1 and Part 2/3 are just as good as the film!

4. Bohemian Rhapsody
Saw this twice at the cinema. It is horribly inaccurate with its timeline of events but by using the Live Aid performance as a bookend, it is structured in a way to play more to your feelings. An average enjoyer of the Queen catalogue its a great time to enjoy what is effectively a "Greatest Hits" of their work. It's a null point at this time to go on about how good Rami Malek's interpretation of Freddie is. It's all just so enjoyable! Seeing it big and loud was its biggest strength. Being too young to witness an original Queen lineup, I realised half way through the film I had never heard the band in a loud bombastic way like that of a gig. Hearing the tracks on a stereo system definately takes away from their impact. The film in a cinema corrects this...

3. Incredibles 2
The family dynamic is finally back and fittingly carrying on almost seamlessly from the first film. Just as many fun moments as the first and lovely spectacle we've come to expect from Pixar. Minor weakness would be the 'badguy' of the film feels a tad weak in comparrison to Syndrome but Im nitpicking... Jack Jack jokes and parenting is a super power are the greatest take-aways from this film.

2. They Shall Not Grow Old
A film of great importance, it feels somewhat wrong to describe this as "entertainment" in the same way as Saving Private Ryan's opening 20mins. The work gone into making hundred year old war footage come alive is something to truely marvel at. It's approach to pull you in through the black and white world as we enter the war with a gradual zoom and colour increase is magical without ever being a "look at this!" moment. THe voice work is brilliant and at times intense and heartbreaking. Stunning work and quite rightly compulsary viewing in our schools now. Thank you Peter Jackson.

1. Avengers Infinity War
A bit obvious but it couldn't be anything else right? 10 years of building. There have been a few dips and troughs along the way but nothing to cry about. Amazing visuals aside the story was strong and bolstered by an imense cast all doing their part. A fully realised Thanos is the icing on the cake. Possibly like the original Yoda in Empire, if audiences didn't believe in this character than the film may have collapsed on itself. With strong foundations in the Marvel world, they've built a towering series of films for the 21st century... Come on Endgame. You've got us all ready and waiting...

Honourable mentions go to the following for all being great bits of film throughout the year; The Last Movie Star, The Shape of Water, Lady Bird and Haunting of Hill House for beign a great little mini series on Netflix.

As for my bottom 5 once again the list is by no means the worst things I ve ever seen as Ive likewly avoided the truely aweful titles. These are just lower rated in my opinion

5. Venom
4. After The Screaming Stops
3. When The Devil and Father Amorth
2. The Cloverfield Paradox
1. The Open House

Practice/learning. Interior lighting

So between projects (and partially becase of a current project) I felt I wanted to practice more with lighting within 3D space. As digital modelling isn't quite the same as switching on a normal light bulb, I wanted to play with settings to see if I could further grasp how to recreate a 'look' for my concept art.

My fundamental inspiration came from using a recognisable film frame and rereating a set rather than simply making something up and hoping it looked right. Also the first 20minutes of a great panel discussion with John Knoll at Star Wars Celebration 2016 gave a similar, more polished example of what I was thinking of.

So as you can see below, this is my current desktop wallpaper. A Star Destroyer hangar bay from Jedi I believe...

The first thing was to match the perspective and camera view which can be done pretty effectively using MatchPhoto in SketchUp. I began by blocking out the space that was visible. No point in building outside of the camera view. Let's be cost/time effective ;)

The red highlighted area is a note that I never intended on building outside of the hangar. It would be painted or photbashed in as a background element.

The foreground gantry really sits quite far back in terms of the shot but realistically you can recognise the forground element is actually shot footage on a matte.

Detail was never the intention with this practice build. I blocked in the notable forms and of course light sources. The Imperial Shuttle (below, red), I grabbed from the SU warehouse so kudos to the person who built it. Highlighted below in yellow is a very large spot light source (I should mention I was using Podium as my rendering software). The green scribbles are omni light sources. Used to light the general area they are placed without a specific direction.

A reverse view shows the model build and lack of any detail behind the 'camera lens' (red).

A cross-section of the build shows how the entire set was encased to remove any 'outside' light that may affect the interior space.

RENDERING

So the first render was literally to see what would happen before I turned on any lights. The main source of light came from 'outside' the set before I had taken the time to box everything in as described above.

It's pretty dark at this point, so lets turn on the lights.

The huge bars of light that go around the opening I set with 'intensity' turned on but for the vertical light panels on the side and blue glow from the elevator I turned on to something like '10' to see what would happen. As you can see it's a total blow out of light. Too much from that outside spot light (something daft like '64'). All way too much but a starting point. Now to pull it back.

This was better. the vertical lights I dropped down to '6' I think and the outside spot light went down too '44' and was moved back a tad. It was at this point I realised the outside space was affecting the set as well and so I blocked it in with a black box to resemble space. Playing with lights and numbers proved helpful when I purposefully started with too much as it gave me something to work back to rather than say starting at lighting strength '1' and going up from there. It would have taken too long.

Now I'm not a 3D modeller (hence my use of SketchUp). I'm not sure I could call myself a 3D generalist either. For what I do and my process. This (half a days work so far) is enough to work with in concepting up. There is a general feel of the correct light levels beginning to come through and once brought in to Photoshop I would be able to make minor level adjustments much quicker than inside the model. Again, the idea of this test was to practice lighting a space (in this case a very large one).

With a very quick drop in of the background and a little adjustment you can see the beginnings of a set being concepted with a strong light source that is effective and realistic enough to work with...

Top 5 of 2017

That time of year again! So, there were many titles I'd have like to have seen (happens every year, of course) and am guessing may have even made the list (Get Out perhaps? Girl with All the Gifts? Raw?). But alas, my top and bottom 5 are based on this year’s viewing habits.

5. Hacksaw Ridge
When people in power make mistakes, it's rare we let them forget about it in this modern age, let alone forgive them for it. I feel it's safe to say after the better part of a decade Mel Gibson made a deserved comeback with this film. Like him or not, the film itself is a very strong entertaining (if you can call war just that) tale based on the humbling truth of a soldier who didn't give up on his beliefs. Like a lot of war titles, it displays the best (and worst) in people. If you don't feel like doing 'the right thing' after its viewing, you have missed the point...

4. Baby Driver
We were promised speed, colour, action and lightning fast dialogue and for a first time experience it didn't fail to deliver. Subsequent viewings have yet to occur so I'm interested to see what life the film manages to take on past this year (if viewed more times, I may have placed this at no3). But for now, a vibrant original film with loving references to 70's car action has been a welcome distraction to the familiar OTT car-nage of the FATF series amongst other tentpole action films with too much bang for its buck. Enough talk has been made on its kinship with its soundtrack.

3. Logan
So, we got the Wolverine western we'd been asking for (apparently). A pretty fitting and respectable end to a character/actor many my age have grown up with. The noir edition is a nice touch for those interested. In time I feel my generation may look on this first 'wave' of superhero films the way older generations debate the best Bond era; typically championing the ones we grow up with. There may be better or 'more-like-the-comic' versions of Logan in the coming years but Jackman's portrayal will no doubt set a benchmark for the conflicted elements of a worn-out anti-hero that we, and certainly I, hold as one of my favourite of all fictional greats.

2. IT
The hype machine on this was selling the best thing in a long time in horror circles. Up front I cannot claim to be anything of a King fan or that of previous telling’s of the IT story so I entered this with no preconceived notions or expectation. I was all-round entertained, suitably chilled (never quite scared) and importantly left eager with the promise of a concluding part to this film. A tale more about youth, growing up and its fears and friendship then simply some bulbous headed clown killings. Great casting makes this film work.

1. War for the Planet of the Apes
This film was THE experience for me this year. The hope to enter that dark room and be taken on a journey for 2 hours that leaves you with something is always what I want from a cinema experience. This film managed that beautifully. Already a great admirer of 'Dawn' (less of 'Rise') the conclusion to this Cesar-arc was handled greatly by Matt Reeves who really has proven himself again and again with big budget film. A war film that brings to mind many a great title from Bridge on the River Kwai and The Great Escape to more harrowing moments that I can't help comparing to Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List. Good company to be amongst no doubt...
I expect Dawn and War will be played often in my home over the coming years.

Honourable mentions go to Blade Runner 2049 and Life, two sci-fi's just shy of my top list. Also check out the documentaries called One of Us, which can be found on Netflix about the Hasidic Jewish community; and Five Came Back (also Netflix) about the pioneering directors of Hollywood who served during WWII.
The ultimate mention goes to Stranger Things season 2. If I wasn't so strict about my list being films, I'd have this as the no1 thing I watched this year. I feel I could write forever about the strengths of this show but for now all I say is this; in a time where spectacle is measured as being "epic!" and "awesome!", few things are ever "wholly satisfying", and Stranger Things is satisfying as f**k!

My bottom 5 in no real order or importance because nothing here is overly harmful. In fact, this year’s post really doesn't warrant a bottom list as I didn't see anything that was painful enough to call rubbish

5. Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge
4. The Babysitter
3. Death Note (Netflix)
2. Beauty and the Beast
1. Ghost in the Shell

Top 5 of 2016

End of a very sad year as far as who we lost in the entertainment world. Easily more so than any previous year that held some value of importance to us (myself espeically).

But in the mean time here are my regular top and bottom 5 films of the year. Again this is based on the films I have seen that released in the UK from Jan 1st of this year.

5. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Happy to have a Star Wars film in my top5 at last. Much better second time around and better than Ep7. The last 20-30 mins are so satisfying and we wer promised somewhat of a war film which they delivered on quite nicely. Talk of CGI faces is mute at this point to me. My feeling is 'uncanny valley' will ans should always be something we recognise as human beings. It's built in to our DNA to spot irregularities in our species so at this point the best you can do is perfect mannerisms and performance rather than exacting the look of someone. There are 3-5 mins I'd cut in the first hour but its not too distracting from the overall story.

4. The Fundamentals of Caring
A film that's really by the numbers but 100% content/comforable as viewing material. A nice little road trip movie thats never overly laugh-out-loud but quietly fun.

3. Deadpool
Ryan Reynolds is spot on and I was so happy that a 5min joke (breaking the 4th wall) could succefully be stretched out in to 90mins. On top of that it wasn't a one hit wonder as Ive since rewatched it and it holds up on second viewing.

2. Kubo and the Two Strings
Beautifully animated and really well handled sentimentality leads to a delightful film with an emotional core. Great to see a theme/topic based on eastern philosophies going down so well in a western part of the world.

1. Arrival
In a mad world where Trump became boss and Independance Day: Resurgance has aliens come back to kick our asses, it was so nice to have a complex multi-layered story of communication/miss-communication of language, working together and furthering our existence. Utterly compelling without bombastic effects this was a real gem and very promising work from the director who's been put in charge of the Blade Runner sequel and possible Dune remake...


My honourable mention is Floyd Norman: An Animated Life. A lovely documentary on the life of one of Disney's first black animators. Of course he himself makes a point that race wasn't even a factor to him. He was just an artist looking for a job. That may give you an idea of how this doc is viewed. A man who first and foremost is a talent to behold but was situated in a time and place that was difficult to live in for certain populations of America.

My bottom 5 was a ixed bag of films that were bad, boring and generally disapointing rather than just out and out terrible...
5. Bastille Day (aka The Take)
4. Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice/Suicide Squad
3. Steve Aoki: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
2. Sharknado 4: The Forth Awakens
1. Independance Day: Resurgance

A late and unfortunate post

Pretty much likely to be the last piece of work I'll do before CHristmas at this point. Was a Star Wars related concept design for myself. And then I found out Carrie Fisher had suffered a likely heart attack :(

Hoping for a recovery from everyones favourite princess...


"to me, she's royalty" Lor San Tekka, Ep7 The Force Awakens

Model making 1.0

Well this might be my biggest post in a while...

So as some may know, Im a big fan of Nolan's Interstellar. Being a fan in this day and age usually leads to being able to display your fandom via merchandise but it is sadly lacking for this title (something I'm slightly surprised by given it's a WB/Paramount property. Batman/Star Trek anyone...).

And so through searching sites and general 'googling' of typical words I found a company by the name of Moebius Models that had managed to produce a scaled model of the Interstellar Ranger. A ship I happened to have been hoping would be on the merchandise list, it was great to see a company had taken on the creation of this vehicle at an affordable price and ideal scale for the average consumer to stick on a shelf somewhere.

It comes in at around 10 inches long at a 1:72 scale of what would be the real vehicle. I won't get in to the nitty gritty of the build (unless someone wants to read about it) but it was my first ever go at miniature model making and I have to say I loved the whole experience. I can totally get behind people who enjoy building airfix kits. The hidden movie maker inside me saw this as an experiment to build a mniature that could also be used to film with also so maybe I'll do something down the line short of blowing it up...

Here are a bunch of photos that show off some of the stages of the build. I took my sweet time with it as it could probably be built in a day but I took a month doing bits here and there on the weekends.
As it was a first build, I didnt attempt to make an interior like some pros on youtube, instead opting for painting a top down interior in photoshop and printing it out as a flat graphic. Also a mini TARS stands inside it :)

Enjoy

TINTED WINDOWS GLUED IN

TOP PANELLING WITH SOME WEATHERING

WEATHERED VENTING ON UPPER SECTION

UNDERBELLY OF SHIP

EVIT DOOR AT REAR

METALLIC WEATHERED LIMBS

TARS AND INTERIOR PLAN

TARS AND INTERIOR FITTED ON BASE

FINAL BUILD

FINAL BUILD

FINAL BUILD

FINAL BUILD

FINAL BUILD

FINAL BUILD

Raiding the art after a long gap

With talk of a new Tomb Raider in the works, and the idea to do this a little while back, Ive finally put digital pen to paper and doodled up a visual.
An actress I'd love to see take on the role would be Alexandra Daddario. So I put her in there :)

First of 2016. Ref painting

Quick reference painting practice to start the year off. 20mins-ish i think

Top 5 of 2015

Well it's technically the 1st of the new year so I should have done this last week or yesterday. I was really hoping to fit in just a few other films I'd missed this year but that sadly didn't happen. Regardless, here's my personal top 5 that I saw and that were of course released in the UK during 2015. In decending order:

5. Big Hero 6
- yep that's right, a Disney movie! And in a year of a lot of animation, Ive put this above the likes of Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur. A fun film with such a well designed and fairly original entry in the robot catagory. I think this appealled because it felt like a Disney film I could enjoy that wasn't all about princesses or sisterly love. There's nothing wrong with that of course but after a mega hit like Frozen I'm glad they came out with this rather than playing off the success of that one film.


4. Kung Fury
- OK, so at 15mins, it's not techincally a feature film and could have easily gone into my 'honourable mentions' at the end of this. However this achieved such style, action and general fun packed nostalgia (somehing that appeared in a fair few of this years major releases), it's earnt it's entry due to its rewatchable quality. This probably doesn't need to be expanded to a full film and may just be a great calling card to Hollywood from it's makers. Either way, it's exciting stuff.

3. Whiplash
- again another great entry from right back at the start of the year (see Big Hero 6). Quite the Oscar darling back in February and for good reason. Steller performances all round but J.K. Simmons gets the limelight after so many amazing side performances and bit parts.

2. The Martian
- so after last years Intersteller, I was really hoping the sci-fi wouldn't let up and Im pleased to say this kept it going. Clearly a Ridley Scott film brings a lot of attention but this had added value having made Prometheus, which quickly became unfavourable in the fan and critic commuinities and Exodus, which is at this point kind of a standard of what to expect from one of his historical epics. This was easily the most light hearted and entertaining he had been since Thelma & Louise. Matt Damon is on point and the script is great. Ultimately after Interstellar and Gravity, space finally looked fun as well as perilous!

1. Mad Max Fury Road
- few would disagree. Few also seemed to expect it. It's really of little importance but there's a lot of online response that suggests the MM bandwagon was jumped on pretty hard with few people aware or bothered to have seen the previous 3. I don't state this with any particular pride but I had been waiting on this film for sometime. Yes, I had seen the other 3 countless times and they are top notch action films (minus 3) in their own right but they always had more of a cult following. This made being openly affectionate about the films difficult as they aren't in the pop culture conscious as much as say Star Wars, Harry Potter, LotR etc.
This film had a rough time getting to the screen it seems. It had been filmed and wrapped up probably 2 years before it's release it would appear. So when that initial thunderous trailer arrived, I was more than excited for what was going to come out. And with added build up towards it's release date, excitement grew. Not only does this film take my No.1 spot for its out-right acion, tension, world building, performances by the leads, great (and ugly) characters and a director who really gave us a film that said "this is how you do a car chase, Hollywood"; it was a film that lived up to its hype!
Over the passed few years, my favourite films have often come out with me having little personal attachment or investment in the excitement of their releases. Some have taken me by surprise and some have simply lived up to what I had heard. When a film did appear that I had hyped up it either failed to deliver at all or just couldn't live up to a rather unrealistic level of expectation on my part (again Prometheus, sorry). THIS DID. This was 2015 in all its visual and audible glory!!!

My honourable mentions shall go to the following; Inside Out, John Wick and a documentary I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story.

My bottom 5 this year aren't really aweful films. They were just the ones I happened to see that weren't up to scratch for my liking or fell well short of expectations (except no1):
5. Maggie, 4. SpongeBob Squarepants: Sponge Out of Water, 3. Terminator Genysis, 2. Jupiter Ascending and 1. Sharknado 3


See you for next years countdown!

Hopes and Dreams

Ok, so let’s see how this goes. As part of setting up this blog, I initially wanted a place to not only showcase whatever doodle or painting I was working on but also a place to talk about my thoughts on how art and design has played a role in Film/TV production. This part of my plan has obviously fallen by the way side but I’m going to attempt a written piece now. Let’s just see if I can at least keep to one article per year for now!

The following text might well go all over the place as my tangentially, fractured thought process often does so please have patience… also it offers no answers, just pointless questions open to discussion.


Firstly let me turn your attention to an article over on Buzzfeed that I came across today. It is one of many pieces you’ll find on the web that looks at Ralph McQuarrie’s artwork. Now anyone with a working knowledge of Star Wars will know this name but for those who don’t he was an illustrator for NASA and concept designer for a number of entertainment IPs.
For those in the know, let me get the often repeated, obvious comments out the way;
- Without McQuarrie’s input, Star Wars would not be what it is visually
- Without McQuarrie’s paintings, there’s a good chance Star Wars would never have been made
- McQuarrie has now influenced 2 generations of artists/designers working in film.
With those 3 very simplified comments I don’t want to give off the sense I’m trivialising what this man did for popular culture. I’m not. I’m very much in the "McQuarrie-is-a-design-Legend" camp. It’s the above article that had me scrolling and staring at such beautifully rendered production paintings and thinking what do I need to do to improve myself as a designer.

But it’s a plain fact that his major output of work was in the analogue era of acrylics, oils and gouache that got me thinking of concept art as a whole for this writing malarkey…
I’m really not a scholar on the subject but what I think helped build his reputation as a prolific artist was the bold, clearly presented compositions in his pictures. Everything is depicted cleanly and more importantly tells a story (all key factors in producing quality concept art). There is no ‘photobashing’ or collaging of images to get to a bigger picture. Everything is precise and thought out ahead of painting. It may well be considered an illustration to help sell a moment in a film but I can’t call it fine art. It is designed from the get go. There never seems to be more than 3 things going on in his pictures and therefore your brain can comfortably take in the image.

If you Google ‘concept art’ and look at the images (go on I dare you!), it’s truly scary how much imagery you will be bombarded with.
The imagery is probably 90-99% digitally composed, very moody lighting and HIGHLY detailed. I can’t knock any of it. The vast majority of it is better than anything I can currently produce and they are all produced by someone in the world who in that moment were influenced/inspired to simply create.
What I’m not sure on is what the value of this content truly is…

Let me work backwards once more. Come with me to 1999 and a 12 year old Me picks up ‘The Art of Episode 1’. Commercially to you and I, digital painting may as well have not existed yet (for about another 3-5 years) so what I saw in this book was 1) a job prospect of epic proportions and 2) a ton of artwork not too far from what had been produced over 20 years previous. Gorgeous pen and marker designs and gouache paintings form Doug Chiang and his team not unlike Ralph’s and Joe Johnson’s images of the late 70s. I fell in love right there and it set me on a course I still travel on to this day.

By Episode 3 (2005) digital painting and Photoshop had truly come along and over-night seemed to change the landscape of concept art. Also it’s probably important to note that the internet had started to grow out of its infancy and the world was using it, sometimes productively, to communicate with each other.

Side note; who remembers their first website coming from Geocities… eek!

Along this journey, I’ve had to change my ideas of what concept art would be to me and perhaps that’s what got me righting this elongated mind-fart. I like to remind myself that I came from that time JUST before technology went mad for us. Looking at that art book of Doug’s drawings I truly believed that’s all I would ever have to do. Like McQuarrie’s art I wanted to present clear beautiful designs that would end up on the screen but life’s never that straight forward.

With Photoshop taking over, the possibilities became infinite and because of the ease of photo manipulation, ‘photobashing’ initially became a trend (like lens flares, haha) and eventually a worthy required skill. Production of images sped up, generating multiple concepts sped up and therefore demand for more sped up. You can complete greater quantity at a higher quality so much quicker now.

I really am not here to knock it. It’s a process in a huge pipeline that must be done. If you can reach the lead creatives imagination with a few photos of a moody skyline and some mountain photos in the background then great because it leads to less changes/time/money being spent further down the line. Also to reiterate, concept art is not fine art. It is not a precious item. It’s there to solve a problem, be changed if necessary and then put to the side when complete. All this is achievable on a schedule that would have been impossible in the 70s. How many paintings these days take more than 1 or 2 days when the classic images of the past would take a full week to paint?


So I guess what I’m trying to get around to is; should I feel nostalgic for a time and process that ultimately can’t be replicated because of where technology and industry is right now?

A notable story of recent years would be Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. To integrate some of the original ‘Alien’ feel to the new film, Scott hired the original creature designer, H.R.Giger to do some drawings. This occurred parallel to hiring the usual squad of high profile, 8-10 concept designers. It’s to no surprise that the design team created everything needed for the film from suits to vehicles to locations etc. What is a little saddening is that Giger was eventually let go after producing a few simple design ideas because the timescale of production did not allow for his full involvement. When I say “let go” I’m genuinely not suggesting it was some terrible firing. I believe, if memory serves, this is all commented on by Ridley in the Making of documentary "The Furious Gods" on the DVD/Bluray. Giger (who uses the traditional airbrush system) simply wasn’t fast enough for pre-production. It’s just a prime example of the need to get things done in this day and age at a far greater pace than 30 years ago.


So to come back to me again and the title of this 1500 word debacle, what do I want to happen?

I’m not sure…

I continue to chase that elusive rabbit down the hole that is concept art. I want to work in design and film now as much as I did at 12. But somewhere along the line, if a ‘passion project’ should come to me in a vague dream or a well thought out idea, I would want to allow myself to consider how I come to design things.

For the sake of production would/should I get as much done quickly through the current process of digital design or should/could I go ‘old-school’, be ‘traditional’ and produce what would be considered real images? Would said images stand the test of time if done with paint and MDF board or would they get lost in the vacuum of digital space if painted on a computer? I guess that one is not for me to answer.

But my lasting thought is of all the artwork I’ve sucked in through my eyeballs the ones that have held their place in my memory banks are that of a pre-digital age. Are there artists of today that I look up to and find their work inspiring and amazing; you bet! But I can’t help feel the older stuff that we all love isn’t just held highly because it was an important influence in our young impressionable minds, it’s because they are a benchmark of quality that remain to this day.

Written while listening to RotJ soundtrack… :D

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