This film features in every Christmas pub quiz and almost always ranks top on lists of the best Christmas films. Despite having been released nearly 80 years ago (yes, that is correct), this beloved film remains a household favourite and I truly do not understand why.
I am of course talking about It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). Perhaps it’s because I didn’t grow up watching this film every year therefore nostalgia is not an influential factor for me. Many of us love films for their nostalgic value, not necessarily because they are good films. I presume this has to be the case for It’s a Wonderful Life, because I fail to fathom how this film can be so beloved and widely renowned otherwise.
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Having recently jumped on the bandwagon along with 50 million other people in signing up for Disney+, and with free time at home being in abundance, I decided that the moment had finally come to re-watch the entire MCU from Iron Man (2008) all the way to present day phase 3.
Make no mistake about it, Ridley Scott’s early, pre-2000s career is littered with enduring classics and hidden gems. Blade Runner, to this day, remains one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. Thelma and Louise remains an immensely enjoyable, girl power-fuelled joyride that holds up so well it’s perhaps more impactful now than it was at the time of release. And 1977’s The Duellists (Scott’s directorial debut) remains a well crafted and considered film.
There are only so many times you can hear about a cinema classic, without giving in to the pressure of watching it. The guilt surrounding your lack of enthusiasm around a movie that appears to have turned the whole world upside down, dragging with it the expectations of film making as we have come to know it, forces you to need to watch something (even if you’re not really that bothered.) This is what happened to me with James Cameron’s 
There are some movies that just become an instant hit. Everyone seems to love them – they’re all over the TV, a sequel is confirmed within 10 minutes of the movie being released, and everyone seems to be raving about this amazing and miraculous new film. This is what happened with 
I must start this out with a confession: I am someone who is prone to hyperbole. It will worm its way into my everyday interactions. In fact, one might say that I am liberal with my hyperbolicity— non-literal exaggerations can be found in the way I discuss, describe, act, and recount; in the way I exist.
On January 22nd, 2019, the nominations for the 91st Academy Awards were announced, and… I am pretty shocked by them. Roma leading the pack with 10 nominations, including two acting nods, Timothee Chalamet left out, and Bradley Cooper snubbed in the Director category in favor of a foreign language film, one of two on the list! However, even after all the buzz and promotion, the one that shocked me the most was the fact that even with just 8 nominees for Best Picture this year, Black Panther was on the list.
There’s a scene early in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange where Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) and his gang of “droogs” run into a rival gang midway through engaging in an evening of “ultra-violence”. Alex and the droogs stop what they’re doing (raping a group of women) and fight the rival gang. While the scene unfolded, I couldn’t help but think of a of a quote from the seminal Australia young-adult novel, Tomorrow When the War Began. It reads:
The year: 1993 and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park revolutionises special effects in cinema. Cinema-going audiences flock to see dinosaurs live and breathe again, right before their very eyes. The film remained the highest-grossing film of all time until 1997 when James Cameron’s Titanic stole its crown, but the influence felt by Jurassic Park has continued to be felt to this very day.
