Christopher Connor

The Vault is a curious beast, borrowing heavily from previous heist films and while entertaining in stretches, struggles to forge an identity of its own. The film follows a ragtag crew of treasure hunters and thieves who have discovered that part of Sir Francis Drake’s treasure lies beneath the Bank Of Spain in one of the world’s most fortified and heavily guarded vaults. The premise, while fun, does borrow more than slightly from Naughty Dog’s Uncharted Video Game series which featured Drake...

WandaVision has proved to be a sure fire hit for Disney Plus and Marvel and now following hot on its heels, Marvel’s latest series is The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Originally slated to be the opening showcase for Marvel on Disney Plus, the show has shifted position. The series follows our eponymous heroes, or as they are also known Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes, as they adapt to life post Thanos’ snap and with the world at large trying to get to grips with a new way of life, following five...

Chris Connor looks back over the collaborations between Joel and Ethan Coen and Roger Deakins…
Joel and Ethan Coen have had one of the most eclectic careers of the last 40 years with films across an array of genres, blending humour, action and surrealism. One of the defining aspects of the brothers’ success is their long collaboration with legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins, starting with 1991’s Barton Fink through to their most recent film, 2016’s Hail, Caesar!.
In spite of the slew of ...

Moonrise Kingdom is a charming take on adolescence, a constantly entertaining film that possesses the levels of heart and warmth audiences have come to expect from a Wes Anderson film. The cast are absolutely terrific, with the two young leads holding their own against some marquee adult cast members, and the film manages to cram a lot of detail into its 90 minute runtime whilst remaining perfectly paced. Both a fitting tribute to some of Anderson’s favourite coming of age tales and a fine film within the genre, this is one of Anderson’s greatest releases to date and perhaps the one that best

French Filmmaker Quentin Dupieux, DJ turned director, has made a name for himself in his native France with quirky surrealist films. His film Rubber encapsulated his hard-to-discern style and unorthodox approach to the world of filmmaking. His latest, Keep An Eye Out (released in France in 2018) is, on paper, a straightforward police comedy film. But from the opening moments of a semi-nude man conducting an orchestra in a field, we know this is something all the more bizarre.
From the opening...

Elizabeth Debicki has had a varied eclectic career, all the more remarkable considering she is still only 30 years old. With roles on in Television series like the John Le Carre smash The Night Manager and blockbusters including Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 2, The Great Gatsby, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and her forthcoming role as Princess Diana in the fifth Series of The Crown.
Debicki’s role as Jed in The Night Manager has proved to be one of her breakout roles and certainly one that has gar...

As a first foray into it’s Disney+ series WandaVision is the perfect antidote to the lack of MCU content over the past 18 months, truly pushing it to new heights and focused on character building rather than world destruction. Led by some brilliant performances, here is hoping that the next series including The Falcon And Winter Soldier and Loki manage to capture this level of quality.

Well worthy of its now iconic status In The Mood For Love is an achingly beautiful film in many regards with some astonishing visuals and colour palettes and wonderful attention to detail it is utterly beguiling to behold. A further six of Wong Kar Wai’s films are available to stream as part of the BFI’s season including Chungking Express and 2046. It is not hard to see that many films have gone on to be influenced by In The Mood For Love, Cold War and Lost In Translation to name but two. The film’s legacy will no doubt continue to grow in the years to come, it is a cinematic masterpiece wort

Shorta is an absolutely terrific debut that has a lot to say on a range of social issues and manages to pack these and a host of terrific action sequences into its 100 minute run time. It is a truly impressive debut with some stellar performances and cinematography. It is both reminiscent of thrillers past but also shows a real aptitude for the genre from its directors that will make them ones to watch with whatever projects they chose to pursue next.

Sienna Beckman is the co-founder of Emergence Films, a film and TV development and production company based in London and Los Angeles that is committed to supporting female-identifying filmmakers and underrepresented storytellers around the world. Working in LA for 10 years, Sienna produced content for NBCUniversal, Scott Free Productions, Verizon go90, Esquire TV, Refinery29, Prettybird Entertainment, Astronauts Wanted, and Disney Maker Studios, among others.
Her short film BIRTHDAY BOY was ...

Rosamund Pike has had an eclectic career starring in both small UK films and larger scale Hollywood blockbusters like Gone Girl which earned her an Oscar Nomination in 2015. Pike’s latest – I Care A Lot – from director J Blakeson has earned comparisons to Gone Girl. Pike plays Marla Grayson, a relentless con artist who has taken guardianship of a series of elderly individuals, cutting off their contact from the outside world and in the process, stealing their homes and wealth in what appear t...

Chris Connor on Star Wars Rebels…
Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm in 2012 opened up a wealth of opportunities to expand the Star Wars universe. We have since seen five movies and the live action TV series The Mandalorian, the majority of which have pleased fans with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and The Mandalorian often labelled as some of the best content the franchise has produced since 1983’s Return of the Jedi.
In spite of this one area of the Disney-era that is constantly overlooked is th...

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Alyy Khan is a successful British-Pakistani actor who has had an eclectic career comprising of Bollywood and Hollywood productions, as well as extensive roles in British Television series. He can currently be seen in the hugely successful BBC series The Serpent and the Riz Ahmed-led British independent film Mogul Mowgli. For his role in Mogul Mowgli, Alyy has received a Best Supporting Actor Nomination at the British Independent Film Awards and he is longlisted for Best Supporting Actor...

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
Director: Wes Anderson
Screenwriters: Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach
Starring: George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, Michael Gambon, Brian Cox, Owen Wilson
Having made a name for himself with five live-action features, it was somewhat of a left field decision for auteur Wes Anderson to take on a stop-motion animation project in 2009, yet with his adaptation of the iconic Roald Dahl children’s story “Fantastic Mr. Fox”, Anderson would put to use his ten...

While a film about a deadly virus rampaging through the UK’s society might not seem like the perfect choice of subject matter at present, the film adaptation of School’s Out Forever by Scott K Andrews isn’t about our current climate, although there are moments where it is quite on the nose. The film focused on a British private school situated in the countryside and its response to a virus outbreak plays almost as a hybrid of Shaun Of The Dead and Lord Of The Flies with the staff and students...