Within the industry, many have become rather frightened, fearing the development and creation of AI, with its’ knowledge and ability to understand and mimic the thought process of the human mind. The advancing of deep learning workstations is seen as a risk, challenging the role of jobs, creative power and careers of humans within the film industry.

However, with these fears, comes an extensive amount of benefits that the film industry can gain through the addition of Artificial Intelligence within the film industry.

With its’ power and understanding ever-growing, many tasks are already being transferred to the hands of AI, with positive results already being seen across the board. These positive results have helped to create momentum and excitement from both filmmakers, developers and even scientists, helping to drive future progress on Artificial Intelligence within the film industry whilst helping to transform the film industry forever.

What Are The Advantages Of AI In The Film Industry?

Becoming a Producer

Many companies have begun trialling the use of Artificial Intelligence within the film industry. One online platform ScriptBook offers script analyses and automated story generation and have stated that their devised algorithms within AI have the ability to predict the success of a film, simply by reading and analysing the script.

A helpful and handy tool for any film making company, the addition of Artificial Intelligence can save revenue by analysing the chances of success of the film before the development process has begun. This can be achieved through both the directors and the crew having the chance to understand the potential of the film, instead of taking a risk and creating an entire film that is likely to be a Box Office flop.

Along with ensuring Box Office success, AI can also help analyse the success of the script, offering writers the chance to make amendments or remove chapters entirely, and start anew.

Streaming

It’s no secret that streaming providers such as ‘Netflix’ or ‘TiVo’ are quickly becoming game-changers within the entertainment industry. Able to provide users with their favourite TV shows and movies from any device at any time.

Along with creating the technology to offer efficient streaming, organisations such as Netflix and TiVo were also quick to jump and get involved, incorporating artificial intelligence into their business model. Each company offers the users a personalised experience, with related films and programmes to their individual likes being recommended and promoted across their site. This removes the need to manually search and scroll the site themselves while helping to accurately target and market appropriate entertainment with great success.

This development helps to improve the user’s experience, while also keeping them hooked and remaining on their platform, this will prevent users from logging off and potentially switching their attention to another streaming site.

Moderation

Within the film industry, each streaming platform has a different set of rules and regulations that they have to abide when catering to their audience. A prime example can be seen in the creation of password-restricted channels. These can help lock and monitor the age of those viewers wanting violent and explicit video content. Streaming sites such as Netflix, however, will allow this kind of content to be seen freely without any age restrictions heavily enforced.

Because of this, broadcasters have to specifically choose which content that they choose to be displayed on their platform, whether it is television or a streaming service. Yet with the use of AI, broadcasters can now analyse content at speed, this helps to discover whether it includes either mature or sensitive scenes that should not be seen by a particular age category.

By using this handy feature, broadcasters and streaming services can easily moderate content, giving the correct age ratings in order to stop those too young or vulnerable from viewing inappropriate content.

Automatic Subtitles

A complex and tedious task that many filmmakers would endure for hours on end and that is the synchronizing of subtitles in line with lip movement in both TV and film. A process that needs to be done with the utmost perfection, as even the smallest delay in timing, can result in audio and subtitles becoming quickly out of sync.

By using Artificial Intelligence to complete this role instead of humans, AI can speed up and simplify the entire process while massively reducing the amount of timing and spelling mistakes experienced.

In order to do this correctly, Artificial Intelligence systems can synthesize speech and analyse the vocabulary used in the video. After AI has reviewed the vocabulary once, it can then generate subtitles in many different languages, taking this hugely time-consuming task away from the filmmaking team, creating a faster and more efficient editing process.

Movie Marketing

Another top benefit of Artificial Intelligence within the film industry and that is the ability to train automated systems that can be used to deliver interesting content for both film marketing and advertisements of the latest films. Through using AI within production houses, this piece of technology can be used to analyse large amounts of data, such as audio, images, text, language and design concepts.

The benefit of Artificial Intelligence, is that it can use this visual content to create an effective marketing campaign, helping to drive both traffic and revenue for the film about to be released.

Examples of how movie marketing has been used, can be seen in the creation of both posters for billboards but also the creation of trailers for the latest, upcoming films. An example of AI being used to create a trailer can be seen in the success that was Morgan.

By analysing successful trailers of the same genre, AI can pull all the visual content together to create an amazing piece of marketing that promises to be a box office success.

Summary

The development of Artificial Intelligence within the film industry can be used to help simplify many different aspects of both filmmaking and content creation. For the current role of AI within the film industry and be seen as the acting and supporting film producers and creators.

Whether this is through the reviewing of scripts, creation of fast and correct subtitles to the editing of trailers for guaranteed success, AI has a number of valuable benefits.

With further research and development required, there is no answer as to how far artificial intelligence can go with helping and adding to the film industry.

A fear for many, the idea that technology, however maybe taking away the need for humans within the film industry is incorrect. With the use of AI, filmmakers can create successful, inspiring films that are guaranteed to be a huge success, allowing them to focus on perfecting and creating the best results possible.

This was a guest blog post by Charlotte Johnson.

Action Over Horror

Among the sequels, the movie has also inspired many other forms of media, the most obvious being a number of video games. Many attempts were made in recreating the feeling and atmosphere of the movie in video game format. However, no video game company could nail the intense horror that the first movie provided. The games were mostly inspired by the second movie in the franchise called Aliens, which was directed by James Cameron and was very well received.

The movie was very ambitious for its time. It was more action oriented with a lot of overlapping themes. Most video game adaptations used Aliens as the main inspiration. With the release of Doom in 1993, first person shooters were becoming very popular and many first person shooter games in the Alien franchise soon followed.

One game, which is considered a cult classic is Alien vs Predator, released in 1999. The game was very well received and it was praised for its three distinct campaigns. You can play either as the Alien, the Predator or the Marine. Each one of them having a unique play style. Compared to the other two, the alien campaign was not so well received. Many believed that it was too simple in its implementation and had way more potential.

The next installment in the series soon followed and was released in 2001 as Aliens vs Predator 2. The game featured the same 3 distinct campaigns, but the gameplay was more polished. It did not bring anything new to the table and the Alien campaign was still considered too simplistic. Plans for a third installment were never considered and soon after, the game series was abandoned.

What followed was one of the biggest gaming controversies in gaming history. The release of Aliens Colonial Marines. This subject matter deserves an article on its own and there are many others that have explored this topic. In 2010, the developers of the first Alien vs Predator have rebooted the franchise and was simply titled Alien vs Predator.

Finding the Horror Element

All of the games were action oriented with little emphasis on horror. They were released in a time where horror games were lacking an identity. Few games where truly considered horror games, like Amnesia the Dark Descent, a game which focused more on the psychological aspect. The game uses a sanity meter and if the players spends too much time in darkness, the character starts to hallucinate. The player had no weapons to defend themselves and relied on hiding and avoiding the monsters. This game could be considered an inspiration for what is to come to the Alien franchise.

In 2014, after 35 years since the original Alien was released, fans finally got what they were asking for. The most horrific and true to form Alien experience in gaming. Instead of taking its inspiration from Aliens, like that other games have done in the past, the developers looked at the original movie which started it all, Alien, and the game was called Alien Isolation. The game followed the events of the first movie and you play as Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley’s daughter. What makes this game truly horrifying is that the Alien (singular) cannot be killed in any conventional way. The player uses a motion tracker to detect the Alien’s position and can hide in lockers or under tables in order to avoid it.

Other Gaming Adaptations

Besides the regular video games, there are also many Alien themed casino games that have been developed. There is a large variety of slot games that are inspired by the Alien franchise. The slots are made in such a way that try to mimic the unique atmosphere of the movies. Instead of the classic fruit symbols, the reels feature the characters from the movie or the aliens themselves. Additionally, some of the other elements of the movies are present in these online casino games, such as the well known Weyland-Yutani symbol, as well as other forms of the Aliens, such as the Facehugger or the Alien egg.

These slot games were never made with the intention to be scary in any way, but they cleverly make use of the elements found in the movies and the slots themselves look like they belong in that particular universe.

Best Adaptation

When it comes to the many attempts of porting the Alien into video games, Alien Isolation may be the best incarnation of the famous extraterrestrial lifeform. Not being able to kill the creature results the player having to focus on avoiding it and making use of the hiding mechanics of the game. Also, a lot of parise has been given to the Alien’s AI which made the creature’s actions unpredictable.

I was a huge fan of the film when it was released in cinemas last year – how it wasn’t up for all the Oscars is beyond me – not just for how it works as a straight up crime thriller but the way it uses that framework to explore everything from racism and sexism to political corruption and the wealth divide in modern society. It really is a terrific piece of work from one of the best directors working today, one that will surely benefit repeat viewings.

To celebrate the film’s home release, we have a DVD copy of it to give away, thanks Twentieth Century Fox.

To enter the competition simply answer the following question: which Steve McQueen-directed film won the Oscar for Best Picture?

a) Hunger
b) Shame
c) 12 Years a Slave

Please email your answer to rosstmiller@thoughtsonfilm.co.uk with the subject heading “Widows competition.” Please also include your delivery address details so we can easily send the prize out if you win.

Now for the technical part:

• UK residents only
• Entrants must be 18 or over
• Winners will be chosen at random
• The prize is one DVD copy of Widows
• Prize is non-transferable
• Competition ends on Sunday March 24th at 11:59pm GMT
• Prize will be sent from PR/studio

Widows is available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray from March 18th. You can already rent/buy the film digitally.

Best of luck on the competition! Just for fun, which is your favourite of Steve McQueen’s films so far? Leave your thoughts on his directorial work below.

The latter has proved a particular point of contention with both those in the industry to onlookers on social media, with choices such as not letting all the songs be performed to introducing a Best Popular Film category (whatever that means) to not airing four categories live; Editing and Cinematography proved a particular issue, sending the folks of Film Twitter into a Hulk-like rage.

Thankfully all of these decisions except for the one to not have a main host have taken the walk-back of shame; I look forward to Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair again. Of course there’s still the issue of plenty of thoroughly deserving films, filmmakers and performances not being up for any Oscars at all (*cough* Toni Collette! *cough*) but of course that’s not an issue unique to this year.

The show must go on, as they say, and I thought a week out from this year’s ceremony I’d throw my hat into the ring as far as predictions goes. Below I’ve listed what I think will win in each category, as well as what I personally would like to see pick up that little gold man come next Sunday evening.

Best Picture

Want to win: A Star is Born
Will win: Green Book

Lead Actor

Want to win: Bradley Cooper (A Star is Born)
Will win: Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)

Lead Actress

Want to win: Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Will win: Olivia Colman (The Favourite)

Supporting Actor

Want to win: Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Will win: Mahershala Ali (Green Book)

Supporting Actress

Want to win: Emma Stone (The Favourite)
Will win: Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)

Director

Want to win: Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)
Will win: Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)

Animated Feature

Want to win: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Will win: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Adapted Screenplay

Want to win: BlacKkKlansman
Will win: BlacKkKlansman

Original Screenplay

Want to win: First Reformed
Will win: The Favourite

Cinematography

Want to win: Roma
Will win: Roma

Documentary Feature

Want to win: Free Solo
Will win: Minding the Gap

Foreign Language Film

Want to win: Roma
Will win: Roma

Film Editing

Want to win: BlacKkKlansman
Will win: Bohemian Rhapsody

Sound Editing

Want to win: A Quiet Place
Will win: Bohemian Rhapsody

Sound Mixing

Want to win: A Star is Born
Will win: Bohemian Rhapsody

Production Design

Want to win: Roma
Will win: The Favourite

Original Score

Want to win: If Beale Street Could Talk
Will win: Black Panther

Original Song

Want to win: Shallow (A Star is Born)
Will win: Shallow (A Star is Born)

Makeup and Hair

Want to win: Mary Queen of Scots
Will win: Vice

Costume Design

Want to win: Black Panther
Will win: The Favourite

Visual Effects

Want to win: Avengers: Infinity War
Will win: Ready Player One

Animated Short

Want to win: Bao
Will win: Bao

Live Action Short

Want to win: Marguerite
Will win: Marguerite

Documentary Short Subject

Want to win: Black Sheep
Will win: Lifeboat

Do you agree? Disagree? Feel free to leave your predictions/wishes for the winners below or tweet @TOF_UK or @rosstmiller.

Roll on Sunday!

This coming Monday sees the DVD and Blu-ray release of King of Thieves, the latest film from acclaimed director James Marsh (Man on Wire, The Theory of Everything), which features a cavalcade of legendary British actors including Michael Caine, Ray Winstone, Jim Broadbent, Tom Courtenay, Michael Gambon and Paul Whitehouse who team up to pull off a brazen heist. You may know the job from our own headlines as “The Hatton Garden Heist,” described as the biggest and most daring heist in British history.

It’s a good slice of old-fashioned heist movie fun which morphs in its latter half into something with surprising touches of the dangerous and sinister as suspicions and loyalties start to inevitably turn.

To celebrate the film’s release, we have two copies of it on DVD to give away, thanks to the lovely folk at Studio Canal.

To enter the competition simply answer the following question: in which classic British film does Michael Caine famously say the line, “you were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”?

a) Alfie
b) The Italian Job
c) The Ipcress File

Please email your answer to rosstmiller@thoughtsonfilm.co.uk with the subject heading “King of Thieves competition.” Please also include your delivery address details so we can easily send the prize out if you win.

Now for the technical part:

• UK residents only
• Entrants must be 18 or over
• Winners will be chosen at random
• The prize for each entrant is one DVD copy of King of Thieves
• Prize is non-transferable
• Competition ends on Sunday January 27th at 11:59pm GMT
• Prize will be sent from PR/studio

King of Thieves is available to buy on DVD and Blu-ray from January 21st. You can already rent/buy the film digitally.

Best of luck on the competition!

The latest is Monsters and Men, a thoughtful, ambitious and keenly-judged feature debut from writer-director Reinaldo Marcus Green that deals with the ricocheting effect of a black man being gunned down by police officers who purportedly perceived he was a threat to them, despite a videotaping witness suggesting he didn’t have a gun in his hand as the cops attested.

It’s a film of three distinct parts threaded together by how one event ripples through individual lives, evoking the Oscar-winning Moonlight in form at least with its three-tier structure as each of the character-driven pieces present us with their own angle on the specific situation that drives the plot and the societal themes at large. As it starts out it makes you believe you’re only going to see things from one perspective before revealing a really well-played contrasting and complimenting set-up that’s both narratively and thematically satisfying.

There’s the key witness filming the event, Manny (Anthony Ramos) who has just started a new job to provide for his wife and young daughter who has to weigh up the negative effect uploading the video to the web will have on his family’s life against his need to let the world see what actually happened. There’s the strong-willed black police officer, Dennis (John David Washington, who also starred in the aforementioned BlacKkKlansman), within the system who wasn’t directly involved with the shooting but who is colleagues with the officers responsible and with a family of his own to think about every time he heads out to patrol the city streets. And finally a young baseball star-in-the-making, Zyrick (Kevin Harrison Jr.), who is inspired to take protesting action after watching the footage.

In the middle police-focused segment, it refreshingly touches on the idea of the danger cops put themselves in every day as much as it lends vital weight to the argument that there is really no excuse for a group of officers to gun down an unarmed black man. “One cop’s mistake and now we’re all to blame,” explains Dennis when a dinner date turns sour once conversation turns to the shooting. “I thought you were different, that maybe you were part of the solution” retorts the family friends who brought the topic up. Both lines ring in your ears.

It’s the film’s strongest and most thought-provoking segment, evoking the likes of Rampart (directed by one of this film’s executive producers, Oren Moverman) and even TV’s The Shield, if not in visceral immediacy then certainly in the ways it explores interdepartmental attitudes, procedures and loyalty in the face of intense, albeit sadly all-too-common occurrences on the street.

As a whole it’s a bit more of a studied, comparatively subdued experience than the far more rambunctious, fired-up The Hate U Give. Nevertheless, in its own quietly powerful way, it explores the micro and macro effects of violence and killing at the hands of police officer that are an unfortunate regular occurrence in America, asking difficult and necessary questions that really stay with you.

Is this an inevitability of modern day life in America? Is there a solution? Why should it be allowed to continue? Where does police protecting themselves end and police brutality begin? The words “Black Lives Matter” never actually cross the lips of anyone in the film but it nevertheless pulses through every scene. In the wake of Charlottesville in particular, it’s a film that takes on more weight, making you think as it compels with its story filled with excellent performances, involving soundscape (the amplified sounds of the New York City streets is brilliantly achieved) and memorable score by Kris Bowers that’s at once sorrowful and hopeful, encapsulating the film’s ethos that these terrible things happen but there’s light at the end of the tunnel that things might some day change.

Monsters and Men is in UK cinemas from Friday January 18th.

Fear not! Here’s a list of a dozen recommendations of lesser-known or underrated gems tucked away in the depths Netflix’s catalogue. Note: this list is going by the UK region, which I know is quite limiting compared to some of the stuff you could be watching on international versions with use of a VPN (here’s a handy guide to the best VPNs out there to get you started), but that’s why this list is here to help you seek out the diamonds in the rough!

I Am Not A Witch

The striking, enigmatic debut from writer-director Rungano Nyoni tells the Zambia-set story of shy nine-year-old Shula (Maggie Malubwa) who, after a banal incident, gets accused of being a witch by her small superstitious community in the country’s capital of Lusaka, eventually being exploited for fame and fortune. Anchored by Malubwa’s fascinating central performance, it’s a strangely alluring watch, made with a rare confidence and boldness, leaving many things – from the nature of mob mentality to primitive superstitions in modern society to the exploitation of children in all its forms – ripe for post-film discussion.

Hector

The one and only Peter Mullan stars in this bittersweet, empathetic little drama as the eponymous homeless man who makes his annual walking and hitchhiking pilgrimage from his native Glasgow to London to stay at his usual homeless shelter over the Christmas period. Mullan is predictably excellent, avoiding cliché to bring us a nuanced and thus affecting portrayal of a man doing his best to survive, as the film slowly reveals how he came to be in this situation in the first place via a glass half full journey, eventually arriving honestly at a quietly cathartic conclusion. It’s not a film to make a big fuss with big awardsy speeches and is all the better for it.

Psychokinesis

One of the lesser known Netflix original films, this super-fun South Korean superhero film (the country’s first ever) takes what we know about the ubiquitous genre and puts a quirky spin on it. It’s about a bank security guard who gains superhuman telekinetic powers after drinking some contaminated water from a spring that’s been affected by a mysterious meteor, eventually using his newfound powers to help take down an evil corporation ruining his neighbourhood. It comes from director Yeon Sang-ho, who made smash hit zombie horror Train to Busan, and while it’s not quite up to the same level he nevertheless brings a similar sort of energy and playfulness here, as well as a good dose of heart and emotion to balance out the impressively visualised superhero theatrics.

Bobby Sands: 66 Days

Fans of Widows director Steve McQueen will no doubt be familiar with his excellent dramatized film Hunger. But this part non-fiction account is well worth a watch, too. The harrowing, in-depth documentary chronicles the pointed struggle of Bobby Sands, the IRA volunteer who in March 1981 began a hunger strike that would last an astonishing 66 days and eventually take his life, all in the name of wanting to be officially recognised as a political prisoner. Veteran documentarian Brendan J. Byrne utilizes an effective, potent mix of archival footage and a wide variety of interviews alongside a stylised re-enactment of what Sands went through in his cell set to narration relaying his diary entries, painting a complex portrait of why he (and others who also believed in his cause) did what he did. Not one easily forgotten.

The Party

A cast of some of the best actors working today gather for this scathingly funny confrontation of personalities and world views from Orlando and Ginger & Rosa director Sally Potter. It’s not exactly plot-driven, simply focusing on a small house party to celebrate the political appointment of Kristen Scott Thomas’ Janet, wife to Timothy Spall’s put-upon husband Bill – the entire film takes place inside their house. But what it lacks in bountiful plot it more than makes up for with scabrous wit and verbal one-upmanship, smacking a multitude of subjects across the face and in the process unearthing, breaking down and deconstructs these characters’ (also played by the likes of Patricia Clarkson, Emily Mortimer and Cillian Murphy) preconceived notions and entrenched conduct. Shot in handsome black and white, it’s a breezy 70-odd minutes long and cuts like a scalpel.

Notes On Blindness

One of the most unique documentaries in recent memory, this one follows the journey of teacher John M. Hull who eventually lost his sight completely after decades of his sight steadily deteriorating. What’s most unusual about the documentary (more of a docudrama, given it’s penchant for striking recreations of memories) is how it re-enacts things with actors lip-synching to Hull’s audio tape diaries, helping conjure a kind of ethereal, other-worldly atmosphere that, along with refreshingly eloquent and open subject, really draws you into this man’s experience that’s inconceivable to most people. There have been many films that deal with blindness in one way or another, from the famed Japanese Zatoichi action series to Fernando Meirelles thriller Blindness, but few films have done so with such poignancy, insight or empathy.

The Invitation

This slow-building, brooding gem from director Karyn Kusama invites us into a seemingly normal dinner party, albeit one where you can instantly feel some sort of undercurrent of tension from things unsaid (or, indeed, not yet done). When Logan Marshall Green’s pensive Will is invited to his former home where his ex and her new partner live, he begins to suspect they have sinister plans up their sleeve for them and the other guests. It’s best not to know much more about the plot that than (yes, it’s one of those) as the pleasure is in slowly working out what’s going on before the film delights in horrifying you with the answer, leaning heavily into classic horror roots to deliver an unsettling experience that marks itself out from that most crowded of crowds.

Human Flow

A pertinent and overwhelmingly powerful documentary about the worldwide migrant crisis from Ai Weiwei, one of China’s most acclaimed but controversial artists. Using a mix of on-the-ground interviews and ambitious drone-shot views that give us unforgettable imagery, Ai gives us an epic, all-encompassing yet strikingly intimate view of the on-going crisis, putting it in frightening worldwide context as he documents the issue in 23 countries, from Turkey and Germany to Afghanistan and Mexico. While it never shies away with dealing with the political aspects (highlighting the startling difference between how some countries are open to people coming in while others are quick to build walls, for example), more than anything it seeks to shine an empathetic, humanistic light on one of the world’s most important topics. It’s a tough watch, as it should be, but it’ll be 140 minutes you won’t regret spending.

Flawless

None other than Joel Schumacher directs Robert De Niro and the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman in this well-observed comedy-drama about a strict conservative former and highly-decorated NYPD officer (De Niro) who, after suffering a debilitating stroke, is assigned to a rehabilitation programme which includes a series of singing lessons from the drag queen (Hoffman) who lives next door. On the surface it seems like just another in a line of odd couple dramedies, but it’s so much more than that, not least Hoffman and De Niro avoiding the pitfalls of insensitivity when it comes to their difficult respective roles. While certainly working within the confines of narrative formula to a certain extent, it’s nevertheless a funny, moving film about empathy and understanding – two decades on it deserves to be seen more than ever.

Joint Security Area

South Korean maestro Park Chan-wook is most known for the likes of his Vengeance Trilogy, Thirst and most recently BBC’s stylish spy thiller The Little Drummer Girl. But I implore you, especially with recent real world events, to visit this early work from 2000 which places a tense mystery about the killing of two North Korean soldiers supposedly by a soldier from the South at the notorious guarded border between North and South Korea – the “Korean Demilitarized Zone” or DMZ. Featuring two of the subsequent biggest stars of Korean cinema in Byung-Hun Lee (I Saw the Devil) and Kang-ho Song (The Host) and under the guise of a compelling whodunit, it’s a complex look at the idea of where friendship and moral duty fits into nationalism and sense of loyalty for the place and people into which you were born.

Please do come back and let us know what you thought of any of these films! And remember, if you’re looking for a wider variety of stuff to watch, a VPN is a great way to get access to other Netflix regions.

Comment below or tweet us @TOF_UK or @rosstmiller.

Though it’s not what you would call the most surprising of films, with very few narrative twists and turns that will catch even fewer off guard, it’s nevertheless one that takes us warmly by the hand and guides us through the ups and downs of the incomparable pair just as their careers were beginning to die down.

After a quick intro into the heights of their heyday in 1937, events skip forward to 1953 where Stan and Ollie, wonderfully played by Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly respectively, reconnect after years apart to embark on a tour of the cities and small towns of Britain under the guidance of tour manager Bernard Delfont (Rufus Jones).

People remember them affectionately, “still using the same old material,” but they’re not playing the same size venues as they used to and are clinging onto the hope of doing a fancy new Robin Hood film once they get back to Hollywood, supposedly backed by irritable and money-hungry studio exec Hal Roach (Danny Huston).

There’s a great pang of nostalgia, fondness, wide-eyed longing and sadness coursing throughout much of this gentle film  as we get to see what their pairing, their huge success and the coming to terms with the fact that it’s dwindling, means to the pair themselves and on their respective wives, Ida (Nina Arianda) and Lucille (Shirley Henderson), who eventually join them on their tour.

While the direction by Jon S. Baird (making a sharp career right turn after the infinitely more outrageous Filth) can feel a little televisual at times, the sense of time and place combined with the performances elevates it. It was always going to be hard to depict this duo on-screen in a film like this, given their distinctiveness in every way, shape and form.  And it’s certainly true that the two leads have their mannerisms down to an absolute tee; Coogan is particularly fascinating to watch, having the hardest job of the two given Laurel’s outlandish facial expressions. But the two play delightfully off of one another as the idiosyncratically buffoonish and the grumpy put-upon partner-in-tow.

However, it’s far more than just impersonation for impersonation’s sake. We have two larger than life figures here and the film puts the emphasis on “life” in that equation. It’s a bit of a wonder to watch them going through the genuinely emotional and heartfelt minutiae of their troubles off-stage then transform into their carefully constructed personas once the curtain rises. Once they do, it’s a joy to behold some of their most famous skits, like “Hard Boiled Eggs and Nuts” and the “Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia” song reenacted with such joyful sincerity.

What Baird’s biopic does best of all is give us a sense of these men as people, albeit painted in broader strokes – it aims for as wide of an audience as possible and in that respect, it throws its arms wide around all. But it also leaves no doubt as to why they were and continue to be so cherished. Laurel may have gotten his old buddy Hardy into fine messes again and again, but the film about them is anything but.

It is with great relief that the latest in the series now takes things in a different direction, back into the past for a comparatively more intimate origin story about the most visually distinctive and likeable of the Transformers bunch. It turns out the more grounded you make a film about a giant transforming alien robot, the more impact it has on a gut level.

We jump back to 1987 where teenage girl Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) is trying to find her own place in the world on the cusp of her 18th birthday. She’s weighed down by grief over losing her father, with whom she shared a passion for fixing cars, and feeling increasingly alienated from her family.

One day while scavenging at the local scrapyard for parts to fix her dad’s old car, she happens across a beat-up yellow Beetle which she eventually brings home in the hope of making it driveable. To her surprise the car transforms before her into a giant yellow robot.

Freaking out at first, she soon forms a bond with the machine she nicknames Bumblebee who, as it turns out, has been sent to protect earth by leader of his Autobot clan Optimus Prime. Charlie does her best to help protect him from government agents (led by John Cena’s gruff Agent Burns) and the villainous clan of Transformers, the Decepticons, who are trying to track him down.

The garish sensibilities of previous franchise director Michael Bay is replaced with a crisper, cleaner approach from Travis Knight. With the exception of the inevitable big final showdown – which succumbs somewhat (though thankfully never to the same fatal extent) to the messiness of the franchise’s worst rough-and-tumble beats – the action is well staged and often quite inventive.

Knight comes from the world of stop-motion animation, having previously made the Oscar-nominated Kubo And The Two Strings, and you can feel some of that idiosyncratic playfulness seeping into his approach here. You also feel his delightful reverence for the toys that inspired the franchise and the general idea of playing make-believe as you give your toys voices and personalities, something that was so often missing before.

That idea is sold more easily to the audience by the very fact that it’s set in the era in which the toys were first big; the sense of time and place is done in broad strokes and can be a little too on-the-nose. But its accentuated evocation of the era, including a killer pop soundtrack, is a fun backdrop for the action.

What makes it work more than anything, however, is that sense of the human touch embodied in the character of Charlie. Steinfeld’s committed and endlessly likeable presence really makes the film and she really sells the idea of a sweet-natured human-robot friendship helping an alienated teenage girl find her way in the world.

Despite its status as a prequel to what we know will come to pass, as well as an obvious setting up of a new offshoot franchise of its own, it works surprisingly well as a stand-alone piece.

In contrast to the mangled pile of spare parts the series had become, we now have a Transformers film that remembers to have fun and, most importantly, realises that even a little heart goes a long way.

The latest instalment seems to recognise and avoid that danger by being utterly, eternally ludicrous and over-the-top. But most importantly, where it counts anyway, it’s crucially self-aware of that fact and has a fun time plunging us into the depths and carrying us to great heights of entertainingly ridiculous spectacle.

We first met Arthur Curry AKA the Aquaman (Jason Momoa) teaming up with the Justice League. But how did he come to be imbued with the powers of the ocean? The film sets up his origin story quite well as we discover in the film’s opening minutes that his mother was Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Queen of the ancient underwater Kingdom of Atlantis, who washed up on the “surface world” and met and fell in love with lighthouse keeper Thomas (Temeura Morrison).

Together they had a child that, to her mind, bridges the divide between the underwater and surface worlds, proving they can be one. However, it’s a view not greatly shared by many of her own people; when she wilfully returns to Atlantis for the sake of her son’s survival, they carry out a swift sentence of justice that would affect her husband and son’s destiny forever.

In the present day, Aquaman is approached by Mera (Amber Heard), a warrior princess of Nereus (Dolph Lundgren), who tries to convince him that he must claim his rightful place as King of Atlantis. This is in order to thwart his ruthless and cunning half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) from seizing power as Ocean Master that would lead to a full-scale attack on the surface world, someone who considers Aquaman to be a “half-breed” not worthy of the throne.

Credit must go to director James Wan (a filmmaker who has gone from horror franchises like Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring to blockbusters like Fast & Furious 7) for really going for it by delivering an eye-popping, bonkers visual style that seems to make every effort to be the opposite of drab.

It’s fuelled by a marriage between the comic book page and Greek mythology; sometimes that gets the better of it in the shape of characters going on extended monologues that explain legends in the finest detail, though at others that feeds into the idea of stories retold through the ages.

The film is a treat to behold whenever it dives into the ocean as Wan embraces the absurdity at every turn (look out for the giant neon-lit octopus playing the drums), wearing the inherent goofiness as a badge of honour rather than anything to shy away from. And,perhaps most importantly, the cast seems completely on-board for having as much fun with those OTT concepts as they want the audience to have.

Momoa brings alight-hearted charisma, which carries the film whenever it leans too heavy into one-liner humour that doesn’t always land as hoped, while bringing a welcome sense of bruising physicality to the action scenes that are otherwise so reliant on CGI.

An impressive cast of more seasoned actors all lend as much weight to it as possible, from Kidman’s caring, strong-willed portrayal of Aquaman’s mother to Willem Dafoe as his Atlantean trainer Vulko and particularly Wilson, who lends formidable threat to the potentially bland villain Orm.

For a film that had the potential to get so tangled up in both its place within an overall comic book movie universe and the mythology that sets the foundation of its tale, it’s surprisingly streamlined and enjoyably accessible. It’s a refreshingly carefree,unchallenging romp that invites you to let the tidal wave of rambunctious comic book movie sensibilities wash over you.

Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is a normal teenager living in New York with his parents; loving but fairly easy-going mother Rio (Luna Lauren) and loving but tough police officer father Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry) – the film has a surprising emotional through-line in how it depicts the father-son relationship.

One day while doing some secretive spray painting with his chummy uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali), he is bitten by a mysterious spider that gives him special powers from web slinging to a tingling Spidey Sense.

This leads him to eventually crossing paths with Peter Parker (Jake Johnson) who, due to the villainous Kingpin (Liev Schreiber) meddling with a dimension-altering weapon, has inadvertently been sent over from a parallel universe and who eventually teaches Miles how to be Spider-Man.

But it doesn’t stop there;many other diverse versions appear, from Gwen Stacy AKA Spider-Woman (Hailee Steinfeld) to Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage). Sony’s dazzling animation is as fun because it takes that idea and just runs with it.

Anyone can wear the mask seems to be its mantra, conjuring the everyman wonder that drives much of comic book fandom. For all its eye-popping, modern visual aesthetics, it has a refreshingly old-fashioned spirit. The old and the new meet in the film’s beguiling combination of traditional hand-drawn animation and contemporary bells and whistles computer rendering. It’s about as close as a film has come to feeling like a comic book come to life.

Inventive direction by trio Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman works in lovely harmony with the eclectic, knowing style of scriptwriter Phil Lord (The Lego Movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) to find quite a miraculous way of breathing new life into the overflowing comic book genre.

From its sharply-written dialogue to its very animation style itself, the film is beautifully self-aware of its own station within the overall comic book movie catalogue, cleverly lampooning yet dotingly celebrating the attributes that have become such a part of pop culture. And yet it feels like it puts its own fiercely original stamp on that most famous of heroes.

This is a visually stunning, innovative incarnation of the character; propulsive in its energetic action, engagingly voiced, tightly written as a heroic narrative arc, reverential yet forward-thinking in its ethos and with a real sense of heart and soul at its core. It’s a particular treat for fans and a welcoming,imaginative embrace for everyone.

Based on the 2001 young adult steampunk novel series by Philip Reeve, events takes place hundreds of years in the future. Humanity has all but completely fallen thanks to something called the Sixty Minute War, wherein a series of quantum bombs were set off that left the world a wasteland where resources are scarce.

In order to survive and assert dominance, humankind came up with the idea of making the world’s great cities into mobile machines that traverse the land in perpetual war with one another. The larger cities “absorb” smaller surrounding communities whose on-board societies live hearing stories of, and scavenging old tech (iPhones, computers, toasters) from, a time gone by.

Our hero is an enigmatic young woman named Hester (Hera Hilmar) with a scar on her face who boards the almighty London to exact revenge against leader Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), whom she blames for the death of her mother. There she meets wide-eyed Tom (Robert Sheehan) who, after they are forced out into the wilderness, band together in a larger fight.

The idea of mechanised cities roaming the earth is a bold concept indeed, one that that takes sometime to convince. But it gets there after an iffy warm-up act thanks to a nice,tangible sense of world-building (despite its CGI-heavy aesthetic) and an eye-popping epic scale.

The film’s greatest strength is the sheer size of it; these humungous mechanical cities with ever-moving parts and on ground-shaking wheels are a sight to behold. It’s a spectacle that does a lot of the heavy-lifting, so to speak, as the quest that propels the story forward leans on the familiar and doesn’t have a great deal of chemistry to speak of between the two leads; Sheehan has a fairly thankless, put-upon role compared to Hilmar’s more action-packed one.

Directed by first-timer Christian Rivers – a former storyboard artist talent nurtured by the film’s long-time developing producer/co-writer Peter Jackson – it also solidly works on its own terms as an escapist yarn propped up by an imaginative and intriguing mythology that feels lived-in and “believable” as far as these things go.

It has flaws to spare, not least an over reliance on a pedestrian hero arc bolted onto a quite standard adventure story. But it’s fairly rewarding in its sense of immersion in a well-designed world and a sense of towering scale that reminds us why the big-screen is referred to as such.

The debut feature from rapper-turned-writer-director Boots Riley ostensibly centres on a young blackman named Cassius AKA Cash (Lakeith Stanfield) living in an alternate version of present day Oakland, California. It’s a world adorned with ads for a nefarious company named WorryFree that practically trades in human slavery and is plagued by the protests and vandalism of radical group “The Left Eye.”

In order to earn some much-needed money and in a naïve attempt to seem more interesting to his performance artist/activist girlfriend Detroit (Tessa Thompson), Cash gets a job as atelemarketer at the lower-level of a company named Regal View where he is told by seasoned colleague Langston (Danny Glover) to use his “white voice” to get ahead.

Stick to the script, he is repeatedly told from up on high, and if he’s successful he could reach the company’s higher floors where the real money is made. Will he succumb to the heady heights of greed and success or will he stick by his friends by sticking it to the man?

From the get-go everything about this film feels at once familiar yet weirdly alien – as if a trippy filter has been applied to the world and its eclectic inhabitants. It’s got the scrappy, all-or-nothing bravura of a first time filmmaker who has real experience in other areas (Riley’s rap and hip-hop background bleeds through into the personality of every scene)proving himself as a force to be reckoned with as an exciting new voice on the ever-crowded American cinematic landscape.

It’s a rowdy and disruptive,exciting and challenging concoction that takes a big bite (almost too big) out of a lot of things. Packed with dynamic visual metaphors and sly dialogue, it chomps together scathing social commentary on everything from racial inequality and the warping of the so-called American dream to corporate greed and nationwide short attention spans; elongated oddball farce; and sci-fi-tinged flights of fancy that are as bewildering as they are weirdly entertaining. Stanfield is the warmly-inviting anchor throughout its madness.

It doesn’t have the consistency to make the entire experience work; the final third takes the absurdism to trying new heights in a way that loses grip of the thematic, shrewdly satirical heavy-lifting that powers its earlier scenes. But its swagger and sheer brazen weirdness is to be admired, commended and revelled in because we just don’t get films like this very often.

Serkis’ version very much takes things back to Rudyard Kipling’s seminal source material about an Indian boy eventually named Mowgli (Rohan Chand) found by the panther Bagheera (voiced by Christian Bale) and taken to the depths of the jungle where he’s raised amongst a pack of wolves, led by Akela (Peter Mullan) and Nisha (Naomie Harris), and trained by the ruthless Baloo (Serkis himself).

As the dreaded and formidable tiger Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) makes an appearance to exert his power and seek control over their lush habitat, Mowgli also must confront his own origins, namely the fact that he’s not actually a wolf and really belongs with his own human kind.

The decision to take things down the darker path less travelled is an interesting though not altogether successful one. It’s rougher around the edges, bearing the clawed scratches of a less sharply defined narrative that sometimes lags in pace. And for the first half at least the uncanny valley effect of the CGI (in addition to voicing the characters, the actors are motion-captured to blend with what the real animals would look like) tends to distract more than immerse you in the world.

Nevertheless there’s a sincerity to Serkis’ interpretation of the legendary story, as well as a boldness in how it flies in the face of what we think we know about it. The cutesiness of Disney (both the 1967 animation and the 2016 CGI-live-action hybrid) feels violently pushed aside by design – there’s no catchy musical numbers, for example, as Serkis ups the danger and tension, mounting genuinely impressive and thrilling horrors of nature sequences that if it weren’t for the CGI could almost come straight out of a David Attenborough documentary.

It’s straight-up frightening at times, not least how it utilizes the giant snake Kaa (Cate Blanchett), whose coiling, poisonous menace looms large as just one of the threats the jungle poses – however much that may overwhelm the heart of the story at times, it’s commendable how much Serkis makes the jungle feeling like a living, breathing and perilous place as much as it is the irreplaceable home of these diverse creatures.

It takes a tougher stance on just about everything, from the dangers Mowgli faces to its treatment of the usually loveable big bear Baloo as a kind of world-weary, no-nonsense drill-sergeant to the way it examines the idea of Mowgli’s human origins.

It’s a game of two halves,taking a while to settle into its particular interpretation of the world before becoming much more compelling in the second half as it explores where the beloved “man cub” came from, both physically and metaphorically.

Does his human nature define him or is his unorthodox upbringing the key to who he really is? However uneven the overall result may be, Serkis wrestles with that idea with gusto, a rewarding feeling of genuine reverence for the source material and a commitment to going for it, tooth and claws ferociously out.

The simple bare necessities here is to have bite and grit to spare, sometimes to the expense of making it all hang together, but it’s refreshing to see a version of the story stare meaningfully into the void.

Finally picking up the scent is John Hunt (Casey Affleck), a canny detective who seems caught between desperately wanting to catch this man who’s stolen so much and secretly admiring someone who managed to escape prison an astonishing sixteen times just so he could carry on robbing.

In a way the detective is a conduit for the audience, watching on with admiration and revelling in the thrill of the chase as much as we’re itching to see what happens when he catches up with him.

Director David Lowery has a crop of diverse films to his credit, including crime/family drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (also starring Affleck), live-action fantasy remake Pete’s Dragon (also featuring Redford) and stunning meditation on the nature of life, the universe and everything with A Ghost Story. No two films are the same yet they’re thematically and tonally bound strongly together.

The Old Man & the Gun is a fine exemplar of Lowery’s cinematic intentions of being unassuming, almost laid back yet finding a way to be hugely affecting. It’s a film clothed in a cool ‘70s throwback vibe, astutely distilling flavours of classic bank robbery movies – from the planning and execution to the prototypical cat-and-mouse game between cop and robber – that have now aged like fine wine here.

It’s a fond farewell for Redford, perfect for a role that calls for the seamless blend between dazzling movie star and nuanced thespian. He oozes natural charisma, yet gives a believable and quietly heart-breaking performance of a man finding peace in his twilight years, yearning and reflective in a way that sends pangs of both sadness and contentment right off the screen.

Some of its best moments are simply him and Sissy Spacek – giving a moving performance as a kindred spirit offering normalcy – sitting across from one another discussing the big and small things in life.

“I’m not talking about making a living,” explains Tucker. “I’m just talking about living.” Rarely has a film about stealing been so nice. In its own unassuming way, it’s an affecting and strangely comforting experience.

“HE was also sort of a gentleman.” That’s how the victims of notorious septuagenarian bank robber Forrest Tucker describe him after relieving their registers of money. By the end the film he has long since made you feel the same way.