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Day: 23 April 2013

I’m sorry but…apocalyptic movies are getting boring!

Written by Jack Crutcher on . Posted in Film.

It  must have been at least a year since we had a high-profile end of humanity/end of the world movie to enjoy. But ‘thankfully’ now we have four on their way!  Oblivion, World War Z, Elysium and the comedy This is The End are all set to hit cinema screens this year and despite all of these movies looking and sounding pretty good, I can’t help but get the feeling we’ve seen all this before.

Normally a director can throw a few zombies, a Tom Cruise or a Brad Pitt and even a Morgan Freeman into a film and people will come to watch it in their millions.  However movie lovers continue to act a bit like zombies themselves by watching and hence creating a market for these flicks. Undoubtedly, if there has been one genre of film that has been grossly over-exposed in the past 20 years it has to be those that play out a society-destroying disaster scenario. In the space this article has it would be impossible to list the amount of films that play to this theme, but blockbusters like War of the Worlds, 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, Dawn of the Dead and Falling Skies are perhaps some of the more conformist examples. Even the British film industry has got involved with Danny Boyle’s largely successful 28 days and 28 weeks later.

It’s not that some of these films aren’t good, it’s just that they have become so predictable! It’s not fun or exciting to see a post-apocalyptic wasteland anymore, and it certainly isn’t new to walk into a cinema and watch a group of people fight off infected zombies whilst, inevitably, one of the group gets bitten or goes crazy (as I imagine most people would at the end of all things!).

One of this summers’ new apocalyptic blockbusters might just turn out to be awesome, but before you go and think that makes this article pointless, I can guarantee they will all tell a story we’ve heard a million times before!

Must See: 29th April–5th May

Written by Hannah Lawrence on . Posted in Theatre.

This week:

Abigail’s Party

 Most people probably know Mike Leigh for his films, but his trip to the Lowry this week is as a theatre director, for Abigail’s Party, a satire on 1970’s suburbia. The production, dubbed ‘Brilliant, vintage Leigh’ by The Observer, follows Beverley Moss who invites her neighbours over for drinks. Satirising a newly emerging social class in 1970’s Britain this classic production is worth seeing for its insight into a Britain’s social history.

Runs 29th April – 4th May at The Lowry. Tickets £19.

 

This month:

A Doll’s House

Ibsen’s classic comes to the Royal Exchange stage in May under a new adaptation by Bryony Lavery. A play which caused huge controversy when it was first premiered and published back in 1879 it still remains relevant as its continued popularity on the modern stage has proved. Running during the lead up to exams this play, which deals with the longing for freedom, will no doubt strike a cord, even if only with those longing for the freedom away from John Rylands and the pressure of exams!

Runs 1st May – 1 June at The Royal Exchange. Tickets £10.

Brontë

Polly Teale’s play first staged in 2005 looks at the life and work of the Brontë sisters and their characters as they come back to haunt them. Directed by Gabriel Gawin and part of The Capitol’s Summer Season, a production worth catching.

Runs 15th – 18th May at The Capitol. Tickets £5.

 

Next month:

A Bright Room Called Day

Part of The Capitol’s Summer Season this play by Tony Krushner, famous for his Pulitzer Prize winning drama ‘Angels in America’ this production, set in 1930’s Berlin focuses on a group of struggling artists and political activists caught up in the fall of the Weimar Republic and the assent to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Praised by the Chicago Tribune as ‘thought-provoking’ its not one to be missed.

Runs 5th – 8th June at The Capitol Theatre. Tickets £5.