Godzilla 2014 Review

Hi everybody,

Please check out my review of Godzilla starring Bryan Cranston, Ken Watanabe, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen and a bloody great monster (or two or three!) over at Filmoria now.

I also got to meet and question some of the stars on the red carpet at the premiere so check out the full red carpet report, plus pictures at Filmoria.

24: Live Another Day Weekly Episode Reviews Writer Needed

In my role as editor of the TV section at Filmoria, I am looking for someone to write weekly episode reviews of 24: Live Another Day as it airs on UK TV.

You get paid according to the performance of your articles at Filmoria so this is one of those rare gigs where you might actually be able to scape together a few pennies for your hard work. I'm not promising wealth, riches or an early retirement but we do get some money depending on how well our articles perform.

Reviews should be around the 6-700 word mark each week and writers will be required to upload them to the site with pictures but it's all pretty straightforward. You can also contribute to the TV news and features section in order to earn more and drive more traffic to the site!

If you are interested in this opportunity, then please drop me an email at peter@filmoria.co.uk

Check out our current TV reviews here.

Call for TV news and reviews writers! Get Paid to Write!

Hello again! As the new TV Editor at Filmoria, I am looking to expand our team of dedicated TV writers. What we need is people who want to cover news and weekly episode reviews of some of the biggest shows on television as they hit screens in the UK. We already have writers covering episode reviews for Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and Bates Motel but we always need more people to cover the latest news and to write features on all of these shows and more. Here is the full list of shows we need covering in terms of news, features and episode reviews:

Doctor Who

Hannibal

Downton Abbey

Homeland

Sherlock

True Detective

House of Cards

24: Live Another Day

Sleepy Hollow

Girls

Veep

Arrow

Vikings

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Sons of Anarchy

The Following

The Americans

American Horror Story

Boardwalk Empire

Elementary

Mad Men

From Dusk til Dawn

Person of Interest

Hemlock Grove

Fargo

Da Vinci’s Demons

Penny Dreadful

Under the Dome

Peaky Blinders

Broadchurch

The Good Wife

Parks and Recreation

Scandal

Gotham

Surely one of these must spark your interest. Did I mention that you will also get paid to write at Filmoria? There is a performance pay scheme that basically works out like this:

You will earn £0.05 per article that you write and publish for every 100 unique page visits, within the first 30 days of being published, with no upper limit threshold.    

• 1000 unique page views = £0.50
• 10,000 unique page views = £5.00
• 100,000 unique page views = £50.00
• 100,000,000 unique page views = £500.00

It might not be much at the moment but as the site grows, we hope to see our page views and income rise. The more you write and the more our audience reads it, the more you earn! News stories should be around 400 words and features and reviews around 700 words.

If you are interested, please contact me on peter@filmoria.co.uk and send me a few links to your published work. Feel free to check out Filmoria and see what you think!

Here's a selection of some of the stuff we've been writing recently:

7 Reasons Why You Should Be Watching ‘Bates Motel’

8 Reasons Why You Should Be Watching ‘Game of Thrones’

‘The Walking Dead’ Season 4, Episode 16 review – ‘A’

‘Game of Thrones’ Season 4 – Profile of King’s Landing

‘True Detective’ Season 1, Episode 6 Review – ‘Haunted Houses’

‘Fargo’ TV Series Premieres Trailers

‘American Horror Story’ Fourth Season Has A Name

‘Gotham’: First picture of Sean Pertwee as Alfred released

Netflix Pulls In Big Names For New Series

1 Million Views at Yahoo and the new Filmoria Podcast

OK that wasn't a long hiatus but had to share that my writing at Yahoo just passed the 1 million page view mark. I'd love it if it were this blog that had made it to a million views but it's still brilliant to know that lots of people are checking out my stuff somewhere.

In other completely unrelated news, I am part of a small team who are contributing to a new Filmoria podcast tonight. Not sure when the final thing will be published exactly but I'll be sure to post it here when it is.

I also might be going to a press conference with Arnold Schwarzenegger in attendance on Monday so that's something to shout about!

TV Editor at Filmoria

I've been given the very exciting position of becoming the TV editor at Filmoria. It's my first time taking an editorial position and I will be doing my best to get the team to contribute as much in the way of TV news, reviews and features as I can.

Sadly, it also means that I will probably be letting I Love That Film gather a bit of dust for the foreseeable future. I'm still going to use this blog to share other things I'm working on but I suspect that posts are going to become few and far between.

I'm pleased to say that after however many years of writing here, I finally managed to get loads of useful tabs on that menu at the top. So if people do visit this blog, then they can find stuff really easily. I'll still be adding links to reviews, Yahoo articles and Filmoria articles so I guess I Love That Film is still my base on the internet.

If anyone does read this, then thank you for stopping by and if you've been with me since I started or ever read, shared or commented on anything on this blog then an even bigger thank you! Until next time, please check out the TV section at Filmoria for all the latest news, reviews and features.

I'm sure this isn't the end. Just a temporary hiatus. See you on the other side.

Recent Reviews: RoboCop, Filth Blu-ray, Grudge Match, Banshee Chapter DVD

I've been a busy bunny with writing film reviews for Filmoria over the last couple of weeks. I've been sent to screenings and sent review copies of films and here is a round up of the films that have recently been released:

Check out my review of the new RoboCop film at Filmoria.

I also reviewed the Blu-ray of Filth for Filmoria.

And Grudge Match starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro.

And Banshee Chapter out now on DVD.

Upcoming reviews will include The Stag, The Book Thief, Brian de Palma's Phantom of the Paradise and a very soppy romance called Endless Love. I also got to interview Jon S. Baird, the director of Filth on Thursday and I will be posting that interview on Filmoria on Monday.

More reviews from I Love That Film:

Only Lovers Left Alive

The Wolf of Wall Street

Out of the Furnace

Philomena

Dallas Buyers Club

12 Years A Slave

American Hustle

All is Lost

The Railway Man

Captain Phillips

300,000 plus 800,000 page views

In March 2014, I will have been blogging at I Love That Film for 5 years. 5 YEARS!!! I can't actually believe that but it's true. It changed my life starting this blog, no exaggeration. It set me on the course that I have been determined to follow ever since. I want to write about film and TV for a living and I'm now well on my way to doing just that. It has given me way more confidence in going after a career in film journalism and helped to open doors for me around the web on bigger and better websites like Filmoria, Static Mass Emporium, Tastic Film and Starburst Magazine.

I can't let this blog go as I love keeping it going even though it has only just hit 300,000 views after nearly 5 years. I could probably contribute much more to various other websites and have lots more people read my writing but I built this blog and I love watching it grow. I also love being part of the incredibly talented, dedicated and knowledgeable blogging community that is out there. I used to think I was kind of alone in my film obsession but now I realise this is far from the case. I'm constantly astounded by other bloggers' commitment and passion for film.

More and more, this blog is becoming a place for me to link to my other writing around the web and I'm sure there may come a day when I will have to stop but for now I want to celebrate this little milestone. I hope that my frequent readers will continue to stick with me for some years to come. Thank you for dropping by and leaving comments... you know who you are!

Over night, this blog I have worked so hard on reached 300,000 views after nearly 5 years of writing. Depressingly or brilliantly (depending on how you look at it), my writing at Yahoo also hit a landmark yesterday when my articles totaled to over 800,000 views. Considering I became a contributor a year ago, this is slightly sad when you compare it to my blog but on the other hand, it is great to be reaching such a huge audience. That means all in all over a million people have looked at my articles and I like to think that with all my other writing around the web, perhaps the total is closer to 2 million!

Anyway, enough navel gazing and back to some real work! Thank you so much to anyone who reads this or who has ever commented or dropped by or read any of my stuff. To infinity and beyond!

New reviews: Anchorman 2, Only God Forgives and more

Anchorman 2 is released on Wednesday and I got to see it on Friday 6th December for Filmoria. Unfortunately there was one of those pesky embargo things on it until 5pm today so I was not allowed to share my review until now. My review of Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is at Filmoria here.

While everyone will be pleased to have the news team back together, I think people may be disappointed if they set their expectations too high. I hope I'm wrong as I know people love the first movie so hopefully they will get a kick out of this one too. It seemed like people were loving it in the screening I went to. There was loads of laughter and I did wonder if the fact I had had a bad day, made me enjoy it less. This is why film criticism is such a tricky subjective business. I will be keeping an eye on reviews of this one to see if I'm in the minority or if other people found it to be a bit less exciting than the original.

I also recently reviewed a few DVD's for Filmoria including the highly weird Only God Forgives, enlightening documentary When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun and TV series Low Winter Sun. I wasn't expecting to like Only God Forgives as I might be the only person in the world to think that Drive is over rated. Only God Forgives has more of those interminable pregnant pauses and loads more Gosling moping. It looks good but wow is it weird... and not in a particularly engaging way. Check out my review of Only God Forgives at Filmoria here.

When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun is the kind of important documentary that no one will probably see unfortunately and Low Winter Sun is going to suffer in comparison to other recent AMC dramas. I also got the chance to interview the director of When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun, Dirk Simon and you can check out the interview at Filmoria here. Check out my review of When the Dragon Swallowed the Sun here and my review of Low Winter Sun Season 1 here.

More reviews from I Love That Film:

Last Vegas

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Captain Phillips

Saving Mr. Banks

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Don Jon

Machete Kills, The Conspiracy, Snitch and more

Ender's Game

Sunshine on Leith

How I Live Now

First year at Filmoria

On June 10th 2012 I wrote my first piece for Filmoria. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship that has afforded me no end of brilliant opportunities. I started out by contributing to the Film Song of the Day series by writing about The Pixies' Where is My Mind? in Fight Club. I've since moved on to loads of news stories, reviews, features and interviews. Here are some of my highlights of writing for Filmoria:

I've written loads of features and contributed sections to many more but here are my personal favourites:

Is Modern Marketing Ruining the Movie Experience?

Must-see Movie: American History X

Top 10 Found Footage Films

Quentin Tarantino Retrospective

Top 5 Funniest Sex Scenes

Danny Boyle Retrospective
Roger Ebert Tribute

I've written 33 news stories over the past year covering new posters, new pictures, casting announcements, new trailers and plenty of rumours. Here are some of my favourites:

Rebellion new poster and stills

Before Midnight stills

On the radio with Ruth Barnes

I've written 51 reviews for Filmoria to date... that's an average of 1 a week pretty much! Some of the best are:

My Brother the Devil
The Dark Knight Rises

A Good Day to Die Hard

Rebellion

Iron Man 3

The Great Gatsby

The most exciting part of writing for Filmoria has probably been the interviews and red carpet reports I have been given the opportunity to do. As much as just getting to see a film early is exciting, it's even better if I get to chat to a star or director as well. These are the biggest and best interviews I've conducted for Filmoria so far:

Untouchable directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toladano

Paranormal Activity 1-4 star Katie Featherston

Flight star Denzel Washington and director Robert Zemeckis

Rebellion director Matthieu Kassovitz

The Last Exorcism 2 director Ed Gass-Donelly

Expect much, much more in the future! And Filmoria are currently looking for more news writers to join the team, so if you are interested, get in contact!

Message from Side By Side Producer

On the plus side, after having Game of Thrones spoiled for me, I also on the same day received this lovely message from the producer of the fantastic documentary Side By Side which I reviewed for Filmoria here and also compared to the documentary Sound City here. The producer is Justin Szasla and he sent me an email saying exactly this:

Hi Peter--I am the producer of the doc SIDE BY SIDE and I just happened to read your DVD review today. Thanks for writing such an intelligent, conscientious and thoughtful piece. -Justin Szlasa

How cool is that? Firstly to think that he stumbled upon my review at Filmoria and secondly that he would take a moment to say such a kind thing. What a gentleman! 

It's only the second time I've had a filmmaker contact me about a review and the first time was less pleasant. Once upon a time Jonathan Newman, the director of a film called Foster, tweeted to me saying my review was "interesting". It was a (generous) two star review and I said back to him that I wished I could put in every review 'but at least this guy got a film made which is an incredible achievement' but I thought people would get bored of reading that.

Anyway now I'm on a roll there was also the time one of the stars of My Brother the Devil tweeted this:

Thx 2 @filmoria 4 giving @mbtdfilm an Amazing review! *powerful performances nearing perfection* *endlessly complex* *purely entertaining*
— James Floyd (@iJamesFloyd) October 30, 2012

And the time Matt Reeves director of Cloverfield tweeted this:

@pturner1010 Really enjoyed your article, Peter.
— Matt Reeves (@mattreevesLA) March 5, 2011

Have you had any feedback from the wonderful people that make the movies we all love to watch and write about? Did you get as excited as me?

Movie watching and writing in April 2013

I watched 16 films this month but write the most amount of posts I've ever written in one month. It was also the second biggest month for page views in the history of I Love That Film with over 16,500 views in April. Anyway that's enough statistical excitement and here's what I watched this last month along with a rating I've just decided on right now. Click any of the title to be magically transported to my reviews wherever they may be:

Evil Dead (8/10)
Spring Breakers (8/10)
The Lost Coast Tapes (5/10)
Olympus Has Fallen (8/10)
The Gatekeepers (8/10)
Excision (7/10)
Iron Man 3 (8/10)
Rock of Ages (2/10) (There was very little 'rock' about it and it took ages to finish)
Bait (5/10)
The Look of Love (7/10)
Bernie (7/10)
Everybody Has a Plan (7/10) (I will be reviewing this for Static Mass Emporium in May)
21 & Over (6/10)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (9/10) Just brilliant in every way. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Side by Side (9/10)
Sound City (7/10)

My The Lords of Salem  and Rebellion reviews were also published at Filmoria.

I covered news of a couple of new posters at Filmoria: the new World War Z poster and the new Made of Stone poster.

I also got to meet and interview one of my favourite filmmakers Mathieu Kassovitz for Filmoria.

I wrote a couple of box office reports for Tastic Film: Week of Magical Action and The Scare Off.

I also had my first articles for Yahoo Movies published about the Fast and Furious 7 director shortlist, James Wan getting the job and why I'd like to see Zack Snyder direct Justice League. I also wrote pieces for Yahoo on cheating in sports, marathon training, the death of Thatcher and cold caller chuminess.

This month I've also just started writing for Starburst Magazine and they have published a horrible little short story I wrote called Woman on the Wind and some news stories on Byzantium poster and trailer, Star Trek Into Darkness character posters and Michael Bay on Ninja Turtles and Transformers 4. I also reviewed the book The Art of Epic. Hopefully another of my short stories is going in the print edition of the magazine soon!

It's been a hectic but very exciting month! A couple of my college students have also started to write about and review films on their own blogs so I'm really happy to be helping them and hopefully inspiring them a bit too.

I've watched 66 new to me films this year so far and Beasts of the Southern Wild is certainly one of the absolute best. I cannot believe they gave the Oscar to Jennifer Lawrence over Quvenzhané Wallis. She was incredible. No offense to JLaw who I also like very much.

I'm now going to have to re-think my best of 2012 list after seeing both Beasts of the Southern Wild and Side by Side which would both make my top 10.

Iron Man 3 Review at Filmoria

Today is the day the embargo was lifted on Iron Man 3 reviews so even though I got to go to a special screening a whole week ago, I wasn't able to share my review until today.

Iron Man 3 Review at Filmoria

Not only did I get to see the film a week early, but writer and director Shane Black and co-writer Drew Pearce also showed up to introduce the screening. They both seemed very eager for us all to like the film and kept reminding everyone that it takes a lot of time and effort to make these films.

Patrick Samuel from Static Mass took this photo

Being cynical old me, I expected it to be a bomb due to their desperate pleas. If you want to know how I felt about the film after seeing it, you'll just have to head on over to Filmoria to read the review. Check out the trailer below if you haven't already seen it a hundred times!

The Lords of Salem, The Gatekeepers and Bait Reviews

Recently for Filmoria I've been watching and reviewing a very odd selection of films; Rob Zombie's latest horror The Lords of Salem, documentary The Gatekeepers and Aussie horror Bait featuring a shark in flooded supermarket. Yes you heard that right.

The Lords of Salem Review

The Gatekeepers Review

Bait Review

I just want to take this opportunity to have a quick bitch about something that is really starting to piss me off in critic screenings. It might just be my own sense of inadequacy but I still want to say something about it.

Have you ever been in a screening of a film that is probably not the greatest film ever and people start laughing uproariously at the plot points and bits of dialogue they find silly?

I don't mind people laughing if they think a film is silly but I get a sense sometimes that these people are laughing extra loud because they want everyone to know just how silly they find the film.

It happened to me twice recently in The Lords of Salem and A Good Day to Die Hard. I know neither of these are brilliant films and both have plenty of silly, laughable moments. I wouldn't mind but the laughing seems to be infectious and one person starts laughing loudly at the silly moments and then it seems to spread to others until by the end of the film, the whole screening room is full of people cracking up every time something silly happens.

I don't know if it's just me but I'm unlikely to laugh out loud at how preposterous a film gets. I might snigger and smirk a bit but I don't feel the need to make a scene. Even though I may not be enjoying the film, I still don't want people laughing all through it. It feels like they are trying to affect my view on the film and even if I was trying to take it seriously I wouldn't be able to because they are laughing all through it.

I was quite enjoying Die Hard 5 but was quickly getting annoyed with what seemed like critics trying to out-do each other at how hard they could laugh at the silly lines and plot points. I usually think a film deserves a full watch before I decide on what to think about it. I try to keep my judgement till the end and certainly no affect other people's enjoyment by dismissing it during the screening. Am I being unfair?

Anyway rant over. Please check out my reviews of the above films, some of which people didn't laugh all the way through.

More Film News at Filmoria

News stories are fun, quick and a real test of your ability to come up with something fresh to say about a poster, trailer or a new still from a film when you know that other sites have already had a pop at the story.

Film news changes and updates rapidly. In the age of Twitter, any news story can break and be all around the web in seconds. It seems ‘news’ can also be a good way to keep in the good books of PR companies who have the power to giveth and taketh away access to preview screenings. If you help promote their films in the run up to release, I guess you might be more likely to get access to the stars and the screenings.

I started a post ages ago for keeping track of my news stories but I think it’s time for a new one so please find below continuously updated links to any news stories I have published over at Filmoria with the newest link always at the top:

RIP Roger Ebert
World War Z Poster
Made of Stone Poster
Rebellion Poster and Images
Rebellion Trailer
Spring Breakers Posters
Saoirse Ronan Joins How to Catch a Monster
Die Hard 6 Looks Likely
Entourage Movie Green Lit
The Sweeney Publicity Stunt
Before Midnight New Stills
New Warm Bodies Poster
Gremlins Reboot Rumours
A Good Day to Die Hard R rated
The Last Exorcism Part 2 Poster
Berberian Sound Studio Wins at BIFA's
Filmoria on the Radio
Rise of the Guardians Magical Funland
New The Impossible TV Spot
Star Wars: Episode VII Director
More Dark Knight Rises Bonus Material
The Dark Knight Rises Bonus Features
Independence Day 3D
Wayne's World 3 Script
Star Trek Into Darkness Preview
One Direction Documentary Director
Django Unchained Poster

Keep an eye out for more news stories at Filmoria.

Director Retrospectives: Part 2 Danny Boyle

In the continuing series of director retrospectives over at Filmoria, my latest is on the career of British director Danny Boyle, ahead of the release of his new film Trance. I'm seeing Trance tomorrow at a preview screening and cannot wait! It's got James McAvoy, Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassell and looks like it might be a hypnotic blast. Early reviews are looking very good, no surprise after Danny Boyle wowed the world with the London Olympics Opening Ceremony last year!

 In advance of some of the biggest and best film releases of 2013, Filmoria writers are all contributing retrospectives of many directors' work. We have all chosen six directors who have films being released in 2013 and the idea is that in the week leading up to the new film, we will write and publish a retrospective look at that director's body of work.



The six directors I picked are some of my very favourites and others that have significant films to make their body of work worth revisiting. I take tasks like this very seriously and would like to get through all the films of each particular director before I write the pieces. I started out with Quentin Tarantino as my first director and that retrospective was published back in January ahead of the release of Django Unchained.


In the meantime other Filmoria writers have been tackling the likes of:


Sam Raimi

Pedro Almodovar
Steven Soderbergh
Walter Hill
Kathryn Bigelow
Judd Apatow
Robert Zemeckis

and many more!

I've been re-watching all of Boyle's films over the last couple of months in order to reappraise them and give this retrospective of the great director's work the respect it deserves. You can check out my Danny Boyle retrospective at Filmoria here. In case you didn't know this is the guy who gave us the likes of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours. He's easily one of my favourite directors and definitely my favourite British director, responsible for two of the greatest British films of all time in my opinion. Please go check out the retrospective to find out more about the man and his films.

If you aren't uncontrollably dribbling and desperate to see Trance by the end then I will consider myself a failure and hang my head in shame. Choose Life! Choose reading my retrospective!