Articles written by Daniel Stephens - Page 3

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About me - Daniel Stephens

I'm a full time writer living in England. I currently run film and culture website Strange Conversation and I'm the Editor of a construction trade magazine printed and distributed throughout the UK and Ireland. In the past I was a staff writer for the UK's

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Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Aliens: 1 of 6
Arguably the best action film ever made, and a top three contender for finest sequel ever, Aliens, the sequel to a classic and a classic in itself, is simply a fantastic film that has frightened, terrified and thrilled audiences since its release in 1986. The film is a 'nightmare' envisioned on the screen - call it Ripley's ... More..
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Black Christmas: 1 of 6
Canada, 1974 director Bob Clark, unbeknown to him at the time, waters the seeds planted by Hitchcock's Psycho, and to a certain degree Michael Powell's Peeping Tom, to which would fruit to bare a new sub-genre in horror cinema. Four years before the supposed fire starter, and most famous film to grace the genre Halloween, Bl... More..
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Return of the Living Dead: 1 of 6
George A. Romero set them free, and now the 'undead' refuse to lay silent in the grave. Like his walking-corpse creations, this sub-genre in horror cinema keeps birthing new young and they just keep coming. It could certainly be argued that no other genre produced such a high volume of utter rubbish, and even many fan favour... More..
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Signs (2002): 1 of 6
M. Night Shyamalan had a lot to live up to with his fifth film as writer/director, as he had built quite a following since Haley Joel Osment had been seeing 'dead people'. The Sixth Sense had cinemagoers talking, and word-of-mouth whispers had people flocking for repeat viewings. Unbreakable reunited Bruce Willis with the di... More..
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno): 8 of 47
Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, Spain, 2006) Dir. Guillermo Del Toro; starring Ivana Baguero, Sergi Lopez There's a simple, innocent beauty amidst Guillermo Del Toro's harrowing tale of one girl's desperation to escape during the bloody Spanish Civil War. Set just after the D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944, Pan's Laby... More..
Entertainment > Movie Genres Favorite eighties teen movies: 1 of 5
I prefer to think of teen movies in the eighties as the Coming Of Age genre. The 'coming of age' movie is a bit ambiguous of course. There's a tendency to link the sub-genre to films about kids, so Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, and Jeff Daniels in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild, and Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker in Star W... More..
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Alien 3: 1 of 5
When I first saw Alien 3, shortly after its release in the United Kingdom, I wasn't impressed. I didn't like the opening which seemed to make a mockery of Aliens' finale, I didn't like the style or execution, and I didn't like the way the story had progressed. Little did I know at the time, of a rift between the then unknown... More..
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Doom: 1 of 5
In one of the great self-reflexive moments that Kevin Smith does so well, Ben Affleck tells Matt Damon in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, "you gotta do a safe picture, then you can do an art picture. But then sometimes you gotta do the paycheck picture because your friend says you owe him." It's a great little moment in a gr... More..
Entertainment > Movie Reviews Movie reviews: Deja Vu: 3 of 14
As the closing credits begin at the end of Deja Vu, a title appears commemorating the people of New Orleans for their 'strength and enduring spirit.' Clearly, the film alludes to those who lost their lives, and the many that tried to save life, after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. Yet, the film has more close ties to the unn... More..
Entertainment > Hollywood & Movie Industry Movie sequels and remakes: Is Hollywood out of ideas?: 7 of 29
It was only 1996 when Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day talked about strange outer space signals repeating themselves and recycling until there was no more. With controlled build-up, Goldblum's David, showing a sort of stoic heroism said Strange thing is, if my calculations are correct, the signal will be gone in seven hours... More..