Si J

I've no shame in saying it out loud, on the Internet or in public, The Blair Witch Project is one of my favourite films of all time. It is up at the top with Fight Club, Nosferatu, Steve Zisou and The Departed. I know a lot of people say that it's not scary, nothing really happens, Mike is the murderer blah blah blah but for me it introduced a whole plethora of horror films for me. It is the best found footage film in my opinion and I can't see anything ever beating it. You all know the story, 3 student film makers go to make a documentary, a lot of stuff goes wrong, creepy stuff happens and then the ending is, well, obscure. What I love about the Blair Witch Project is that I felt like it could be real, I found the whole film completely believable. The actors play their parts well, the group dynamic works by keeping the cast as small as possible, the film making is very amateur - student style and its kept short. I loved how the story built up over the course of the days. Fear, doubt, mistrust and paranoia build during the daytime but we hear and see very little during the night scenes. The fear that the characters experience at night time is triggered mainly by the amount of stress that has built up during the daytime hours. The majority of the film is shot during the day, which for me builds upon the excellent concept portrayed in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that light is safe and dark is danger. The characters know that something is following them yet they can't see it even though they are blessed with sunlight. The setting of the woods is obviously an overused idea but the film makes it work in a fresh way. They are lost, they have a tent for shelter which isn't particularly comforting, they have little food, no means of protection, heavy filming equipment and little off track hiking experience. I've watched the Blair Witch Project a hundred times and I've never been disappointed, I'm always trying to find something new, hear something different and find any clue as to what is happening to the characters. The only thing I dislike about the Blair Witch project is the sequels and games. I have seen book of shadows and Blair Witch, I have played all the games including the old dos games on PC and have been disappointed by all them. The xbox one release wasn't too bad and the old PC games had a great concept but poorly executed but the follow up films destroy all the hard work and mystery built up in the original film. We should never have seen the witch, we should never have revisited the house, we should never have had our intelligence insulted by the book of shadows and the latest film has taken the Blair Witch universe down the same path as Paranormal Activity, it gave us a ridiculous answer to a question that, I think, a lot of fans of the original film never wanted answered. The Blair Witch Project is a film that plays to its strengths. If you have never seen it please give it a try and if you like it PLEASE don't watch the sequels, particularly the book of shadows.

After the genius of The Office and the hilarious Extras I can honestly say I was not expecting Derek. The story basically revolves around a middle aged man who works at a care home for elderly people. Only Ricky Gervais could take that idea and make it into something of substance for TV. Derek is a wonderfully crafted, thought provoking, funny and moving piece of programming art. Each character fits into the storyline effortlessly. It is an easy and enjoyable watch. There has been a lot of people saying how Gervais is just taking the opportunity to mock disabled people again but they have not understood what the purpose of the character is. I can honestly say that I cried at the last episode of the first series. Watch it and you will see just how good an actor, story writer and comic Gervais is. He's a genius and anyone who says otherwise clearly belongs to the current generation of taking everything in offence

This is one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen but not because of the obvious. The obvious in itself is a horrific event that should never have happened but I feel that the film needs to be separately analysed for what it is. I found it so disturbing because I knew, straight away I knew that there would be backlash about the portrayal of Thompson and Venables in a sympathetic light. What disturbs me most about this is on 2 fronts. 1 that two 10 year olds could be capable of doing something like this and 2 what we as a society wanted to do to those boys. I genuinely shudder when I think about what would have happened if those boys had fallen into the hands of the public. In the film they were children and dealt with in the way children should br dealt with, in a calm, straightforward manner. I wouldn't recommend this film as it stays with you for a long time and there is such an element of reality about it that makes it truly terrifying. We are all capable of doing terrible things and humanity is the cruelest monster of all