Nicholas Anthony
Bio
Writer and nascent film-maker. I work under my Oraculum Films banner.
Stories (21/0)
Atomic Blonde Review
The Cold War spy thriller. Perpetual snow (it's never summer in the Soviet bloc), coats, double agents, bad hair, Germans, retro tech, shifting loyalties and no shortage of scenes at checkpoints giving the slip with fake passports. Atomic Blonde injects it with a killer soundtrack, LOTS of reds and blues, Charlize Theron brawling her way through Berlin, leaving the rest of the film stuck on the wrong side of the wall.
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Geeks
It Comes At Night
It Comes At Night is bleak. Unremittingly so. This is, for all intents and purposes, a waking nightmare designed to make us squirm and question the moral quandary at the centre of this grouped two-hander while appreciating the evocative atmosphere, wonderful dark imagery, and brilliant unsettling performances. Yes, it can be a film to admire more than love, which might come later, if ever you deign to watch it again, but really, once around is enough.
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Geeks
Dunkirk Review
The clock didn’t stop, it just held its breath. It’s the prelude. It’s the darkest hour. It’s a beach that seems like it’s detached from the rest of civilization. It’s the grey skies or the churning murky blue-green of the sea. It’s the gargantuan landscape. The sound of German bombers and Stukas. It’s the Mole. The Sea. The Air. A week. A day. An hour. It’s at first disconnected moments, thrown out in a web of time that seeks to lock into place over separate levels. It’s brutal. Raw. Simple. It’s survival whittled down to its element. There’s no need to know the backstory, the tired exposition. The motivation. It’s all there in the action. The sound. The horror in the eyes. The emptiness.
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Geeks
Baby Driver Review
If there’s one word that encapsulates Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, his latest dynamite of a film, it’s giddy. You want to ballpark other words? Sure. Let’s go with thrilling, joyful, heart racing, tender, toe-tapping, white knuckle. Hell, let’s throw Bullitt crossed with an iPod and a playlist that your annoyingly hipster friend wishes they thought of first. It’s a palette cleanser, a blast of sheer, pulsating fun. It’s a movie movie, where the characters positively relish purring the title character’s name as if they’re in a cheesy 50s road race flick. Where the music beats are at once surprising and such a natural fit to the on-screen action (only Wright could make Barry White’s Never, Never Gonna Give Ya Up the perfect face-off track in a diner).
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Geeks
Wonder Woman Review
Wonder Woman unfolds as if it’s got multiple personalities. An attempt at course correcting the perceived stuttering leviathan of the DCEU. A debut of one of pop culture’s most revered and popular comic book icons, which is also the first major superhero film that has a female hero front and center (I really don’t want to count Catwoman or Elektra). On top of that, having a female director at the helm, and a world war one setting that doesn’t exactly scream of nostalgia.
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Geeks
'Transformers: The Last Knight' Review
There’s a moment in the final cacophonous act of Transformers: The Last Knight–or it could have been at the start, I’m not really sure–where, if you squinted mightily, the images could be construed as a Jackson Pollock painting. Such is the temporal strain that this fifth installment in the alien robots franchise directed by (for sure, totally, without a doubt, super for real serious this time is the last time) Michael Bay, elicits on a conscious being that at times it almost pulls off the trick of being an avant-garde piece of filmmaking. To the point where you could legitimately question your own intelligence and ability to follow a story. *Caution: spoilers may follow!
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Geeks
Reaper
The Fates don’t play favourites. They play their own cruel game, toying with each thread of existence, ensnaring all who dare to reach out for their own destiny. A lust to exact heinous and petty treachery merely for their pleasure. They seek constant chaos, eternally warring with order. Entropy is their oldest friend. Consequence is what they represent, but never affected by. Curse them. Hear that you demonic beings? Curse them! What profit will you garner from my imprisonment? These chains of black steel around my arms and legs hauled up into the web-like mist high above.
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Futurism
Yan And The Wanderer
They called me Yan. A name given as nothing more than a form of distinction from the rest of us young ones. Such markers of identity were beaten out of a person from birth. It latched onto me like a thorn, refusing to be expunged. It may not even have been my first name, if one was ever given, the significance of such things lost in the shadows. Yan is who I was and Yan is what it would remain. I was taller than most of the others around my age, but not by much. Could you single me out for that one trait? Possibly. Would you attempt to? It wouldn’t be wise to. I received empty looks whenever anyone inclined their head up. Singularity had become a redundancy over time and we were left with the remnants of a world that had forgotten what progress was.
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Futurism
A Lunch Meeting With Death
Death was late again for lunch. Or, it had already happened for him. Skipping as he did along time like it was an elastic band stretching and contracting to his amused will. He laughed at the linear chains, the straight lines, the inability to flow backwards, and the constant of decomposition.
By Nicholas Anthony7 years ago in Futurism