The Sofa and Popcorn Degree

In its second year, the Lincoln film festival brings international films and premier showings to the university. This year the three-day festival ran from 16-18 th of March, with a promise that 2018 would be around the same time.  Three features are shown both on the Friday and Saturday events, with shorts throughout the days and which are blocked between one to three hour slots so there are plenty of breaks between. Some slots might appeal more than others, for example, the morning of the Friday showings was aimed purely at sci-fi fans. As much as I love my sci-fi, 9.30 in the morning seemed a bit early for me to delve into dystopian worlds. I chose to instead pop along for the Friday afternoon feature, followed up by under an hour of shorts which then left me a big break before the evening session. While I enjoyed everything offered in the afternoon session, the weather and laziness almost stopped me from coming back for what would be a four and a half hour slot....

FREE FIRE   starring Sharlto Copley, Brie Larson and Armie Hammer   directed by Ben Wheatley   A review by Helen J. Reynolds Free Fire tries to be a lot of things – from a 70s western, to a mafia stitch up – but namely it tries to be fun. An all-out shoot ‘em up movie that instead of a standard ten or even thirty-minute scene of bullets flying like crazy and everyone dubbed a ‘cocksucker’, it lasts for the entire feature length. Try to imagine if Quentin Tarantino did a theatre play, and in fact this does have elements of Tarantino’s last feature The Hateful Eight , which is set around a dismal bar during a snow blizzard and has a stage-like quality to it. In Free Fire , the setting is similarly grounded, though in an abandoned umbrella factory that leads to some nice irony at the end. However, adding flashbacks and dialogue with meaning (rather than just for the odd laugh) would have helped give interest to the rather long-winded action. All ...