New Empress Magazine

Unveiled: The Final Bumper Issue

This month sees the release of our last print issue! When I started this project in 2010 I had no idea what I was getting myself into (how difficult could… [Continue Reading...]
In Review: Listen Up Philip on DVD

Philip Lewis Friedman (Jason Schwartzman) is a young, New York author on the verge of having his second novel published. He is also a self-absorbed, arrogant… [Continue Reading...]
In Review: Life Moves Pretty Fast (Book)

How could we not be sceptical about another book on 1980s movies? Nostalgia, ho! But Hadley Freeman's ode slash entreaty to us not to forget how good we… [Continue Reading...]
In Review: The Misfits (1961) re-released

It is understandable how the stories and controversy surrounding a film's production can contribute to the way it’s eventually perceived when released.… [Continue Reading...]
Old Hollywood: Sidney Poitier and the Civil Rights Era

Cinema has always been seen as a mirror to society, the changes, the fears, the angers and the themes of a nation are often represented and reflected on… [Continue Reading...]
COFILMIC Comedy Film Festival: Entries wanted

Attention all prospective comedy writers and filmmakers: a festival you will not want to miss is coming to Manchester on the 29th and 30th October. Now… [Continue Reading...]
Win A Blu-ray Bundle And Signed Poster With The Release Of T.S. Spivet

Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s beautiful T.S. Spivet is released in UK cinemas on Friday 13th June and to celebrate, we’ve got a very special package to giveaway… [Continue Reading...]
Old Hollywood: The Woman’s Picture

In the 1940s a term to describe a type of (sub) genre of film came to prominence in cinema- The ‘woman’s picture’. Though films of this nature had… [Continue Reading...]
In Preview: BFI Flare 2015

As usual it’s a glorious action-packed schedule at BFI Flare (19th-29th March, London) helpfully divided into three sections; documentaries sit side… [Continue Reading...]

In Review: Saving Mr. Banks

by Helen Cox 29 November 2013

In Saving Mr. Banks, Disney Studios juxtapose an account of the making of their much-loved Mary Poppins movie alongside the early life story of P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson): writer of the Mary Poppins book series. Disney (Tom Hanks), it transpires, has been trying to make a Poppins film for about 20 years but Travers has refused to sell him the rights.

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Win Only God Forgives Soundtrack & DVD

by Martyn Conterio 29 November 2013

Nicolas Winding Refn’s neon-lit Freudian nightmare, Only God Forgives, is released in the UK on Monday 2nd December. Starring Ryan Gosling and a foul-mouthed turn from the usually prim and sangfroid Kristen Scott Thomas, we’ve got three copies each of the soundtrack and DVD up for graboids.

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LFFF 2013: Half Value Life

by Maryann O'Connor 29 November 2013

Filmed in Afghanistan in 2008, Half Value Life is a short look at life as a professional woman in what is still a very much male-dominated society.

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In Review: Leviathan

by Martyn Conterio 28 November 2013

Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, both Harvard anthropologists involved in the university’s Sensory Ethnography Lab, whose remit is to create ‘a sensory experience of being inside a particular culture’, stepped aboard an American trawler armed with GoPro digital cameras to record, collect, edit and present a documentary like no other.

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In Review: Carrie

by Martyn Conterio 28 November 2013

Kimberly Peirce’s take on Stephen King’s celebrated debut novel, Carrie, also a 1976 movie by Brian De Palma, doesn’t totally suck, to use an often espoused modern idiom, and neither is it totally rad (to borrow another popular phrase). On paper, it must have looked like a very intriguing idea: a remake of a classic by […]

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LFFF 2013: 30%

by Maryann O'Connor 27 November 2013

The bloodshed of the civil war in Sierra Leone was followed by the forming of a government with absolutely no representation for women, even though they had been instrumental in the peace process. Since then there has been a concerted effort and campaign to increase the level of female representation to 30%, with a bill […]

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French Film Festival UK 2013: Youth (2012)

by Maryann O'Connor 25 November 2013

Juliette (Esther Garrel) is having the most complicated summer of her Youth, what with trying to impress the know-it-all ‘intellectual millieu’ as her father puts it, losing her virginity and facing the biggest shock of all – her father (Didier Bezace) becoming gravely ill.

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LFFF 2013: Women Rising: Political Leadership in Africa

by Maryann O'Connor 22 November 2013

This short film showing at the London Feminist Film Festival next week highlights the progress made in electing female representatives to government in modern Africa. There are 55 sovereign countries in Africa, two of which are run by female heads of state: the first ever woman head of state in Africa, H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf […]

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In Review: Parkland

by Maryann O'Connor 22 November 2013

Parkland seeks to tell the wearingly overexposed story of JFK’s assassination from a less explored angle; mainly that of the hospital staff who tended to Kennedy in Dallas, the Oswald family and the local FBI office.

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French Film Festival UK 2013: Le Capital

by Mairéad Roche 21 November 2013

Le Capital follows the rise of Marc Tourneuil (Gad Elmaleh) as he moves around the chess board of international banking as CEO to a powerful French bank.

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In Review: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

by Maryann O'Connor 21 November 2013

Catching Fire is the second of the three Hunger Games novels and deals with the aftermath of that 74th Hunger Games, where Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) defied the authorities live on Hunger Games Terror TV, leaving the fragile hierarchy of Panem in an extremely precarious position.

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