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Cas Harlow
Cas Harlow works as the movie review coordinator for AVForums and is responsible for all the cinema, streaming, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray content. He also organises the movie coverage, PR screenings, PR discs and competitions, and produces reviews and articles for the site, as well as participating in the podcasts.
Cas has been reviewing movie content and discs for over 20 years, is an avid film buff and is our resident movies expert, having reviewed several thousand titles both on the Big and Small Screen, across DVD, HD DVD, Blu-ray and now Ultra HD Blu-ray.
Cas is also a non-practising Barrister and practicing Solicitor and has a degree in Electronic Engineering and a Postgrad in Law.
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Movies & TV Shows
Monsieur Spade (AMC) TV Show Review
by Cas Harlow
Logan's Award-winning screenwriter Scott Frank continue's his strong TV run after Queen's Gambit with this 80-years-in-the-making return to Dashiell Hammett's immortal Maltese Falcon PI, Sam Spade, brought to life by a perfectly cast Clive Owen.
Launching as a Gravity-esque space survival flick, this new Apple TV+ Noomi Rapace sci-fi vehicle soon flashes its mystery box teeth with heady notions of quantum physics and a lot more going on under the hood than you might expect - UPDATED WITH A FULL SEASON REVIEW
Improbably turning what sounded like a low budget straight-to-video 'lite' version of Bat 21 meets Lone Survivor - replete with a questionable cast - into a minor gem of a military survival thriller, Land of Bad is a genuine surprise winner.
Game of Thrones' David Benioff and D. B. Weiss reward Netflix's $200 million 2019 exclusivity gamble with a long overdue - and second out of the gate - adaptation of the acclaimed Chinese sci-fi novel... and it's a heady slice of likely divisive hard sci-fi.
Doug "Edge of Tomorrow" Liman may be frustrated by this going straight-to-streaming, but Jake Gyllenhaal is absolutely on board for this utterly unabashed 80s remake which totally knows its place, bringing us delicious throwback video rental beat-em-up carnage.
Staggeringly heartfelt, Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers is a sublime reflection on grief, repression and identity - past and present - a supremely resonant masterwork of quietly profound poignance.
Brosnan and Baccarin afford this cheap low-rent 'thriller' from Dead Calm's Phillip Noyce a distinctly YMMV justification for sitting through its amateurish hijinks.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version) (Disney+) Movie Review
by Cas Harlow
The concert epic that shook the blockbuster landscape to the tune of a quarter of a billion, Eras is a thoroughly grand and impressively choreographed celebration of the sheer star power of Taylor Swift.
Shooting for Bottoms meets Pulp Fiction, this cheap, tonally awry, distinctly un-funny, try-hard, sack-full-of-dildos romp utterly misfires, clearly coming from the wrong solo Coen Brother, and both awkwardly and shamelessly wasting the talents of a couple of good actresses.
After a long and uncertain three year wait, Denis Villeneuve's Magnum Opus continues with this epic second chapter in his staggering realisation of Frank Herbert's Dune - UPDATED WITH IMAX REVIEW.
Continuing her run of Netflix starring vehicles, Stranger Things' Millie Bobby Brown takes on a competently designed CG dragon in a flabby, frivolous piece of perfectly tolerable night-in entertainment.
Nuts and bolts Statham doing what he does best; it's trashy, it's hilariously OTT, but it's also a frequently viscerally satisfying piece of revenge action carnage. UPDATE - NOW ON SKY/NOW TV
Sharply witty and sublimely satirical, and providing a much-deserved, tour-de-force lead for the excellent Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction is definitely worth catching whilst it's still on the Big Screen. UPDATE - Now on Amazon Prime UK.
Somewhat insanely, Guy Ritchie's created/written/directed TV spin-off to his 2019 movie of the same name is great fun, chock full of colourful characters, bursting with witty dialogue, and utterly bingeworthy.
After a slew of defining 80s action classics, Schwarzenegger shifted to a decade of alternating action with comedy, with mixed results on both sides. But at least Arnie fans get to come one step closer to completing their 4K collection courtesy of Kino's US disc.
Decades in the making and still somewhat late out of the gate, Michael Mann's Ferrari is all about the characters and the drama, but are valiantly Award-baiting performances enough?
A Holiday Special of a Marvel movie, it's unsurprising to find the 33rd MCU entry amidst the three lowest rated, and once again Disney display a complete disdain towards the very physical media that might help this flop break even, releasing it on 4K HDR after its streaming bow, and without the Disney+ trappings of Dolby Vision and IMAX Enhancement.
Indie director John Sayles' finest feature, the Neo-Western, Lone Star, is a richly crafted mystery drama, and a fine addition to the Criterion Collection.
Ditching the more whimsical McG-style excesses of the 2005 Brangelina action comedy, this Amazon reboot - created by and starring Atlanta's Donald Glover - immediately feels like it's trying to do something different with a familiar concept. UPDATED for full season review.
Commanded by a fabulously curmudgeonly performance by Paul Giamatti, his reunion with writer/director Alexander "Sideways" Payne makes for a surprisingly uplifting festive feast.
Furiously late to the party, we tune in to discover that Culprits is a slick, brutal, and unbearably tense heist thriller that's a surprise choice for one of the best shows of the tail end of 2023.
Continuing the theme of underacknowledged professions for former assassins after Statham's The Beekeeper, Aaron Eckhart tries his best to employ every tool in his bricklaying bag to dispatch his opponents in Renny "Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2, You Should Know Better Than This" Harlin's latest, curiously vaguely watchable piece of utter trash.
One of the finest pure action movies of all time, Gareth Evans' 2011 breakthrough assaulted audiences upon release, but gets an utterly unexpected new lease of life courtesy of the kind of complete-makeover 4K remaster nobody ever expected it to get.
Charlie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" Kaufman writes a Dreamworks animation for Netflix based on a kid's book about confronting your worst fears?
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Movies & TV Shows
Ginny & Georgia Season 1 (Netflix) TV Show Review
by Cas Harlow
Digging into what makes Netflix viewers click, we roll out on the Top 10 most viewed productions with one of their all-time most popular shows to see what the fuss is about.
Just as sure as another week comes to a close, unsurprisingly, another prequel show nobody asked for lands on Paramount Plus to add to its increasingly inessential roster.
John Woo's assault on Hollywood may not have quite delivered in the same way as his HK masterpieces, but damn if it didn't peak with the gleefully ridiculous and relentlessly entertaining Face/Off.
Reacher's back! The poster of his back exclaims, in perfect tone with the character, and boy is he, with a fabulous kick-start to Amazon's TV show adaptation of the 11th book, Bad Luck and Trouble. UPDATED FOR FULL SEASON REVIEW.
Noah "Legion" Hawley's FX anthology series, Fargo, returns for its fifth 'instalment', introducing us to another disparate set of colourful characters and a more thoroughly classic Fargo scenario to sink your teeth into - UPDATED FOR FULL SEASON REVIEW.
Derivative but effective, Gareth "Rogue One" Edwards' understated sci-fi gem does everything that Snyder's Rebel Moon couldn't, fashioning familiar elements into a pretty compelling new whole.
For All Mankind Season 4 (Apple TV+) TV Show Review
by Cas Harlow
Apple's finest flagship show lands with another deep impact opener, affording a glimpse at what will undoubtedly be another memorable season of this tremendous alternate sci-fi series - UPDATED FOR FULL SEASON REVIEW.