Michael Fassbender

Assassin’s Creed Review

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With Assassin's Creed , Ubisoft has demonstrated the ability to make a competent film, but it utterly fails to recognize what it is that people like about its signature franchise.

Steve Jobs Review

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Steve Jobs must face ghosts from his past on the eve of three historical product launches in Danny Boyle and Aaron Sorkin's Dickensian take on this modern mythological character.

Slow West Review

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Slow West is a thrilling debut and a worthy addition to the list of recent revisionist Westerns that already includes The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James .

John Maclean Interview

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That Shelf recently got a chance to chat with Slow West director John Maclean as the film gears up for its Canadian release. We picked his brain about the motivations behind his uniquely strange Western debut.

X-Men: Days of Future Past Review

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Somewhere between a natural continuation of the story arc kicked off by the previous ”proper” entry of a franchise and a complete and total retconning of the same lies X-Men: Days of Future Past. It’s a stronger film than its immediate and proper predecessor, but thanks to some time travelling and convenient plotting, it essentially undoes most of the plot elements that didn’t work the last time out.
12 Years a Slave

12 Years a Slave
Video Review

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And now for something a little different: A video review! That Shelf's own Brandon Bastaldo takes a look at Steve McQueen's slavery drama 12 Years a Slave starring Chiwetel Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender.

12 Years a Slave Review

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There’s no doubt in my mind that 12 Years a Slave will go down in history as a landmark film. Never before, and quite possibly never again, has the issue of African American slavery and the still present pain and anguish been this viscerally and brilliantly realized. Its effect is provocative, much like gazing into an unattended open wound that never quite heals itself, but rather reaches a point of stasis beyond which things couldn’t possibly get any worse no matter how awful a situation may be.

Interview: Steve McQueen, John Ridley, & Henry Louis Gates

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That Shelf talk to director Steve McQueen, writer John Ridley, and historical consultant Henry Louis Gates about their work on the powerful drama 12 Years a Slave , the history behind free African American turned forced slave Solomon Northup’s life, how the story came to the filmmakers, if they thought the truth of slavery being depicted on screen would be too much for audiences to handle, what Ridley found most painful about the writing process, and why McQueen believes cinema is the greatest of all art forms.