Have you got a favourite Christmas movie that you watch every year without fail? Here’s Shot Blast Media’s top ten Christmas favourites: 1. Home Alone - An absolute Christmas classic! Home Alone is a 1990 comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The film stars Macaulay Culkin as Kevin, a boy who defends his suburban home from burglars after his family accidentally leaves him behind on their vacation to Paris. You can spend hours watching all the sequels too! 2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas - This is a 2000 Christmas comedy film directed by Ron Howard, based on Dr. Seuss's 1957 children's book of the same name. The film is narrated by Anthony Hopkins and stars Jim Carrey as The Grinch. This is a wholesome film with some great Christmas messages throughout, and one for the whole family. 3. Love Actually - This is a 2003 Christmas-themed romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Richard Curtis. This is Maddy’s favourite Christmas film which she usually watches whilst wrapping up all of her Christmas presents. The film delves into different aspects of love as shown through ten separate stories involving lots of characters, many of whom are interlinked. 4. Elf - This is a 2003 American Christmas comedy film directed by Jon Favreau and written by David Berenbaum. The movie stars Will Ferrell as Elf, a human raised by Santa's elves, who learns about his origins and heads to New York to meet [...]

What’s your favourite Halloween movie? We’ve been talking in the office about what scary movies we like the best. Here’s the films that have made it to our top 10… 1. Night of the Living Dead - This is a 1968 American independent horror film, now an archetypical zombie movie, directed by George A. Romero, with a screenplay by John Russo. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse, which is under assault by an enlarging group of flesh-eating, undead ghouls. 2. The Conjuring - This is Lotty’s favourite horror film! This is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan. The film focuses on a family that moves into a farmhouse where they experience paranormal phenomena. They consult demonologists to help them get rid of the evil entity haunting them. Lotty likes this movie as it is loosely based off true events and it covers a lot of different horror themes, such as a haunted house and possession. Lotty also likes that the film has a lot of spin offs, such as Annabelle (2014). 3. The Nightmare Before Christmas - This is a 1993 American stop-motion animated musical dark fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, produced by Tim Burton, with Danny Elfman composing the score. It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles upon "Christmas Town" and becomes obsessed with the holiday. Not a particularly scary film, however David still can’t finish it. 4. The Blair [...]

CBBC has been broadcasting for over 30 years now and has been providing children with educational content, entertainment, drama, comedy shows, and animations from 06:00 to 18:00 each day. It has been on TV since 2002 and has attracted an audience of more than one million viewers each week. Recently, the BBC took the decision to move CBBC permanently online. They have not given any specific date for this yet, but they have said that it will happen in the near future, and will only be available via BBC iPlayer. BBC are stating that this move online is a bid to reach more children, and provide better quality content. Is the BBC playing copycat to sources such as Netflix and Disney+? BBC iPlayer was launched in 2007 as an archive so that people could enjoy shows up to 7 days after they aired on TV. The platform now provides a much better on-demand service, with lots of shows permanently available on this service. iPlayer allows users to watch BBC programmes on their PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone, and provides a wide range of TV programmes, films, radio stations, and podcasts to watch and listen to. With the permanent move of CBBC to iPlayer, kids will be able to watch their favourite shows whenever and however they please. Sounds familiar? With more and more video services providing archives of their shows online, platforms are getting competitive. Basic plans of Netflix range from £6.99 per month, Disney+ from £7.99 per month, [...]

Over the past few years, podcasts have really made their way into mainstream media. Podcasts are a great way to retain information, and are easily accessible, meaning that they can be listened to on your lunch break, on your way to work, or even whilst falling asleep. With no exception to the podcast trend, there are some great podcasts on the film industry, making this form of media a great way to listen to in-depth interviews with filmmakers, critics, and experts. Shot Blast Media have put together a list of the top ten film podcasts to help you find your next favourite. Some of these podcasts include: The Film Vault - This is one of the most popular film podcasts on iTunes. It has over 100 episodes and features interviews with filmmakers, critics, and experts from around the world. Interviewees range from directors like Quentin Tarantino to screenwriters like Aaron Sorkin. Filmspotting - This podcast has been around since 2007 and covers both new releases and older films that they feel deserve more attention. Filmspotting is a weekly film podcast and radio program from Chicago hosted by Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen, who have accumulated over 500 episodes. Kermode On Film - Film critic Mark Kermode brings a popular weekly podcast where he dissects various films and chats with occasional co-host Jack Howard as they argue the merits or otherwise of classic and contemporary pictures, plus a series known as 2001 Films You Must See Before You Die. Films [...]

What is this ‘Gentleminions’ trend and how is it ‘saving’ cinema? TikTok recently started a new trend, based around the new Minions movie, ‘The Rise of Gru’. The trend sees teens and young people attending the Minions screenings in formalwear such as suits, in order to shout gibberish at the cinema screen. It isn't all fun and games though, cinemas are reporting that the Gentleminions are, in fact, an awful menace, exhibiting dreadful behaviour such as throwing objects at the screen and talking incessantly like Minions. Cinemas are even having to issue thousands of pounds’ worth of refunds to Minions fans who are appalled by this behaviour. Some cinemas now have even banned entry to teens in suits. At least it’s good to see that people are still interested in attending the cinema, and the Minions: The Rise of Gru movie even had a record-breaking opening weekend when it was released on July 1st, grossing over $200 million worldwide. The trend comes down to the idea that due to the Covid pandemic, kids had to wait years to see the movie, and they are now adults, attending in suits. Those taking part in this #gentleminions trend are celebrating the end of their five year wait to see this minion movie spin off. What do you think about this TikTok trend? Is it ruining cinema experiences for the Minions target audience, or is it just a bit of fun, and actually aiding the film at box office? Let us know [...]

Netflix looks as though it's slowly but surely losing its edge and popularity with the consumer. Netflix has been around for a decade and has been one of the most influential companies in the entertainment industry. However, in the last year or so, there have been some major changes to their business model and it is not working out as well as they had hoped. Netflix's original content is not as popular as it once was, and they are struggling to compete with other streaming services like HBO Now, Disney Plus and Amazon prime which offer new and varied content every week. It's easy to say then that competition has hindered Netflix's growth significantly. Netflix's stock price has dropped significantly since last year, but they are still profitable. The company is trying to turn things around by investing in new shows and hiring big names like Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy. Yet their content clearly isn't helping them anymore. Netflix is failing because they are not adapting to the changing market and they are not willing to take risks. The company has been boasting about how it has been able to produce a lot of original content in the past few years, but it seems like this strategy is not working anymore. Netflix has been losing subscribers, which means that there’s a lack of interest in its content. Not to mention now, but Netflix is raising its subscription model prices even further. Considering the prices have risen year on [...]

The Oscars are back, and this year, they may have just featured something that the internet will be discussing for weeks. If you've been living under a rock for the past few days, you won't know that Oscars host Chris Rock made a joke and the expense of Will Smith's wife, to which Smith got on stage and hit Rock in response. It's hard to tell if this whole escapade was staged, most people believing it wasn't due to the shocking nature of it all. Yet a large part of the internet believe it could have been an act, just to get people talking about the Oscars. All news is good news, and in the case of this fiasco, it would definitely drum up a lot of publicity for the Oscars. It's no secret that the awards show has been losing viewers year on year. A lot of people were turned off the show a while ago, during the start of the #MeToo era. But it could be argued that the Oscars have been losing steam even before this, with a lot of people saying that the internet took away from the might of the Oscars and it's place in the live television world. Then, we've had the pandemic, that has undoubtedly not helped either. So, with ratings falling year on year, would you be surprised if the higher ups decided to do something big and newsworthy to spice up the media presence of the Oscars? We saw it [...]

Christmas Movies! It's that time of year again, and what's better to get you in the festive mood that a good old Christmas film. The only issue is that there are just way to many to choose from. We've put together a list of our favourite Christmas movies of all time, so if you're stuck for choice (which let's face it, you shouldn't be!) we've got you more than covered. Home Alone One of our favourite Christmas movies has to be the John Hughes' written classic, Home Alone. Undisputedly one of the greats, telling the story of Kevin McCallister who is left home alone one Christmas by his family. He's overjoyed at this newfound freedom, and soon finds himself fighting off the infamous Wet Bandits who plan to steal from the house. If you haven't seen this one... what are you doing? Go watch it now! It's as famous as it is hilarious, charming and simply just so festive. And once you're done there, go and watch the sequel! It's almost as good. Love Actually This one seems to be very marmite, you either love it to bits or you can't stand it! Whatever your opinion, you can't deny how classic of a film it is. It's undeniably British, with it's very British style of humour, cheesiness and whole host of actors that are staple of the British film industry from Alan Rickman to Bill Nighy. Yes, it's not perfect, it can be very odd at times, but if you [...]