A 22-YEAR-OLD aspiring film critic from Yate is one step closer to pursuing her dreams after becoming a finalist in a national cinema competition.


Jordan Thornell, who lives in Tyndale Avenue, is a finalist in Vue Cinema’s People’s Pundit, a competition for film lovers to get the chance to write for the leading cinema brand as their official action film critic.


Miss Thornell, who works at Matki Showering company, entered the competition earlier this month and has been shortlisted to the final 25 of 87 other critics who applied, for the chance of writing for Vue Cinemas.


The winner will also receive a Vue Gold Pass to see as many films as they want for a year.
The competition entailed writing a review of your favourite action film and sharing via social media by Wednesday, January 14.


Entrants were then shortlisted to 25 reviewers who were invited to an exclusive screening of action film Kingsman: The Secret Service on Saturday, January 24.


Miss Thornell said: “I have worked at the company for five years now, but film reviewing - which started out as a hobby is now something I really want to peruse as a job eventually.


“I am an aspiring film critic, and I review films on my blog.  I go to the cinema every weekend, and I see one to four films in a weekend depending what is out.


“I have been blogging since 2012, but I have really got into it over the past year or so.


“ I didn't do any college courses or anything - it all just started as a hobby really.


“I saw Vue Cinema's tweet about becoming their next Action Critic - I wasn't going to enter at first, but I thought I had nothing to lose, so why not.


“To enter, I had to write a review of my favourite action film in 140 characters. There were a few hundred entries on the Vue twitter post, and the majority were for Die Hard.


“That was my first choice, but after seeing that over half of the people also picked that, I decided to go for something different and went for Con Air.


“I then received a tweet saying that I was shortlisted and was in the final 25 and then I attended the preview screening of Kingsman at Vue Cribbs Causeway."


After the screening, entrants had to upload a 150-250 word review of the film to the cinema’s site to obtain as many votes as possible.


Miss Thornell added: “The whole experience has been amazing so far and definitely a taste of what is to come.


“This is a dream come true for me.”


Vue Cinemas will be hosting other pundits for different genres like romance, comedy and horror throughout 2015.


Voting closes on Friday, February 6 and the reviewer with the most votes will be crowned as Vue’s official Action film critic.


To view the cinema competition page visit www.myvue.com/peoples-pundit-competition-action.