Ostensibly the tale of a day in the life of Eddie Mannix, a blunt, beleaguered Hollywood fixer, Hail, Caesar! is in fact a film about nothing at all. And it's all the better for it. Read more...
Deadpool - February 2016
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies - February 2016
At last! All the subtle brilliance of Jane Austen's classic Regency era love story, now with the ghoulish zombie mayhem it deserves. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is still the much-adored story of the Bennett sisters and their quest to find love/husbands (though ideally both) in the iniquitous and fraught society of turn-of-the-nineteenth-century Hertfordshire, which is lovely. But in this iteration, it happens to coincide with the zombie apocalypse. Read more...
The Revenant - January 2016Inspired by true events.
When I see that tag line on a movie poster, I prepare myself for strife. Why? Well, I've learned that for every heartwarming Rudy or Cool Runnings, there are a dozen emotionally ravaging films like The Finest Hours, Everest, The 33, and Spotlight. So when a movie takes its inspiration from the real survival story of a trapper who was mauled by a bear and left for dead, you expect to see a certain degree of human suffering. Read more...
Sisters - January 2016
I like to think the most effective way to work your abs and dispel any post-Christmas blues is to laugh your ass off. So I saw Sisters last night with some friends that I was comfortable cackling next to (it's got to be someone who has heard the snort-laugh and will not judge or be distracted by it). Done and done. Read more...
2015
Star Wars: The Force Awakens - December 2015
I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens on opening weekend, though I'm not sure how. I am not a proper Star Wars geek. I didn't book tickets in advance, I didn't show up particularly early, I didn't dress up or spend an inordinate amount of money. In a bid to reach maximum audience and properly shatter every box office record, nearly every screen in the gigantic multiplex was showing the same movie, and even with its staggering popularity, Star Wars hadn't sold out. At least, not literally. Read more...
With less than one month until Christmas, I suppose it’s time to start getting into the spirit. That may involve upping your daily dosage of sappy, saccharine, sentimental hogwash or braving nightmarish department stores to buy useless crap that won’t last the winter or preparing your liver for the traditional holiday binge-drinking (maybe with a cleanse, I don’t know). Read more...
I have mixed (shaken, not stirred) feelings about Spectre.
There are certain basic expectations for a Bond movie: exotic locations, crazy stunts, a bloated theme song, incredibly sexy cars, one-dimensional women, over-the-top villains, gadgetry, cheesy one-liners, a torture scene, and at least one massive explosion. Read more...
Pan tells the story of a young boy named Peter’s search for his family. I think. It is set mainly in Neverland with an established landscape, familiar characters and a fairly patent premise; yet it left me with a profound sense of confusion. Pan is a fantasy, a spectacle, an adventure, but mainly a muddle. Read more...
I walked into Everest with no expectations, with no background or foreknowledge except that a storm would occur on the tallest mountain in the world. There was much more to it than that. The knowledge that it was a true story would have prepared me for a more harrowing journey than that. Read more...
About a year ago I was given a copy of The Martian. I hadn’t heard anything about it whatsoever, apart from my mother’s strict instructions to, “Read this, then call me.” The cover was intriguing and I didn’t even bother reading the blurb on the back; I immediately flipped to the opening line and was hooked. Read more ...
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