Retro Movie Review – Hot Tub Time Machine
The story is a throw away and mostly just provides a vehicle to revisit a period when fluro colours, leg warmers and big hair ruled the day. You can see the jokes coming from a mile away but most of the time you still can’t help yourself and laugh anyway.
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The quality is elevated slightly by a cast with some actually acting ability and it’s to the film’s credit that the main players stay in character and don’t become superheroes but remain basically smucks ...
Irresistible Movie Review
The political farce side of the film succeeds quite admirably as the business of modern-day elections in America seems both excessively driven by funding and also quite devoid of scruples, it would appear to be a not too difficult target to strike. The success of the comic element however comes across as more elusive.
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It’s strange too, as Steve Carell would seem a perfect choice as political operative Gary Zimmer. His usual button-down persona and understated ...
Retro Movie Review – Senna
His career also ran parallel to the dawn of the new media age pertaining to live sport, so his life was very well documented visually, so well in fact that the film is built entirely from actual footage from his career, while a large part of the film’s dialogue comes from Senna himself.
It’s a masterful job of blending archival footage, spoken snippets from Ayrton himself and comments from some media experts that knew him well. There is also family footage that nicely places the ...
Retro Movie Review – Life Of Pi
The film is based on the book of the same name by Yann Martel and was considered by many to be unable to be transformed into the film medium; Ang Lee has proven them to be wrong. The film comfortably transitions from live action story telling to an imaginary CGI universe that is so bold and beautiful you often wish the film resided only in that world.
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The story revolves around the life of Pi Patel (played as a youth by Gautam Belur, Ayush Tandon and Suraj Sharma ...
Ordinary Justice Movie Review
It’s told mostly through the actions of a little girl and a young woman who are left stranded outside the courtroom while one of the parents is inside enduring the reality of the law. At first, the two women have no interaction, this ever so slowly changes as time draws on and boredom sets in.
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Taking so much time to establish a relationship between the two main players forces you to discard your usual thirst for quick dramatic tension. It eases you into a view ...
Dirt Music Movie Review
It’s a good thing the two leads, Kelly Macdonald as Georgie, the heroine of the piece, and Garrett Hedlund as Lu Fox, the mysterious stranger, have innate chemistry together as the script is quite opaque during the first act. It initially suffers from a lack of background information to connect the players with their actions.
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By the time the elements that drive the characters' actions become known, it has missed the chance to spike your interest and draw you in ...
Retro Movie Review – Moonrise Kingdom
There are a number of technical things that make up this wonderful landscape, not the least of which is Anderson’s ability to elicit a style of performance from his actors that rounds the rough edges off. There is still human emotion, even sorry, it’s just filtered through a prism that reflects more than just human angst.
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In his latest film, Wes has assembled a few of his usual suspects like Bill Murray and Jason Schwartzman but has added a number of new ...
Retro Movie Review – Jackie
She married into one of America’s most infamous and wealthy political families at only 24 years old and seemed to dissolve herself into their clan. Her husband John F. Kennedy was a man used to getting his own way and the outward appearance was that she capitulated to most of his whims. There was a strength there however that she possessed that wasn’t always apparent in the sexist media coverage of the times.
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That her life blossomed in the years after the ...
Antebellum Movie Review
She wakes up in a present-day apartment with a loving husband Nick (Marque Richardson) and cute as a button daughter Kennedi (London Boyce). In this reality, she is Veronica Henley, a successful professor, and author. On this day she is leaving home on a book tour and engaging in a series of lectures. Things don’t go well.
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The film is unsuccessful at building suspense and littered with flaws of story and character. For example, when Veronica hooks up with her ...
Retro Movie Review – Moon
Moon is the first major film by the son of David Bowie, Duncan Jones (born Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones) and it ticks a lot of the boxes. It’s got a great concept, great acting by Sam Rockwell, looks suitably grotty to be actually located on the moon and most of all, features good science.
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The story revolves around a lone individual, Sam Bell (Rockwell) who is nearing the end of a three-year stint as the sole proprietor of a mining establishment on the Earth’s ...
