Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day Movie Review
I've not read the book (other than a few sample pages courtesy of Amazon.com) but I imagine, as was the case with Where the Wild Things Are, that the book is a much more economic and elegant tale than the resulting feature film. The film appears to be riding the coat tails of the recent Diary of a Wimpy Kid films (which do a very good job of translating its literary source to the silver screen) but where the Wimpy Kid films riff neatly on the familiar misfortunes and fears of our youth, the ...
Gone Girl Movie Review
The primal questions of marriage comprise the underlying theme of David Fincher's Gone Girl and shine a light on an uncomfortable and confronting truth: that marriage is inherently beset with elements of emotional manipulation. For the purposes of this story, that theme is naturally taken to a science-fictionesque nth degree and like any propaganda film - for this operates much like a propaganda film - there are seductive elements of truth that draw us in to its unpalatable thesis.
Like ...
The Little Death Movie Review
The actor/director/writer, probably best know as Doug Guggenheim on the American TV show House Of Lies has delivered an Australian comedy that doesn’t rely on the bogan ethic for its laughs. It is also unafraid to show its main protagonists in all their ugly humanity and this gives the proceedings a more authentic feel than most comedies.
This ensemble piece follows a number of couples and their attitudes and approaches (and sometime dysfunction) towards sex. These couples seem to have ...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Review
Well, lots could go wrong and a lot does. The film is an exercise in groan-inducing predictability right up to the casting of Megan Fox as April O'Neil and its clear influences from Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins to Bay's own Transformer films.
Formally the ‘director’ is Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans, Battle Los Angeles), Bay is credited as ‘producer’ but his fingerprints are all over it. This includes his usual teenage adolescent farts and giggles humour, banal ...
Boyhood Movie Review
When the film starts, we catch up with six year-old Mason (Ellar Coltrane) and his family, sister Samantha (Linklater’s real-life daughter Lorelei Linklater) and mom and pop (Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke). What follows is a coming of age tale that touches on many elements of the modern day life, single parenthood, sibling rivalry and just trying to figure out this crazy thing called life.
The concept is interesting but it’s the performances that make this film transcendent. ...
Magic in the Moonlight Movie Review
As is the norm for these kinds of things a rocky romance reluctantly blossoms between the pair predictably precipitating the drama and comedy for the story. Of course Firth is old enough to be Stone's father but add a little Just For Men and, voila, problem solved.
Written and directed by Woody Allen, the film is a frivolous but interesting discussion on open versus closed minds; hard rationality versus the fantastic; and the complex relationship between science, philosophy and religion. ...
Wreck-It Ralph Movie Review
One of the core problems with TRON: Legacy was that it completely disregarded the subsequent advances in video gaming since the first film. In an age where the first person shooter is considered de rigueur, TRON: Legacy was still playing with light cycles (Blockade/Surround) and illuminated Frisbees (Pong). Wreck-It Ralph corrects this oversight by internally chronicling the history of video games from the likes of Q*Bert and Tapper to 2D fighters' Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat to the ...
Snowpiercer Movie Review
If you thought peak hour trains were bad, wait until you see Snowpiercer. At the back of the train (1001 cars long according to the comic) are the underclass, given barely enough food to survive and used as breeders for the upper-class, who live in luxury at the front of the train, enjoying fresh food and entertainment.
The film details a revolution, where valiant souls from the rear fight their way through the train to find the engineer and the perpetual motion machine that runs the ...
What We Do In The Shadows Movie Review
Flight Of The Concords alumni Jemaine Clement as the vampire Vladislav and Rhys Darby as the werewolf Anton deliver their usual understated take on comedy, as does the rest of the cast. This is a film that is constantly amusing but not necessarily laugh out loud funny at all times. It does however have a few big laugh moments and this night’s audience was demonstrative in their approval.
There are so many everyday life activities that the undead would experience if they lived normal ...
Sharknado 2: the Second One Movie Review
A movie about tornados sucking up sharks and destroying Los Angeles was an unexpected phenomenon. Sharknado dominated the twittersphere when it first aired, the term ‘Sharknado’ began appearing in mainstream media, and organisations (including the Red Cross) used the film’s success to promote storm safety information. The Asylum is not a company to miss an opportunity, and they have released the sequel a year later.
Sharknado 2 starts with the stars of the first film, Ian Ziering ...
