Retro Movie Review – The Lego Movie
The underlying message is a positive one (believing in yourself and seeing greatness in everyday moments) but really even if the theme was completely saccharin, who could take that much offense when it is delivered by yellow plastic beings with hooks for hands!
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The jokes fly fast and furious while the filmmakers get the mix of adult humor and childlike wonder spot on. There is also the fun of identifying the voice actors. The list includes Morgan Freeman, Jonah ...
Retro Movie Review – A Single Man
The film, based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood, does have a very distinct visual look. This at times almost robs the film of its emotional impact by being a bit too obvious but the window into the soul of its main character George Falconer (Firth) is so strong, it helps to keep the focus. George is an English Professor practicing his trade in California in the early sixties.
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He has suffered a tremendous personal loss and is barely hanging on. His British ...
Retro Movie Review – The Wolf Of Wall Street
It’s a sign of the expertise at work here that the 180 minute long film literally flies by. It’s also helped along by Leonardo DiCaprio’s most manic performance yet. If you thought he was full on in Django Unchained, he ramps it up ten fold here. Quite a few of the support cast members also turn in career defining roles. This includes Jonah Hill, who get the mix of powerful and pathetic just right and Aussie soap star Margot Robbie’s clothing optional performance that proves her ...
Butt Boy Movie Review
When things around the house go missing, no one is the wiser but when these disappearances escalate to pets and then small children, the search is on. Getting pulled into this bizarre world is the grizzled detective Russel B. Fox (Tyler Rice). He first meets Chip at an AA meeting and later become suspicious. He then goes to his commanding officer with his hunches, this doesn’t go well.
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With such a crazy premise, you would think the film has no where wackier to ...
Retro Movie Review – A Quiet Place
It also feature a screenplay that plants details in such an intelligent way that when things come to fruition, they make much more sense. There are no moments of the oblivious ignorance of illogical plot devices due to lazy writing that plague so many horror films.
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The story revolves around new life forms (alien or not, it is never completely explained) that are driven by sounds, so the population now has to live in complete silence.To make even the smallest of ...
Retro Movie Review – The King’s Speech
The film tells the tale of King George the VI (Colin Firth), the British royal who took over the crown under the most amazing of circumstances. It followed his brother David (Guy Pierce) and his abdication of the throne so he could marry the divorced woman Wallis Simpson and is set amidst the beginnings of World War Two. Poor George has a very bad stammer and must overcome this if he is to properly lead his people during these tumultuous times. He soon comes under the tutorship of speech ...
Retro Movie Review – Sausage Party
It is so surprisingly crude, crass, creative, outrageous and funny, it is literally like nothing you have ever experienced before. It will also provide a great test to see how easily you are offended. It pushes things so far, it becomes a new paradigm. Its R rated status is complete vindicated and I would have loved to have ease dropped on the conversation of explanation between the father and his very young son that I saw attending the preview screening.
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The ...
Retro Movie Review – Kubo and the Two Strings
The film uses stop motion animation (with one of the techniques cleverly shown in the end credits), CGI and what one might possibly imagine is hand drawn imagery and looks fantastic. Voiced by an A-list of vocal talent that includes Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes and Matthew (put down those bongos) McConaughey, they are given rich text to work with.
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The story is an out right fantasy voyage and while this is a genre whose charms often elude, this is so inventively ...
Retro Movie Review – War Dogs
When casting this story, one that is based on true events, the filmmakers followed the tradition of the funny man and straight guy. No guesses needed to know whom Jonah Hill and Miles Teller end up playing. Hill in particular, returns to a role we’ve seen numerous times before and the unfortunate result is the film ends up playing out like a poor man’s version of The Wolf Of Wall Street.
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There are moments of true humour and more than a few situations that are ...
Retro Movie Review – Sully
Tom Hanks plays Captain Chesley ‘Sully’ Sullenberger who after a bird strike disables the plane’s twin engines makes a snap decision that untimely saves all 155 passengers and crew aboard the Airbus A320. The film starts with Sully having nightmares about a different outcome to his actions and those scenes are quite arresting.
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The film continues using the plot device of the investigation of Sully and his co-pilot played by Aaron Eckhart (with his usual ...