life is cheap
Don’t Look Up
Well sure it’s obvious. Sure, there are much better movies to compare it to. Sure, it’s not that funny. But maybe it’s not a comedy. Maybe it’s just a tragedy – a dramatic form contemporary audiences aren’t so familiar with.
Don’t Look Up
Well sure it’s obvious. Sure, there are much better movies to compare it to. Sure, it’s not that funny. But maybe it’s not a comedy. Maybe it’s just a tragedy – a dramatic form contemporary audiences aren’t so familiar with.
The Outpost
The Outpost tells the true story of the bloody fall of a remote US army base in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains. It suffers from problems common to many patriotic war dramas. While the there-but-for-the-grace-of-god moments of mortal terror and nope-not-for-me
The Outpost
The Outpost tells the true story of the bloody fall of a remote US army base in Afghanistan’s Hindu Kush mountains. It suffers from problems common to many patriotic war dramas. While the there-but-for-the-grace-of-god moments of mortal terror and nope-not-for-me
I Am Mother
Until a recent general improvement in story output, the problem with many Netflix productions seemed to be an eschewing of rigorous script assessment, likely attributable to the subscription model prioritising quantity over quality. I Am Mother, a Netflix production from 2018,
I Am Mother
Until a recent general improvement in story output, the problem with many Netflix productions seemed to be an eschewing of rigorous script assessment, likely attributable to the subscription model prioritising quantity over quality. I Am Mother, a Netflix production from 2018,
It Follows
How did this happen? Its like someone, while absently pondering mash-ups of horror sub-genres, put The Ring’s pass-it-on curse next to Halloween’s teenage body count and stumbled upon a Tutankhamun’s tomb of treasures. It Follows‘s simple premise of sexually transmitted
It Follows
How did this happen? Its like someone, while absently pondering mash-ups of horror sub-genres, put The Ring’s pass-it-on curse next to Halloween’s teenage body count and stumbled upon a Tutankhamun’s tomb of treasures. It Follows‘s simple premise of sexually transmitted
The Florida Project
A more-than-you-can-eat pizza-slice of life, hot from the florid state – more specifically Orlando. It’s a short walk from Disneyland but a long, alligator-infested way downstream. The Florida Project features one of the most striking child performances in recent memory
The Florida Project
A more-than-you-can-eat pizza-slice of life, hot from the florid state – more specifically Orlando. It’s a short walk from Disneyland but a long, alligator-infested way downstream. The Florida Project features one of the most striking child performances in recent memory
Wheelman
The vaguely familiar Frank Grillo makes a classy and economical pitch at booting a Stallone/Van-Damme/Strachan tough-guy franchise. Director-writer Jeremy Rush has mashed Locke with Driver. As a car-chase movie, like nearly every car-chase movie other than Bullitt, it’s a fail. It
Wheelman
The vaguely familiar Frank Grillo makes a classy and economical pitch at booting a Stallone/Van-Damme/Strachan tough-guy franchise. Director-writer Jeremy Rush has mashed Locke with Driver. As a car-chase movie, like nearly every car-chase movie other than Bullitt, it’s a fail. It
Blade Runner 2049
Deckhard is back, Hampton Fancher is back, the rain is back, as is some of the neon, albeit faded behind some kind of airborne filth with lumps in it. Blade Runner in the eighties was a world crippled and depressed
Blade Runner 2049
Deckhard is back, Hampton Fancher is back, the rain is back, as is some of the neon, albeit faded behind some kind of airborne filth with lumps in it. Blade Runner in the eighties was a world crippled and depressed
Nightcrawler
Nightcrawler crawls over the line where news eats itself, not just blurring the report and the reporter but selling a kind of news that is self-creating, like reality television, with hapless unpaid actors forced to play out scenarios of some network
Nightcrawler
Nightcrawler crawls over the line where news eats itself, not just blurring the report and the reporter but selling a kind of news that is self-creating, like reality television, with hapless unpaid actors forced to play out scenarios of some network
Ghost In The Shell
A remake of the 1995 anime. That film’s story about semi-outlaw cyber cops chasing a rogue entity that has evolved out of the internet has been dispensed with for an episode of Find My Family, with lashings of chop socky in
Ghost In The Shell
A remake of the 1995 anime. That film’s story about semi-outlaw cyber cops chasing a rogue entity that has evolved out of the internet has been dispensed with for an episode of Find My Family, with lashings of chop socky in
Sicario
As Sicario overplays its quest to underplay itself, we arrive at a confused portrait of profound dysfunction. That may be an appropriate angle to take on another of America’s unwinnable wars (in this case the drugs and border war with Mexico),
Sicario
As Sicario overplays its quest to underplay itself, we arrive at a confused portrait of profound dysfunction. That may be an appropriate angle to take on another of America’s unwinnable wars (in this case the drugs and border war with Mexico),
Mad Max : Fury Road
Max is back. The story hits the road early and stays there. The elevator pitch might be “Ellen Ripley vs Boko Haram on wheels”, with Max as the benevolent Michael Biehn or Lance Henriksen character. Since the second instalment the
Mad Max : Fury Road
Max is back. The story hits the road early and stays there. The elevator pitch might be “Ellen Ripley vs Boko Haram on wheels”, with Max as the benevolent Michael Biehn or Lance Henriksen character. Since the second instalment the
Noah
God gets a bad rap in Noah, as Darren Aronofsky tries to construe a story that makes no physical, psychological or moral sense. A brood of hapless humans is disgorged out onto what looks like a barren coalfield with no recourse
Noah
God gets a bad rap in Noah, as Darren Aronofsky tries to construe a story that makes no physical, psychological or moral sense. A brood of hapless humans is disgorged out onto what looks like a barren coalfield with no recourse
Elysium
Another film about the rich seeking to purge themselves of the poor, taking their bat and baubles and exclusive health care and going home, or in this case moving to an orbiting space station. It’s a disappointing second outing for
Elysium
Another film about the rich seeking to purge themselves of the poor, taking their bat and baubles and exclusive health care and going home, or in this case moving to an orbiting space station. It’s a disappointing second outing for
Les Miserables
With every line sung rather than spoken and much of it internal monologue rather than dialogue, Les Miserables and musicals like it redraw the rules of what is cinematically permissible. Melodrama flourishes while realism diminishes in value almost entirely. In
Les Miserables
With every line sung rather than spoken and much of it internal monologue rather than dialogue, Les Miserables and musicals like it redraw the rules of what is cinematically permissible. Melodrama flourishes while realism diminishes in value almost entirely. In
Killing Them Softly
Director Andrew Dominick does a creditable job treading some very familiar territory, as weary hit man Brad Pitt tidies up the aftermath of a poker robbery. The right people die and the ledger is balanced. Pitt’s reaper manages to intrigue with
Killing Them Softly
Director Andrew Dominick does a creditable job treading some very familiar territory, as weary hit man Brad Pitt tidies up the aftermath of a poker robbery. The right people die and the ledger is balanced. Pitt’s reaper manages to intrigue with
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
The literally sprawling epic that made cinema history for all the wrong reasons, raping the coffers of United Artists so resoundingly it made directorial freedom look like a bad thing. Rightly pariahed for its indulgences and cavalier discipline, Heaven’s Gate
Heaven’s Gate (1980)
The literally sprawling epic that made cinema history for all the wrong reasons, raping the coffers of United Artists so resoundingly it made directorial freedom look like a bad thing. Rightly pariahed for its indulgences and cavalier discipline, Heaven’s Gate
The Raid
Somewhere in Jakarta, a bunch of rookie SWAT cops find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew in attacking an apartment block full of murderous crims. It shouldn’t have been hard to make that work, but a smart, efficient,
The Raid
Somewhere in Jakarta, a bunch of rookie SWAT cops find they’ve bitten off more than they can chew in attacking an apartment block full of murderous crims. It shouldn’t have been hard to make that work, but a smart, efficient,
X
Direction outshines story as Jon Hewitt produces another genre vs art house mashup that works really well bar an action scramble near the end to tie up the plot at the expense of its themes. The unstoppable baddy resembles a
X
Direction outshines story as Jon Hewitt produces another genre vs art house mashup that works really well bar an action scramble near the end to tie up the plot at the expense of its themes. The unstoppable baddy resembles a