Because Everybody Else Has One

Man, was the turnaround on this one quick! I saw this yesterday afternoon, reviewed it as quickly as I could straight away and the review is already ready for posting. The film is crap, of course, but can you really expect any different from Michael Bay at this point? My review here is, as is often the case, very slightly different from the Channel24 one. From Channel24.co.za ( Originally posted 29 June 2011) What it's about Following on from the first two films, Transformers: Dark of the Moon picks up with The Autobots living a peaceful existence with their human hosts but that peace is soon shattered when the Decepticons launch their most devastating attack yet, involving an old Autobot ship that crash-landed on our moon decades ago. What we thought Never having been what you might call a fan of director Michael Bay, I gave his first two Transformers films a very wide berth – avoiding them even as they replayed endlessly on DSTV. That is, I did until a f...

Even putting aside Green Lantern, it's a pretty interesting week for films with a couple of comedies being particularly pleasant surprises. I Am Slave is this week's harrowing art film. This time the laugh-a-minute subject is modern day human slavery - specifically an 18 year old North African enslaved by an Arab family in London. That, in a nutshell, is the plot. And therein kind of lies the problem. The film's greatest strength by far is just how emotionally draining it is and if its sole intention was to really put the audience through the grinder as it educates them about the reality of slavery in modern England, then it is nothing less than an unequivocal success.           As a piece of storytelling, though, it is rather less impressive. It it somewhat heavy handed and the characterization is fairly shallow but, more than anything, its greatest failing in my eyes is the fact that I started to lose patience with it fairly quickly. While the acting an...

This one is up early on Channel24 so I thought I would post it here today as well. The review has been edited quite a bit on the site so, seeing as how this is my blog, I thought I would post the original here.  Oh, and if you're wondering, the reason why I don't mention the 3d effects, it's because I was fortunate to see a screening of the film that didn't require those annoying bloody glasses. From Channel24 (Originally posted 22 June 2011) What it's about Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), a cocky test pilot, suddenly finds himself selected to be a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an elite group of “space cops” who, equipped with willpower-based power rings that can create anything they can imagine, are charged with protecting all of the known universe. What we thought Comic book fans have had an embarrassment of riches lately with a string of really impressive films based on their (or, to be honest, our) favourite comics properties. Last year ...

With this week's films being released a day early this week because of a public holiday and my total lack of reviews for other sites, I thought I would get this up early.  Source Code is the second film from director Duncan Jones and it proves once again that there is a whole lot more to the man than simply being  David Bowie's son. Before you know it, I'll even be able to write a review of one of his films without mentioning this undoubtedly cool fact. A few years ago, Jones gave us Moon, a low budget science fiction film that showed that it's still possible to use the medium of cinema to tell good, old fashioned science fiction stories that are, in the end, as much about humanity as they are about aliens, advanced technology and space travel. Since then we have had a very impressive resurgence of smart sci-fi in the forms of Inception, Never Let Me Go and - sorry haters, I'm going to say it - The Adjustment Bureau. Source Code may have a much larger budget...

A bit of a mixed bag for the rest of this week's releases. Also, there's something called Nice Guy Johnny that looks pretty good but I am pretty sure there wasn't a press screening for it so I may - or may not - get round to reviewing it at a later date. As for the rest though... Starting way, way, way at the bottom, we have a Nigerian film called Between Kings and Queens . Essentially a pseudo-remake of the 1988 Eddie Murphy movie Coming to America, in which an American girl falls for an African prince, Between Kings and Queens is the first US-set film for Nigerian director Joy Dickson. The best thing I can really say about it is that it does seem well-intentioned and maybe one day she will make a film truly worthy of your time. This isn't it. I really hate to rag on a film by an inexperienced, African indie-director because, lets be honest, she probably put her heart and soul into it and, in its intent, it's about as far from the worst of Hollywood's ...

Starting off the weekend with a film whose mixture of science fiction, theology, chase-thriller and romance totally won me over. I should say, though, that at least in comparison to most other critics, I have responded better to it than most. As such, more than ever, take that 9 star rating as a very subjective rating of a film whose very definite flaws did little to lessen my enjoyment of the overall package. You might be less charitable. From Channel24 (Originally posted 8 June 2011) What it's about: A young politician (Matt Damon) stumbles across a conspiracy that changes everything he knew about the world. But when that conspiracy does everything it can to keep him apart from a woman  with whom he has an obvious and immediate connection (Emily Blunt), he sees no choice but to fight back. What we thought: For a science fiction author whose work is as challenging as Philip K Dick's is, it's amazing how many films have been made of his work. From Blade...

X-Men aside, there are two other worthwhile films that were released this week. And one that's not all that worthwhile but was much less gruesome than it really should have been. On with the show... Matthew McConaughey? A seemingly generic courtroom drama? Come on, did this have any chance of being any good? As it turns out, yes, yes it did. For a start, McConaughey was actually really good as the smarmy lawyer with the heart of gold and his supporting cast - including Marisa Tomei, Bryan Cranston and William H Macy - was top notch too. There is little about the characters or the plot that we haven't seen before but, once you accept that that The Lincoln Lawyer is very much by-the-numbers, there is really a lot to like. The basic plot involves a very successful lawyer being hired to represent an immensely rich young man who has been charged with raping a prostitute but, as he soon find out, there is far more to the case that meets the eye. Like I said, it is very generic....

After some less than stellar weeks, this is a pretty good week for films. We not only have an excellent but harrowing art film, we even get a genuinely good courtroom drama starring Matthew McConaughey! Best of all, though, is this week's big blockbuster, X-Men: First Class. Honestly, between this, Stardust and Kick Ass can we please get Matthew Vaughn to direct the new Superman. It's not too late is it? Also posted at Artlink When you consider just how many BIG superhero movies will be/ have been coming out over 2011 and 2012, it's not that hard to understand why X-Men: First Class has fallen somewhat between the cracks. Certainly in terms of fan expectations. This year we have Marvel's Thor and Captain America as the build up to next year's Avengers reaches its climax, while DC offers its first film to be based on a major superhero that's not Superman or Batman with Green Lantern. Next year is even more exciting as we have reboots of Superman...