Because Everybody Else Has One

I still have a few reviews to get to, but first, a look back at 2012 in film. I have decided to take a slightly different approach to last year and will be looking at some of the year's best and most noteworthy films through an awards format - albeit one that suits my needs, rather than the other way around.  As always, the only films that qualify are those released to South African cinemas in 2012 so, sorry my trans-Atlantic readers, no Lincoln, Argo or The Perks of Being a Wallflower here. For a list of all films released in SA in 2012, check out this link . On with the show with 2012's worst films...

I sense another Tree of Life review coming up... The Master is, on a purely technical level, a masterpiece. It's a sharply dialogued, well crafted tale about the twisted co-dependent relationship between a cult leader (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and one of his most fanatical disciples (Joaquin Phoenix) that features at least two truly exceptional performances, an unforgettable soundtrack courtesy of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood and the kind of cinematography where each and every frame could easily be featured in an art gallery. That doesn't mean I liked it, though. Mind you, that's hardly surprising considering that it's written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, a filmmaker who puts the "challenging" in challenging filmmaking. You know you're dealing with someone who isn't afraid to alienate his audience when a biting look at life in the porn industry is by far his most accessible work. Even within critical circles, his films are often e...

So this is a very big week for films with a number of major and/ or worthwhile releases coming out. Lets starts then, with the biggest and best of them... Like most seemingly unfilmable novels, Yann Martel's excellent, if occasionally slightly tedious, Life of Pi is heavy on theme and character and heavier still on subtext. Yes, the basic plot of a young boy surviving for weeks on a small lifeboat with only a vicious tiger for company is hardly uncinematic, but as anyone who has read the novel can tell you, Life of Pi isn't really about the plot at all. It is above all else a story steeped in symbolism and largely plays out as a fairly brilliant metaphor for humanity's need for storytelling and for religious/ spiritual belief, as well as the way the two are interdependent on one another. It's also a novel steeped in ambiguity and while you can argue for days whether it's ultimately pro- or anti-religion or -  no, that would be telling (insert final revelati...

Ignore the hogwash about Looper being this decade's Matrix... everyone knows it's this decade's Terminator (minus the robots and the Arnie and in reverse, but otherwise...)! Taking its cue from Austin Powers, there's a scene in the middle of Looper where the central character tells his younger self that "I'm not going to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it, we're going be here all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws," which serves as both one of the film's few truly funny moments and as a smart warning to its audience. Like all time travel movies - especially the great ones, oddly enough - it's better to simply go along with the story the film is trying to tell than to do your head in trying to work out the intricacies of its take on traversing the limits of space and time. And actually, to be fair, Looper's internal logic might not make a lick of sense, but it is at least consistently nonsensi...

This film couldn't possibly be as bad as its awful tagline, can it? "Get pitch slapped?" Yeesh! Pitch Perfect is the kind of genre film that adamantly refuses to stray so much as an inch from its well worn formula - and, you know what, it's all the better for it.  Here we have a musical comedy about Beca, an "alternative", goth-type freshman who, through some typically silly machinations, begrudgingly joins an all-girl acapella group who are in desperate need of a new sound and a new attitude. Absolutely no points to anyone who can guess what happens next.  Pitch Perfect is predictable and formulaic to the point that it feels like an old song for which you already know all the words, but like the best old standards, its familiarity is comforting, rather than irritating. It's a film that knows what it is and knows that its audience knows what it is and takes it from there.    It is, admittedly, a film that would work better for fans o...

Quickly going back to last week's releases, here is something for you art cinema fans to check out: the winner of this year's Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Considering how draconian Iranian censorship is, it's a true pleasure and something of a very pleasant surprise to see a film from that country as artistically uncompromised as Asghar Farhadi's A Separation clearly is. Brilliantly circumventing the Iranian authorities and creating a truly universal humanist tale in the process, Farhadi's humble morality play - a deserving winner at the 2012 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film and a smash critical hit - keeps its head in the game by being staunchly apolitical, concentrating instead on its characters and the way they react to an increasingly morally dubious situation. Most of the publicity for the film focuses on the dilemma that the film's central couple faces: to leave Iran and provide a better life for their young son or to stay and ...

It's the Hobbit. What more needs to be said? As a special bonus for readers of this blog though, I have also included a review of the new technology that has been used in the filming and, in some cinemas, projecting of The Hobbit that - spoiler warning - has me longing for the days when crappy 3D was the worst of my problem.  For my tech-free review of the film, check out Channel 24 .   What it's about Set sixty years before the events of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey tells the story of Bilbo Baggins' first encounter with Gandalf The Grey as the two join forces with a group of dwarves to reclaim the dwarves' home from the dragon Smaug. What we thought Before diving into the film itself, there is a certain technical detail associated with, and adding to the hype of, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that has to be dealt with first. Admittedly, most screens in South Africa are not equipped for this “radical technologi...

Tis the season... Or is it? Also up at Channel 24 What it's about Santa Clause, The Sandman, The Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy enlist the aid of Jack Frost to stop The Boogie Man from taking over children's dreams. What we thought Despite its beloved – and not so beloved - children's characters, Rise of the Guardians is basically an animated superhero film; a League of Extraordinary Fables, if you will. The Santa Clause in this film isn't just an old man giving out presents, but is an old Cossack with a pair of Katanas and a kick ass attitude and there's nothing cuddly about this Australian-accented and boomerang-wielding Easter Bunny. Sandman and Tooth Fairy are less radically changed, but they have super powers anyway so it wasn't that much of a leap to turn them into full on super heroes, while Jack Frost is an outsider with icy superpowers and a hero's journey that desperately needs to be fulfilled. And there's nothing at a...

Fell behind again so here's some quickie reviews of a bunch of films that came out over the last month. The Odd Life of Timothy Green. A bit of an oddity, this. It's effectively a simple fairy tale about a couple who suddenly find themselves the parents of a young boy after burying all their wishes for a child in a box in their backyard, but it's one without much point or, more damningly, much magic. It has a nice performance from Jennifer Garner and it's a sweet enough tale but it's not one that will leave much of an impression. (5/10) The Possession. Effectively a Jewish version of The Exorcist in that the demon in question, the dibbuk, comes straight out of Jewish lore and it features a supporting turn from Hassidic reggae-hip-hopper Matisyahu. As a Jewish guy who spent his teenage years in the 90s as an avid X-Files fan, I've long been intrigued by the supernatural forces presented in Judaism - even if I've never been convinced that they literally...

Is this the best Bond ever? Well.... With South Africa being seemingly one of the last places on earth to get Skyfall, we aren't just getting a film, as much as we're getting a Major Movie Event that has been hyped up, not only by a pretty damn aggressive  marketing campaign, but by some presumably hyperbolic praise by both critics and fans alike. The film may have a few lone dissenters - all of whom, incidentally, seem to really, really hate the film - but Skyfall has largely been met with a rather singular refrain, "The Best Bond Ever!" At this point then, assuming that I don't join in with the hateful minority, the question is less whether it's a good Bond movie, but whether it truly is the absolute best of the best of this now 50 year-old franchise. To be entirely honest though, it's an impossible question to answer. The various eras of James Bond all had very different flavours: how do you really compare the grit of Casino Royale with the Voodo...

I wanted to say something nice about this, I really did... By this point, you probably know what you think about the whole Twilight phenomenon. And chances are you fall on one of three extremes. You either think a) Twilight is the best thing evah! b) Twilight is the the worst thing evah! or, after emerging from the cave you've been hiding out in for the past decade, c) What the hell is Twilight? There really doesn't seem to be much room for a considered middle ground on the matter. And yet, here I am, doing my best to maintain at least the illusion of level-headedness. To be honest though, this final installment has me holding on for dear life as waves of sheer, unbridled hatred threaten to engulf me. I've never even remotely liked any of the Twilight films, but I never really thought they deserved the foaming-at-the-mouth vitriol with which they seem to be received by most "serious" film fans. Sure, they're kind of rubbish, but they clearly have enough...

Here we have two sex comedies that couldn't be less typical of this occasionally funny yet largely embarrassing sub-genre. Hope Springs came out a couple of weeks ago, but it makes sense to review it along with this week's Hysteria as a single piece. On with the show then... When one thinks of sex comedies, presumably the last place your mind would go would be to either a film about an (older) middle-aged couple trying to reintroduce some sparks into their marriage or a film about the invention of the vibrator in 19th century England. And yet, here we have two films that are keen to make their mark on a genre that is known for having its fair share of gratuitous nudity, highly sexualised profanity and typically young, attractive people doing all sorts of unspeakable things to one another, by not including any of the above. The former is Hope Springs , a low-key comedy drama that stars Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep as a middle aged couple who go, at her insiste...

And the award for this year's best animated film (so far) goes to... Also at Channel 24  What it's about Everyone knows that Norman Babcock is a bit of a weirdo. Instead of having any friends his own age, he spends his time imagining that he can see and talk to the ghosts. But Norman is no weirdo: he really can see ghosts and its not long before Norman has to use his very unique gifts to save his town from a very old and very malevolent witchy threat. What we thought This spring apparently really is the season of the witch as we've had our cinemas invaded by no less than three ghoulish animated films for kids, one right after the other. First we had the rather weak Hotel Transylvania that was noteworthy only for some nice animation and for the fact that it was still a thousand times better than anything Adam Sandler has done in more years than any of us would dare admit. Much better was Frankenweenie, Tim Burton's stop-motion ode to classic mo...

It must be election time... Being timely isn't the same as being funny as far as political parody goes, but it's still surprising how flaccid The Campaign turned out to be. It's true Zach Galifianakis and Will Ferrell are both decidedly variable comedic talents, but they have both been very funny in the past and, considering the nature of the material at hand, there was no real reason for them not to be funny here. Further, director Jay Roach is as comfortable with scathing political criticism (Game Change, Recount) as he is with broad comedy (Meet the Parents, Austin Powers) but, on the evidence of this, he clearly needs a screenwriter like Danny Strong to bring the best out of him. They may have TV's Eastbound and Down and The Other Guys to their names but it's pretty clear that good political satire is beyond the reach of screenwriters Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell. It's not that The Campaign is a truly torturous watch or that it is entirely lacking...

Cloud. Atlas. Even its title is epic. Also up at Channel 24 in slightly abbreviated form. What it's about From a 19 th century voyage across the Pacific to a fight for survival in the post-apocalyptic earth of the future, the six stories that are inter-cut throughout Cloud Atlas are connected by a recurrent musical theme and a sense that there may be more to human existence than that which exists between the womb and the grave. What we thought Whatever you might say about the film, you can't help but admire the sheer chutzpah involved in trying to bring so ambitious and so audacious a project as Cloud Atlas to mainstream multiplexes. Even at its most simplistic, Cloud Atlas is a film that, through six divergent stories of entirely different genres, tries its hand at tying these divergent threads together to create a thematic whole that deals with the karma, the cyclical nature of human existence and redemption through the reincarnation (be it literal of fi...

Before you flame me for being too harsh about this film, I strongly suggest checking out Paranorman, which comes out next week and did a very similar thing, far better. I just happened to see both on the same day and Frankenweenie was done no favours by being screened second. Also up at Channel 24. What it's about When young Victor Frankenstein's dog, Snowy, dies, he uses what he learned in science class to bring the dog back to life. But how will the close-minded members of his small town react to this flagrant defiance of the laws of nature? Worse, what happens when his less pure-hearted classmates try and use the results for their own selfish reasons? What we thought Based on his own short film from the early '80s, Frankenweenie is clearly a film near and dear to the heart of its creator, Tim Burton, and, if nothing else, it certainly comes across as a more personal work than the remake-heavy trajectory of his last few films. That doesn't nece...

Another late review but I've been a bit busy for the last week with writing for which actually get paid. Also, I missed the press screening for this so I paid to see it last week. Not that I would ever complain about paying for a new Wes Anderson film, of course, but still... Like every Wes Anderson film, Moonrise Kingdom will work brilliantly for Wes Anderson fans, but will probably leave everyone else wondering what the hell they just sat through. If you've seen the likes of Rushmore or the Royal Tenenbaums, you should know what you're in for and whether or not Anderson's very idiosyncratic form of storytelling works for you. If you've never sampled anything from Anderson's oeuvre, though, then Moonrise Kingdom might actually not be a bad place to start - just prepare yourself for plenty of whimsy, deadpan comedy and wry drama, all filtered through a directorial style that is the very definition of ironic detachment. It may not be his best film, but it...

Oh, I wish I liked this more... Also at Channel 24 What it's about After the calamitous events at Lake Victoria, the prehistoric piranhas set their sites on a new target: Big Wet, a water park that is set to open just in time to draw massive crowds for the start of spring break. It's up to the daughter of the greedy and corrupt owner of Big Wet to stop her father from opening the park and causing an even bigger massacre than the one that occurred the summer before. What we thought Thanks to Chrissie Hynde and The Pretenders, we already know that there's a thin line between love and hate, but who knew that the line awesome and awful would be thinner still. When I reviewed Piranha 3D a couple of years ago, I noted that it was about as good a piece of unapologetically exploitative trash as you could hope to find. It was the sort of the film that the badder it got, the better it was. Here we are, less than two years later, and its sequel is already u...

This is the only film coming out this week that I've seen, but that certainly doesn't make it the film of the week. I definitely intend to see Moonrise Kingdom soon after it releases so look out for a review of that, but for now here is yet another rubbish Paranormal Activity film. Also up at Channel 24  What it's about It's been five years since the disappearance of Katie and Hunter and the events of the first Paranormal Activity film, but similarly strange things start happening to another suburban family after they start getting involved in the lives of their neighbours: a single mother and her young son. What we thought The first Paranormal Activity film was a perfectly decent, competently put together haunted house film that was made while the whole “found footage” gimmick was still relatively tolerable and, considering that it cleaned up at the box office, while costing next to nothing to make, it's hardly surprising that it was turned int...

Anyone in the mood for a top notch mainstream romantic comedy? I have just the thing for you. It's funny, I keep on harping on and on about how not only is Emily Blunt hands down one of modern cinema's most likable leading ladies, she has this uncanny ability to seemingly always work with some of modern cinema's most likable leading men. While I'm still waiting for her to work with real life hubby, John Krasinski, we now have her acting alongside the effortlessly, yet atypically, charming Jason Segal in The Five-Year Engagement. Coming from the producing stable of Judd Apatow, directed by Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Nicholas Stoller and co-written by Stoller and Segal, The Five-Year engagement has some serious comedic talent behind it, but it sill manages to distinguish itself from the "Apatow pack". It's definitely too long, especially during the inevitable relationship-disintegration sequence, but, aside for that, it's a pretty damn perfec...

Romantic comedies, they're like buses... Now, admittedly, Ruby Sparks is more of a drama than a comedy and more of a character study than a classic romance, but considering how rare it is to come across a genuinely good movie that can, in some way at least, be classified as a romantic comedy, I'm going to count this as a win for that particularly benighted genre. Based off a high-concept that could easily come out of the early days of Woody Allen's back catalogue, Ruby Sparks tells the story of a lonely writer who starts writing about the girl of his dreams, only to find that she has miraculously leaped off the page and into his lap. The film initially comes off as a light, playful screwball comedy about a guy who literally creates the girl of his dreams before moving into far darker, far more intriguing territory that explores the very idea of a "dream mate" and how what you want may not really be what you need, or for that matter what you want. Based on...

As you may have noticed, I have fallen somewhat behind lately. As such, here are some quick reviews of the films I have not yet had a chance to cover that came out this month. The Flowers of War: I'm strangely ambivalent about this one. On the one hand, you have some good performances, not least of which from Christian Bale, some pretty beautiful war cinematography and a story that is not without its more moving moments. And yet, it's way too long, over-egged in both its emotions and its storytelling and is surprisingly forgettable. And yes, the criticism that this is yet another film all about how a bunch of helpless Easterners get saved by a heroic Westerner is sadly justly earned and the rest of the film isn't good enough to make this central flaw all that easy to overlook. Also worth mentioning is just how unapologetically biased it is. The Japanese in this film are very, very bad, while the Chinese are very, very good. Whether this is a criticism or not, I'...

I know, I know, things have been very slow lately. The good news is that I should soon have a roundup of the rest of September's films but, for now, my take on this year's most surprising comic book film. Also at Channel 24 What it's about In the future, the only thing that stands between Mega City One, a decaying, ultra-violent metropolis, and total chaos are the Judges – a select group of law enforcement agents who are given the power to act as judge, jury and executioner. The ruthless, uncompromising Judge Dredd is the city's most feared and revered Judge, but when Dredd and Judge Anderson, a rookie judge he is in the process of field testing, go after a particularly malicious drug dealer/ crime boss, the hunters soon become the pray as they finds themselves trapped in a locked-down city block with a price on their heads and scores of cut-throat criminals on their tails. What we thought In a year when you have The Avengers, Batman and Spider-man ...

Another franchise film, another chance to piss off legion of franchise fans. Oh, how I love my job! Also up now at Channel 24 .  What it's about Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is a deep-undercover agent who, as a result of the actions of Jason Bourne in the previous three films, suddenly finds himself the target of the very agency he once served. What we thought Bourne Legacy – or, as it may just as easily be called, Bourne Free, Bourne Without or Seriously Where the Hell is Bourne – is one of the weirdest franchise films ever released cinematically. We've had plenty of spin-offs before (Elektra, The Chronicles of Riddick) but they tend to, well, spin off in their own directions and have little to do with forwarding the plot of the originals. We've even seen spin-offs that have just about nothing to do at all with their originating films (the excruciating America Pie: Presents series) and tend to go straight to DVD or video. What we have with Bourne...

Bring on the hate mail! Also up at Channel 24 What it's about: In the fifth movie in the  Resident Evil  franchise we find our heroine Alice (Milla Jovovich) awakening as a prisoner in the midst of a top secret compound belonging to the Umbrella Corporation - whose bio-weapons caused the zombie plague that has all but eradicated humanity. After being helped by members of a resistance movement, Alice sets out to free herself from this compound as she learns more about her past and the intentions of the Umbrella Corporation. What we thought: Aside for small snippets, I haven't seen a Resident Evil  film since the first film. I have to get that disclaimer out of the way out of fairness to the series' fans but, to be honest, it doesn't really matter. While we're on the subject, I may be a casual game player – as opposed to a hardcore gamer – but I've never played any of the  Resident Evil  games. Again, I mention this simply so that fans understand that ...

You bet your ass I'm reviewing the Katie Perry movie. Last year, we were treated to a 3D documentary about Justin Bieber that ended up being far more enjoyable than its subject would ever dare to suggest. Now, the teen-driven pop world is trying its hand at much the same thing again, but this time with a pop starlet that, though her music is only marginally better, promises to up the fun ante quite a bit. And I say this not only as a hot-blooded, straight male but as someone who likes their disposable pop music with personality and a bit of a campy edge. The things that are wrong with Katy Perry: Part of Me are so obvious that they barely deserve mentioning but, as you may have guessed, it is a film that is, at its heart, a fairly crass vanity project that is more a shameless bit of self-promotion and self celebration, decidedly less a biting documentary. Musically too, the results are not that surprising but, I for one, still find I Kissed a Girl to be a solidly catchy and ...

Starting off the 59 films released last week, we have a crushingly disappointing science fiction comedy. I know. What are the odds? Science fiction comedies are clearly hard to do. For every Men in Black, we seem to have a hundred Men in Black 2s. Sadly, The Watch is far, far closer to the latter than the former. All four of the gentlemen in the poster to the left have been funny at various times in their careers, but you wouldn't think so based on the evidence on display here. The premise of The Watch is, like so many high concept misfires, really rather promising: a group of dopey guys form a neighbourhood watch to protect their neighbourhood from petty crimes but soon find themselves protecting the world itself from an alien invasion. Nothing spectacular, but plenty of potential. It's a pity then that no one let the filmmakers know that you actually have to do something with a promising premise, you can't just let it lie there. "Lie there" is unfortuna...

Late again! Sorry about that but this time I have something of an excuse: my laptop was stolen! Anyhoo, we should be back in the swing of things soon, starting with this late review of a really cool and very weird little comedy drama. Despite Sean Penn's appearance on the poster and, for that matter, in the film itself, This Must Be the Place is based on a song, not by The Cure, but by The Taking Heads. And, it should be said, it's pretty easily my favourite Talking Heads song, which is jut as well because This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody) appears something like a dozen times throughout the film in various forms and cover versions. It even shows up in a full live performance by David Byrne himself that would perhaps have been self-indulgent, if its pay off wasn't so perfect. I am, however, getting a head of myself. This Must Be the Place tells the story of Cheyenne, a burned out former rock star from that very particular miserabilist post-punk music scene, who em...

It's great to see a music documentary in local cinemas and it's especially great when the documentary in question is this wonderful. Also available at Channel 24 What it's about A documentary about a couple of South African fans who set off on a transatlantic journey to discover what happened to their musical hero, Rodriguez, a 1970s American singer/ songwriter who, though completely unknown in his native country, was a tremendous success in South Africa. What we thought There's nothing particularly new about a great, “lost” 1970s musical artiste being discovered years after the fact, usually earning such hyperbolic praise as “better than Dylan!” or “The Beatles of the '70s!” along the way. Nick Drake, Big Star, Townes Van Zandt, Badfinger: the list goes on and on. Singer/ songwriter, Rodriguez, could so easily fit into into that category, if it weren't for one small fact: Rodriguez was HUGE in the 1970s and he was in many ways more popul...

Oops, almost overlooked this one. You know how in Michael Bay's Armageddon a bunch of astronauts embark on a mission to destroy an asteroid that's hurtling towards the earth? Well, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World is about what happens when those astronauts fail in their mission and the entire earth is given just three weeks before all life on the planet comes to an end. Rather than going for the epic melodrama of Armageddon or Deep Impact, Seeking a Friend plays out as an unassuming, indie comedy-drama that centres around two fairly ordinary people - a sullen middle-aged man wondering where his life went (Steve Carrell) and a 20-something hipster (Keira Knightley) who just wants to get back to her family in England after spending far too much time in an unhealthy relationship. The two strike up a friendship as she promises to help him find a lost love, while he promises to get her to a private plane to get her back to her family and her homeland. As expec...

Sorry for the lack of updates this week but I should have a bunch of new content coming soon. Lets start off with this week's biggest and worst film. No wait, sorry, I'm not reviewing the latest Tyler Perry film because I haven't seen it, nor the new Tinker Bell movie for the same reasons, but I'm sure they're masterpieces. Still, this is definitely the worst of the next crop of films that I will be reviewing. This review is also up  in more spacious form (my editor likes paragraphs more than I do) at Channel 24 .    What it's about Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) thinks he's an ordinary guy, with a boring job and a beautiful, loving wife but when his strong desire to travel to Mars leads him to Rekall, a company that fulfils its clients wildest dreams by implanting fake memories, he soon finds out that his whole life is a lie. What we thought Back when it was originally announced, we were promised that this new version of Total Recall would...

Woody Allen's latest is done no favours by coming out straight after his most successful film, Midnight In Paris but it's still way, way better than some of the reviews would have you believe. To Rome with Love is one of Woody Allen's fluffiest films - but that certainly doesn't mean it's one of his worst. Throughout his career, Woody has balanced his more serious (if sometimes seriously funny) major works with lighter, more insubstantial offerings. Deciding which is which is something of a challenge, of course. We can all agree, surely, to classify Crimes and Misdemeanors and Annie Hall as major works and A Midnight Sex Comedy and Scoop as minor detours but where does that leave brilliant but frothy fare like The Purple Rose of Cairo, Midnight In Paris and, lets not forget, his early funny ones? Put simply: some Woody Allen movies are good, some are less so but it has surprisingly little to do with how "important" or "major" said films ar...

And the best talky, sweary teddy bear movie of the year goes to... Also at Channel 24 What it's about As a lonely young boy, John Bennet's (Mark Wahlberg) wish to have his teddy bear, Ted, come to life was magically granted and the two have been inseparable best friends ever since. Now, with John well into his thirties and in a long term relationship with Lori (Mila Kunis) he is finally faced with a life-changing decision: embrace adulthood and his life with Lori or continue his arrested adolescence partying and lounging about with Ted. What's a guy to do? What we thought Right off the bat, Ted has a premise that simply doesn't work. No, not the idea of a talking teddy bear: that is surprisingly easy to buy into. What really beggars belief though, is this certifiably insane idea that any straight male would rather spend their time with a teddy bear, talking or otherwise, than with Mila Kunis. As far as great moral dilemmas go, we're not exac...

First Step Up 4, now The Expendables 2: The guilty pleasures just keep on coming! Also up at Channel 24 . What it's about Mr Church enlists the expendables for what should be an easy pay day but when one of their own is murdered, an easy retrieval mission becomes a quest for vengeance deep within enemy territory. What we thought Without so much as taking a step towards reviewing this film, I feel oddly compelled to list my 80s/90s action movie credentials. As a thirty year old male, I was there for the hey day of the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean Claude Van Damme and Sly Stallone and I spent my teenage years watching both their better work (Terminator 1 and 2, the Rambo films, Hard Target and, yes, Last Action Hero), as well as the veritable boatloads of truly awful straight to video g-movies that bore their names. I loved it all – the good, the bad, the ugly and the face-shreddingly horrific, it made little difference to me. I like to think my tast...

Why yes, I am reviewing Step Up Revolution (or Step Up: Miami Heat, if you're from that part of the world)! Much like pretty much every Jason Statham film ever released, I somehow find it impossible to truly take against a Step Up film, no matter how technically bad it may well be. And make no mistake, the latest in the series is very, very bad indeed. Bad script, wooden acting, unbelievably stupid story - check, check and check again. I don't even get the whole break-dance thing beyond a "gee how do they move their bodies like that?" level, so why oh why did I enjoy the blasted thing as much as I did? I think what it comes down to is this: Step Up Revolution is a film that ends with a bunch of dancers fighting off the gentrification of their neighbourhood by doing what is effectively a really involved version of "the robot". Now, you'll either read that and think that that's the dumbest thing ever or you'll read it and think that is the...

I'm reviewing these two together because a) they complement each other nicely and b) I can complete last week and make further headway into this week at the same time. Neat, huh? Here are two action films that are oddly pretty perfectly encapsulated by their titles. Safe is every bit as unchallenging and as straightforward as its title suggests. Jason Statham stars as Jason Statham and, though his particular "mission" in this film involves his protecting a gifted young girl with an aptitude for numbers from warring mobs, it's a film about the Stath beating the ever loving crap out of an endless torrent of bad guys and that's really about it. It does exactly what it says on the can and it does it it well enough with all the gruff charm that we have come to expect from today's best action star - though the Stath's status as reigning ass-kicking champ is about to be put to the test. By a girl, no less. Which brings us to Haywire. The second, and as f...

Continuing with films released this past weekend is one that should be really thankful that That's My Boy came out on the same day to redefine how bad cinema can be. Distributors chose a very interesting time to release Chernobyl Diaries. On the one hand, putting it head to head against Adam Sandler's latest cinematic atrocity, That's My Boy, can't help but make it look like Citizen Kane - or if the new BFI list of the greatest films ever released is to be believed, Vertigo. (By the way, apropos of nothing, I never agreed with rating Citizen Kane as the best film of all time, but I'm really confused as to how they would replace it with any Alfred Hitchcock film other than North by Northwest.) On the other hand, it's also coming out at a time when Cabin in the Woods and Woman In Black are (only just but) still in cinemas and, boy, does it suffer in comparison. It actually has a pretty terrific premise in that a group of young people embark on a "dan...

I should have the rest of last week's films reviewed very shortly but for now here's my take on what is arguably this week's biggest release.  Check the review out at Channel 24 as well. What it's about Abraham Lincoln may spend his days as president of the United States of America but his nights are devoted to an even stranger cause: hunting and destroying the vampires who lives among us. Thing becomes especially complicated once he uncovers a brewing threat from the slave-taking vampires of the American South and he soon finds himself heading his country into a war for its very soul. What we thought Another year, another fantastically titled film that fails spectacularly to live up to the promise of its name and its basic premise. We've already had the decidedly lackluster Cowboys vs Aliens and a trip to the bottom shelf of your local video store should reveal such recent gems as Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and Zombie Strippers but, even I h...