Because Everybody Else Has One

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...