Because Everybody Else Has One

Is Catching Fire the Empire Strikes Back of the Hunger Games series? Improving on its already very good predecessor in every conceivable way, The Huger Games: Catching Fire only further establishes the Hunger Games as by far the best young-adult smash sensation since Harry Potter. I haven't read the Suzanne Collins novels on which these films are based but with adaptations this good, I don't particularly feel the need to - especially since most people who have read the books seem to far prefer the movies. Enough people have ripped into the Twilight franchise over the years that it's probably unfair, redundant even, to resurrect that particular dead horse for another solid beating, but the Hunger Games' artistic success shows just how far short the Twilight series came to reaching its own goals. Mark Kermode, in his own, obviously superior review of the film  notes that the success of the Hunger Games is in large part because Twilight paved the way and, though I h...

Almost forgot to post this. Look out for my Hunger Games review coming very soon. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about A career substitute teacher finds his general detachment from his assignments challenged as he is engaged by the students of his latest class, while his personal life also takes a turn as he meets and befriends a homeless teenage prostitute. What we thought If ever there was a film that is perfectly encapsulated by its title, it's this one. Detachment both perfectly describes the main theme of the film as we meet a group of characters who are detached from their own lives and, unfortunately, its primary flaw: the sense of detachment that the audience feels from what is going on in the film itself. Here we have yet another in a long line of films where a disengaged teacher enriches the lives of a group of misfit students who in turn enriches his or her own life. It doesn't matter whether we're talking School of Rock, Danger...

I don't know why the hell this took so long to come out but it's well worth the wait. Also reviewed at Channel 24 What it's about Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a divorcee facing the reality of a very empty nest as her only daughter prepares to go off to college when she meets Albert (James Gandolfini), who is going through much the same thing. It's not long before their commonality turns into a real romance, but at the same time Eva, a masseuse by profession, befriends one of her clients, poetess Marianne (Catherine Keener) whose surprising link to Albert threatens to kill her newly blossoming romance in mid-bloom. What we thought Enough Said may have a very generic, very forgettable title, but, as it turns out, the film itself is easily one of the year's greatest cinematic pleasures. It may not seem like much at first glance, but it is precisely the film's willingness to play with its own genericness and the audience's own expectations t...

So, I'll get to this week's genuinely good movies in a bit. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Imogene is a failed playwright who moves from New York to live with her dysfunctional family in New Jersey, but what she finds there may just be even worse than she remembers. What we thought Imogene, or as it known in most other territories, Girl Most Likely has a good cast led by one of the funniest actresses of her generation but is the sort of quirky indie movie that gives quirky indie movies a bad name. OK, that's probably a bit unfair as the worst examples of quirky indie films are usually horribly pretentious (see Greenberg for a particularly egregious example of this) so Imogene is hardly the worst that the genre has to offer but it's still a bit of a noodly, directionless mess that badly wastes the talents of Kristen Wiig, Matt Dillon (where has he been hiding?) and Annette Bening. Worst of all, for an alleged comedy it's sadl...

... This time it's personal. Well, not really. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about : Picking up immediately after the events of the first film, we once again find the Lambert family trying to deal with malicious spirits as they uncover connections to their own past and the ghosts that haunt them. What we thought : Coming hot on the heels of director James Wan's own  The Conjuring , it's hard to get past the feeling that even Wan doesn't really see the point in a sequel to  Insidious .  The Conjuring  may fit into much the same genre, indeed the same sub-genre, as the Insidious  films and it may have plundered freely from many often better horror films from the last five decades or so, but it at least found Wan on noticeable revitalized form as the film had a vitality and freshness – not to mention creepiness - that so many modern horror films so sorely lack. It was probably the best horror flick he has done yet and indicated that ...

Just a few words about a movie that isn't afraid to flaunt its ambition. The Butler uses the well-worn and normally pretty effective trope of examining large swaths of history through the life of a single character. In movie terms, the most famous and best example of this is Forrest Gump (I don't care what its detractors say, Forrest Gump is a modern masterpiece) but, though The Butler is clearly going for a similar, if decidedly less irreverent, effect, it's nowhere near as good. The history being examined this time centres around the lead up to and the fallout from the American Civil Rights movement that reached its apex in the 1960s, with the character through whose eyes we view these tumultuous times is Cecil Gaines, the eponymous butler who, while working in the White House since the 1950s, saw presidents come and go and major changes sweep the country. It's a smart premise, but the film fails to entirely deliver on its premise. The history it deals with...

It's already out in the UK and is being released to most countries this Friday so, for a change, I thought I would share my thoughts on a movie before it is actually released. As is usually the case, I will be avoiding spoilers, but if you want to be extra prudent about this highly awaited film, lets just say that, despite it's fairly terrible plot, Thor 2 is seven shades of awesome! Check out the film or read on to find out how... Trying to sum up the plot of Thor 2 is something of a thankless task, but I am going to try anyway. First we have Thor himself who is all set to be the next king of Asgard who spends his days fighting the good fight across the nine realms, while pining for his earth-bound lady love, Jane Foster. The latter, of course, is doing some good old pining in return, while trying to figure out what a weird spacial anomaly is doing in the middle of London (what, is this Star Trek: The Next Generation or something?), before being sucked off to the eponym...

So, with my regular paying jobs, I've fallen a bit behind on the blog. I have actually managed to cover most of the major movies, but there were still a number of other films that deserve at least a few words said about them, whether good or bad.  First a couple of slightly longer short reviews... About Time: I really hate that I overlooked this little gem as it is easily the best film to date that Richard Curtis had directed and is one of the year's most charming, funny and seriously moving cinematic pleasures. It's true the time travel dynamic in the centre of the film is barely thought out and that people who don't share Curtis' unabashedly sentimental outlook have really taken against the film, but honestly, I just absolutely love this movie. I love how the film uses admittedly loose time travel to explore romance, family relationships and the importance of living life to the fullest. I love the performances, I love the script and I love how warm and funny...

More bouncing off the wall than la dee daa, I didn't see this one coming. Also at Channel 24 What it's about A lifelong Jane Austen fan spends all her savings on a holiday in Austenland – a theme park that celebrates all things Austen, where she hopes to find romance and a world that isn't so much extinct, as one that never really existed in the first place. What we thought The poster, the trailer and the general critical reception may convince you to give Austenland a miss as it looks, for all the world, like just another lightweight romantic comedy. Well, it is lightweight, it is romantic and it is a comedy but there's nothing “just another” about Austenland. No one would confuse this film for a masterpiece – frankly, it's too self-consciously underachieving to even want to be such a thing – but it is very charming, very very funny and very very very very weird. It's not weird in the way an avante garde film but it's still such an odd l...

Oh, Bob. Also at Channel 24 What it's about The Manzoni family is relocated to Normandy, France as part of the witness protection program after the family's patriarch (Robert Deniro) testifies against some members of his extended mob family. The members of his family soon come to find that old habits die hard though, much to the consternation of the case officer (Tommy Lee Jones) in charge of them. What we thought The crime-comedy genre is generally a pretty tough nut to crack. Its two constituent elements are by nature diametrically opposed in terms of tone and style so, invariably, for a crime-comedy to work, it has to either darken the comedy or lighten the crime aspects – or, alternatively, use the conflict between the two genres to ironic, even satirical effect. The Family's greatest sin is that it's never sure enough of itself that it never gets this balance right, which is made even worse as it tries and fails to be a family-comedy/drama at the sam...

Late, late, late, late, late.... Also at Channel 24 What it's about After a terrorist attack in central London, two ex-lovers are reunited as part of the defense team for those suspected of perpetrating the attacks, but only one is privilege to evidence that is deemed a threat to national security. What we thought Closed Circuit is the sort of film that really has no excuse to be as rote and uninspired as it turned out to be. Putting aside the solid creative team both behind and if front of the cameras that includes one of the more interesting British directors of recent years; an erratic, but often brilliant British screenwriter and a dependably good to great cast, the story it's telling overflows with potential. Think about it, we have the always, if you pardon the expression, explosive topic of terrorism vs. national security at the centre, but that's only the beginning. We also have a peak into a very unusual and morally and ethically complex legal cas...