Because Everybody Else Has One

Dodgy accents, weird tonal inconsistencies and Die Antwoord: Chappie is Neil Blomkamp's most South African film yet. There is some good news, however... Playing out as a mix of Short Circuit and Robocop by way of District 9, Chappie is a glorious mess of a film that looks all the more bizarre to anyone even remotely aware of South African culture. Not only is it a film that is flawed on every technical and storytelling level imaginable, it's portrait of South Africa is so head-scratchingly wrong-headed, I'm surprised that the ministry of tourism hasn't outright banned it. Now, I know there's probably no such thing as the "ministry of tourism" but a) I can't help but think of government in Orwellian terms and b) this weird Bizarro-world South Africa presented in the film probably has one so why shouldn't we? To backtrack a little, the plot of Chappie is simple enough: something like three months in the future, Johannesburg is so utterly ove...

These are some pretty notable movies that I have neglected deserving of a quick look, but I've got to warn you. Not all of them in a good way. The Theory of Everything (8/10) has already won a number of awards, not least of all for Eddie Redmayne's extraordinary lead performance, and though it certainly isn't an extraordinary piece of work - it never strays too far from the conventions of its genre - it deserves far more respect than the more sniffy critics out there have given it. It tells the truly incredible story of Stephen Hawking, as largely viewed through the eyes of his former wife, Jane, and though some may quibble that it doesn't delve far enough into his actual work, as a populist portrait of a great man, in all his complexities, it largely succeeds admirably. Anthony McCarten's screenplay, based on Jane Hawking's own memoirs, is witty, big-hearted and is careful never to reduce any of the film's major characters into anything less than full...

Out of focus. This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about After Jess Barrett's attempt to rip off Nicky Spurgeon - who turns out to be a master conman himself - fails spectacularly, Jess and Nicky soon find themselves entangled in a relationship, both romantic and professional, that is constantly undermined and complicated by a game of cat and mouse (or is that catch and release?) that may just prove that there's no honour among thieves after all. Or is there? What we thought Harking back to the light crime capers of the past, Focus plays out like a mix of the Sting and Oceans Eleven, with a bit of Intolerable Cruelty thrown in for good measure, but it never really lives up to its obvious influences and predecessors. That it's shallow and ultimately forgettable pretty much comes with the territory, but it's ultimately undone by, ironically enough, a lack of focus. This isn't to say that there isn't anything to enjoy her...

For something this bad, you would expect that other Michael to be at the helm, but no, this really is by the guy who made Heat. Shocking, I know. This review is also up at C hannel 24 What it's about After a Chinese nuclear reactor is compromised by a terrorist hacker, the Chinese and American governments team up with a convicted hacker-thief to prevent worldwide calamity. What we thought Michael Mann's long and largely illustrious career as a top-tier thriller director has had some bumps in the road before. While films like Heat and Manhunter have been met with near-universal praise but he has also been responsible for relative misfires like Miami Vice and The Keep. Blackhat though, doesn't so much feel like a mere road bump in his career, so much as one of those spiky numbers that some shopping centres and airports employ that are specifically designed to rip your car to shreds should you have the audacity to try and break through a boom – or, worse,...

Brrrr... is there a chill in here or is it just Jake Gyllenhaal in his best ever role? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Lou Bloom is a “nightcrawler”, a freelance video-journalist who prowls the streets at night looking for grizzly accidents and violent crime scenes to film and sell to a local TV news station. In such a cut-throat industry, however, Bloom finds himself taking more and more extreme measures to get ahead – a perilous descent down a moral black hole that only feeds into his already anti-social state of mind. What we thought Nightcrawler is, all at once, an edge-of-your-seat thriller, a satire on journalistic ethics and a disturbing probe into the mind of a sociopath and, though it doesn't exactly always make for the most pleasant of viewing, it is compelling as hell. Especially for us (amateur or otherwise) psych-majors and philosophy enthusiasts. Lou Bloom (played with chilling brilliance by Jake Gyllenhaal) seems o...

I wanted to like this one, I really did... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Based on the hit kids show, Shaun the Sheep is the latest stop-motion animated film from Aardman studios. In Shaun's big screen debut, he and his fellow animals from the farm head off into the big city after a series of unfortunate events causes the Farmer to lose his memories and has him working as a big-shot barber in the middle of the city. What we thought I feel like a curmudgeon of the highest order when I say that I didn't really enjoy the Shaun the Sheep movie very much. Not just because I'm a 33 year old man judging a film clearly made for quite young kids but because so much work and so much passion so obviously went into making the film that it feels churlish to point out even its most minor of flaws. Still, however much I admire the film's real achievements, I can't lie, I was pretty bored by it. Aardman studios, along with the y...