Because Everybody Else Has One

This rather lengthy review only touches on my problems with the film but one crucial point I negletced to make in the original review was that there is an R-rated director's cut coming out in a few months when BVS is released on DVD so, while on the one hand that means that maybe some of the wonky pacing, the random dream sequences and unfulfilled character beats will be addressed (though I wouldn't hold my breath), this would mean that we will end up with an R-rated Superman movie. I'll let that sick in for a moment.  This review is also now up at Channel 24 What it's about Following the events of Man of Steel, Superman is hailed as a hero by most but three powerful individuals are less than convinced by the alien's motives. Senator Finch questions whether Superman's interests truly align with the country she has sworn to serve; genius billionaire Lex Luthor sees Superman as both a demonic force and something to be exploited for his own ends and Got...

If you thought they dragged out the Huger Games series, check this out... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Tris and the rest of our young heroes finally escape Chicago and find what lies beyond those walls is an answer to everything that they've been searching for but also conceal dangers far more deadly than they could ever have expected. What we thought The Divergent series has always been something of a loser in the YA dystopian future genre with its lack of clear direction and one of the stupidest premises around. While the third of this four part trilogy (yup, they split up the last book into two) spends much of its running time trying to justify the latter and fix the former, it still utterly fails to understand what made something like the Hunger Games series work as well as it usually did. The series' central idea that human beings could be so neatly divided into categories based on our dominant character traits has alw...

Another big week with only one or two truly notable movies. Here are my quick thoughts on everything but The Divergent Series: Allegiant, which will get its own full review by the weekend. Sink. Starting with a local, Afrikaans drama, Sink is clearly better than the vast majority of those godawful Afrikaans movies but, unlike something like Dis Ek Anna, it only really holds up against its own, quite particular Afrikaans film industry. Taken as a film in and of itself, it is very well intentioned and it makes it pretty clear that newcomer Brett Michael Innes has enough writing and directing chops that he can definitely grow into a very accomplished filmmaker in the future. He isn't there yet, though. Sink, which tells the story of a white couple trying to come to terms with the death of their Mozambiquen maid's young daughter under their watch, uses a non-linear approach to storytelling that robs the film of all its emotional power to the point that the first hour, at the ve...

Loads of things out this week, almost all of which I've seen. Check out my full review of the Young Messiah below but here are my extremely short thoughts on four other films. Knight of Cups I missed and I have no earthly idea what Safe Bet is but a) the latter wasn't shown to the press and b) I've long given up on Terence Malick's waffling, self-important and indulgent films, but, hey, I'm sure it looks great. Zoolander 2. A definite disappointment this, but it's nowhere near as bad as some have suggested. It's amiable and just about funny enough to get a pass from me but it doesn't have the quotability of the first one and the smart-dumbness has largely been replaced with dumb-dumbness. Not something to rush out and see, then, but check it out on TV in a few months with lowered expectations and you'll most probably enjoy yourself. Unless you hated the first one, of course, then you'd have to be as dumb as Derek Zoolander to watch its sequel...

This Jew's take on the apparently almost entirely made up story of a very, very young Jesus Christ! What could go wrong? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about As he and his family return to Judea/ Israel after years in exile in Egypt, Jesus Bar Joseph, aged seven, has to come to terms with his strange powers and the even stranger circumstances surrounding his birth. What we thought As a reasonably observant Jew, I am, most decidedly, not the target audience of the Young Messiah. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean that the film didn't have a chance in hell of working for me. For a start, though I don't believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah or the so-called Son of God, I do find the whole story of Jesus to be pretty damn good mythology. I don't care much for it religiously, in other words, but as a fan of great stories, it's certainly one of the better ones. And historically, it's really interesting too. Further, y...

Even by Charlie Kaufman's usual standards, this is something of an odd one... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis), a middle-aged author, stuck in a rut of mundanity and boredom, comes across the first ray of light in his miserable life. Miles from his wife and son in a hotel in a strange city, he meets Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), an awkward, self-loathing young woman who nonetheless makes him feel more alive than he has in years. What we thought Anomalisa, as it is later explained in the film, refers to this young woman, Lisa, being an anomaly in the drudgery of our protagonist's life but, frankly, from top to bottom, Anomalisa is an anomaly of a film. It's one of the rare adult animated films outside of anime to get a major release, for a start, but, more importantly, every minute of the film is either horribly uncomfortable, ugly, unnerving, hateful or, more often than not, a mixtu...