Because Everybody Else Has One

See, now this is how you do it! This review is also up at Channel 24 . (No spoilers ahead. Certainly not if you've seen the trailers) What it's about After a mission goes horribly wrong, the Avengers are confronted with a new resolution signed by most of the world's countries that would put them at the control of the United Nations. With Captain America and Iron Man already on opposite sides as to whether to go along with the will of the UN or not, tensions reach a boiling point with the return of the Winter Soldier: a dangerous killer and Cap's oldest friend. What we thought It's hard not to compare Captain America: Civil War with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, both because of the fact that the two feature similar themes and that they both revolve around a showdown between their respective universe's biggest heroes, battling it out for the soul of (super)heroism. They're also both nearly two-and-a-half hours long and are the lin...

I've fallen somewhat behind what with paying work and what have you taking up my time so here are some quick thoughts about the films released over the last few weeks - including this past Friday! Heyo! 10 Cloverfield Lane. The studio didn't feel like showing this to most critics so I - gasp! - had to pay to see it. I honestly have no idea why the studio was so skittish, though, because this was a pretty terrific debut feature from first-time director, Dan Trachtenberg. Bolstered by three extremely strong performances from literally the only three people in the film (not including voices on radios and phones), John Gallagher Jr. and, most especially, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman, this "distant blood relative" of Cloverfield fortunately drops that film's shaky-cam found-gfootage gimmick for something much more claustrophobic and stripped down. It's terrifically tense stuff that jumps between different genres with incredible grace and ease (I kn...

Completely forgot to post this. Not that it matters much. Everything about the Forest is forgettable so why shouldn't this be. This review has also been up at Channel 24 for a few days.  And, yes, there are some much more interesting movies up for review coming up - even if just in capsule form. What it's about Sara Price heads off to Japan to look for her twin sister, Jess, who was last seen entering the notorious “Suicide Forest”. What we thought Tapping into a real-world phenomenon like Japan's infamous suicide forest, Aokigahara (though actually shot in a forest in Serbia, apparently), which, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't featured in an American horror film before, should be almost enough to give the Forest an edge over most modern day horror movies. Sadly, though it's not without one or two vaguely creepy moments, the film constantly falls foul of the same trappings that have put the genre into such disrepair over the last decad...

A for Average. And, um, ignore the byline, the review up at Channel 24 is actually by me, not Gabi.  What's it about After a cataclysmic event wipes out humanity, a young woman and two men try to pick up the pieces of a fallen world as the last known survivors. It's not long, however, before tensions mount and complicated romances build. What we thought Named after the last of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Z for Zachariah is an intriguing mix of religion, romance and visions of humanity's end, played out first as an uneasy domestic drama before turning into a PG-13 psycho-sexual thriller. It would be nice to say that it all works but, sadly, for all of its ambitions, it never really comes together. I haven't read the Robert O'Brien novel on which it is based, but it does seem like the chief flaw of the film is that it makes a rather strange departure from its source in what must be some sort of bid for fans of YA dystopian fiction and...