Because Everybody Else Has One

So close to greatness... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Based on the Pulitzer prize and Tony award winning play of the same name, Fences tells the story of Troy Maxson, a troubled ex-con and baseball player, doing his best to raise his working-class, African American family in the tumultuous 1950s, when the Civil Rights movement hadn't yet hit and the United States of America was heavily divided by class and race. What we thought The major failing of Fences is almost immediately evident right from its opening scene – which, ironically enough, is probably the least obvious example of such in the entire film. As we follow our (anti?) hero, Troy (Denzel Washington) and best friend, Jim Bono (Stephen Henderson) back to the Maxson homestead from their blue-collar job, the two men converse in a way that mixes the rhythm and flow of something between Shakespearean verse and street poetry with grounded, then contemporary dialogue. This scene ...

Making Fifty Shades of Grey look like a perfect masterpiece... This review is also up at Channel 24 . However, since I wrote it rather late at night, soon after seeing the film, there are quite a few grammatical errors on my Channel 24 version, which hopefully I caught for this slight revised review. But no, my opinion on the movie has hardly softened over the past few days so the general gist is much the same... What it's about Following on from the events of Fifty Shades of Grey, Anastasia and Christian try to give their relationship another chance, even as obstacles – both inside and out – threaten to tear them apart. What we thought In my review for the film, I went through some lengths to defend Fifty Shades of Grey as a film that never really had a chance to transcend its dodgy source material, but one that gave it the old college try anyway. Director, Sam Taylor-Wood gave the film a sense of style that elevated the clumsy trashiness of its source mate...

One of the smaller films of the week but that hardly makes it any less worthwhile. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about The true life case of how Deborah E. Lipstadt, a highly respected professor of Holocaust and Jewish studies, went head to head in court with David Irving, an infamous historian and Holocaust-denier, to fight the libel suit that Irving brought against her after she called him out in her latest book. What we thought Based on Deborah Lipstadt's own book, “History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier,” Denial is a film that may lack in terms of cinematic scope (you won't lose much watching it on TV, in other words) but it is nonetheless a compelling, intriguing drama with excellent performances and a level of timeliness that is almost shocking. Denial isn't simply about Holocaust denial and it's certainly not really directly about the Holocaust itself (though it does treat it with all the sombr...

Sigh. This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about The second sequel to the English-language remake of the Ring, where the deadly videotape starts to once again terrorize all who watch it and the one young woman who has no choice but to try and stop it. What we thought I remember nothing about the Ring 2 beyond a few rubbish CGI sheep but I can't imagine that it was anywhere near as bad as this sequel/ reboot. The original English-language remake of the Ring remains a touchstone of 21 st century horror cinema, both in the way it ushered in a, in retrospect, relatively brief but intense flirtation between Hollywood and Japanese horror (especially those involving water and lankly girl-monsters with long, straight black hair) and in being a very fine, genuinely quite creepy horror flick in its own right. It's been a long time since I revisited it and I am afraid that it might have lost much of its power over the intervening years, but, in ...