Because Everybody Else Has One

I'm hoping to have at least a few quickie reviews for all the Oscar movies out before the Awards themselves on 3 March but, for a start, here's a look at three major contenders, all hitting South African cinemas this week.  I should say that two of these are my easy favourites of this year's best picture contenders. I don't think it will take too long to figure out which. Call Me By Your Name.  Easily one of the most lauded films of the past year - though, to be honest, a very long shot for winning best picture at the Academy Awards - Call Me By Your Name is a leisurely paced, achingly honest and beautifully put together adaptation of an acclaimed novel. I hate to be the voice of dissent, then, because though the film is all these things and probably more, I didn't like it very much. It's impossible to deny how beautifully shot it is, how committed its performances are or just how much heart and soul clearly went in to telling this simple story of an ad...

A miracle of super-quick filmmaking. Is it any good, though? This review is also up on Channel 24 . What it's about The (somewhat fictionalized) true story of the kidnapping of Paul Getty, the young grandson of oil tycoon and then “richest man in the world”, Jean Paul Getty. What starts off as a simple ransom situation quickly escalates as the notoriously stingy billionaire steadfastly refuses to pay a cent for the life and release of his own flesh and blood. What we thought All the Money in the World is, no doubt, forever going to be remembered mostly for how director Ridley Scott replaced disgraced actor, Kevin Spacey, with the similarly brilliant but rather less scandalous, Christopher Plummer, just weeks before the film was due for release. And, make no mistake, it truly is one hell of an accomplishment. The film has already been shot and was well into post-production when Kevin Spacey was accused of a series of rapes and sexual assault and Sir Ridl...

This is going to be a slightly different review as I'm actually going to get a bit into both the massive pre-hype that the film received and, perhaps more crucially, the audience I saw the film with - both of which did (adversely) affect my appreciation of the film. Fortunately, though I still have my issues with it, a bit of time has given me a far better perspective on the film and what it was trying to do. SPOILER WARNING:  Please note that though I will do my best to avoid spoiling any actual plot details, I will be going into the themes of the film quite a bit and because these themes are often tied into the characters and plot of the film, you may well be able to infer just a bit more than you want to know about the film. As such, if you want to know as little as possible about the movie going in, it might be best to read the actual review section of this feature-length essay/ ramble after you have seen it. The Preamble To get this out of the way first, Black Pan...

Well, at least they didn't split this final book into two movies! This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about Anastasia and Christian are now married but their new life as blissful newly weds is complicated when Anna's former boss returns to claim his pound of flesh from the couple he believes to be responsible for destroying his life. What we thought The Fifty Shades of Grey series of novels started life as erotic, slightly kinky Twilight fan-fiction and despite becoming a huge literary sensation in its own right once it changed a few names and dumped the whole sparkly vampires thing (even E.L. James has limits, apparently), no one in their right mind would claim it to be anything other a light bit of smutty romance whose only real achievement was making the reading of such a thing socially acceptable; at least for a little while. Adapting it to the screen, however, was always going to be something of an uphill battle as there was no way...