Because Everybody Else Has One

Just a slight disclaimer. I'm very tough on the 3D of this film but a fellow film reviewer pointed out that the 3D was out of focus. I didn't notice because I normally find 3D films pretty unbearable but it's entirely possible that the film's 3D prints, in general, aren't quite as bad as I originally thought they were. I still think 2D would be the way to go, preferably IMAX 2D, but -  Nah, forget it. Just see it in 2D. This whole 3D thing has more than worn out its welcome. This review is also up now on Channel 24   What it's about The year is 2045 and as the real world gets progressively worse, most of the world's population spends time in a vast virtual world known as the Oasis. With the death of the Oasis' creator, James Halliday, however, his virtual world becomes more than just a means of escape as he leaves control of the Oasis, along with his personal half-a-trillion dollar fortune, to the first person to solve a series of challenges...

Sometimes even messes can be fun.  And I'm sure that's not the first time I said that. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about When Harold Soyinka, a Nigerian immigrant to America, learns that he's about to be summarily fired from the job he worked tirelessly at and that his wife is about to leave him for another man, he decides to fake his own kidnapping in Mexico to fleece his duplicitous boss out his employee insurance. As is ever the case, though, a simple plan gets very complex very quickly and the usually upright and uptight Harold soon finds himself way in over his head. What we thought Gringo taps into a long tradition of crime caper comedies that is mostly about a normal schlub getting tied up in impossibly convoluted plots with shady, though often colourful, mobsters, hitmen, police, drug-dealers and eccentric locals, all coming to head in a way that brings all the plot threads together, sometimes in a jangled mess and some...

Yeah, I feel bad for not liking this more than I did but what can you do... This review is also on Channel 24 What it's about Based on his own memoir and set in 1970s Liverpool, Film Stars in Liverpool tells the story of Peter Turner, an up and coming young Liverpudlian actor, whose fortuitous meeting with aging black-and-white-cinema legend, Gloria Grahame, quickly turns into a whirlwind romance with the older woman. Years later, Grahame once again connects with her former young lover in his home town after calling for him after suffering a major health crisis while headlining a small stage production there. What we thought There's something incredibly British about how Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool tells its Hollywood story in a way that is not at all different from your average working class, “kitchen sink” British drama. It's very small, very intimate, a bit grimy and, for me at least, a little uncomfortable. It's also, it has to b...

Three reviews this week! Why not start off with a "faith" film... This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about It has been a few decades since the life of Jesus Christ and as Rome suffers under the capricious boot of Emperor Nero and its small Christian community is outlawed from practising its faith, Jesus' most influential apostle, Paul, sits in prison waiting for his execution for alleged crimes against Rome. As the Christians of Rome confront their own destiny and are forced to choose between staying, fleeing or fighting, Paul recalls his own life and his own turn from one of the greatest persecutors of Christians to a devout follower of Christ, to his disciple, Luke. What we thought Ah, here we are again: me, a nice(ish) Jewish boy reviewing a Christian “faith” film for this secular website. Unlike most “faith” films, however, I don't come entirely to just burn this thing to the ground. Unsurprisingly, like any work of art s...

No, really, why? This review is also up on Channel 24 . What it's about A loose remake of the 1974 film of the same name; Dr. Paul Kersey is a successful surgeon with an apparently perfect family but when his wife and daughter are brutally attacked in a house robbery gone bad and the police are unable to help, he takes justice into his own hands and starts a one-man war on crime in the violent streets of Chicago. What we thought It's impossible to look at Death Wish without addressing the wider context into which it has been released – particularly in the United States of America. After a seemingly unending string of mass shootings in America, the recent school shooting in Florida that left 17 students and teachers dead has spurred a major movement, led by the country's youth, against America's infatuation with guns, with the National Rifle Association, with the politicians who are owned by the NRA and even against the Second Amendment itself. The ...

Almost definitely not the film you've been advertised... and it's all the better for it. This review is also up on Channel 24 . What it's about After an accident brings her dancing career to a sudden end, Dominika Egorova is left with no money, no prospects and a mother to support. When her uncle, a powerful man in the Russian government, comes to her with an offer, she reluctantly accepts but what should have been a simple one-shot mission goes horribly wrong and she soon finds herself recruited to the infamous “Sparrow School”, which trains young people to use their sexuality against the State's enemies. What we thought If there was any doubt that the Cold War is back, Red Sparrow is the film to convince you that the the Russians are once again the ultimate villains of freedom and the liberal ideals on which most of the West rests. Obviously, this isn't about communism any more and, unlike most classic Cold War movies, this is less about all ...