Because Everybody Else Has One

I apparently have a pathological inability to not talk about the latest superhero movies on my blog, here are a few quick thoughts on M Night  (or as my pal, Dr. Jan Itor calls him, "mmm")  Shyamalan's latest. I won't be giving away much beyond what the trailers and synopses already suggest but if you want to know absolutely nothing going in, maybe read this after seeing the film. Despite churning out more bad films in a row than almost anyone this side of Ed Wood, Uwe Boll and Michael Bay, M Night Shyamalan's film career was somehow not capsized by the chain of disasters that was Lady in the Water, the Last Airbender, and the Happening or even after that final explosion of shrieking awfulness: After Earth. These easily rank among the (inoffensive but still) worst films ever made and it's a wonder that Shyamalan was still able to find funding to do his thing. Amazingly, though, after a decade in the dumps, the man who I really can't help but call ...

I couldn't decide whether to go for the pun-tastic "Kea-NO!" or the simpler "I feel like we've seen this one before" as a pithy intro for this review so I'll go for both.  This review is also up on Channel 24 . What it’s about After his wife and three kids are killed in a car accident a neuroscientist named William Foster joins forces with a biological engineer to first clone them and then implant an electronic copy of their minds onto the brains of their new clone bodies. Despite their ground-breaking work in their fields, nothing of the sort has ever been tried before – but even if they succeed, will things ever be the same again for him and his newly reborn family? What we thought Replicas is based on a very familiar but still always interesting science fiction premise that asks what it is to be human and if we were somehow able to transfer our minds to a new body, what does that say about our souls. Unfortunately, rather than even botheri...

I forgot to post last week's review but, as it turns out, these two films make for a very interesting double bill. Both reviews are on Channel 24 too. The Old Man and the Gun What it’s about  Forrest Tucker is a career bank robber who has spent most of his adult life in and out of prison – usually out, thanks to his uncanny ability to escape even the most notoriously impenetrable prisons – but when he falls for a woman named Jewel, his life of crime comes to a head. Can he stop doing the one thing he’s truly good at and can he do so before he is brought down by a persistent young cop who’s obsessed with his case? Based on a true story. What we thought The Old Man & the Gun has been reported to be Robert Redford’s final film and, though there might be something ironic about finishing such a momentous film career with so small and unassuming a swansong, it actually turned out to be a fairly fitting farewell. It is undoubtedly a very slow, very serene and ultimately ...

With just an hour to spare, let's finish off New Year's day 2019 with a look back at the best and worst in cinema in 2018. As has now become traditional, my top 3 films of the year were included as part of a larger list of Channel 24's critics' favourite films of the year. I'll just repost my own picks here but do head over to the full list on Channel 24 to check out some other top picks. I quibble with some of the films included and haven't seen a few of them but there's loads of good to great stuff on there too - some of which you'll see later on here, too. Please note, my picks are based on films released in cinemas in South Africa this year. These aren't in any particular order but the top 5 do rank higher than all the rest. 1) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri Aside for a few fallow periods between seasons, it was a fairly strong year at the cinema. Even so, nothing released over the past twelve months beats Three Bi...