Because Everybody Else Has One

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...

Exceptional? Maybe not. But pretty worth seeing. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about Set during the height of World War 2 where Adolf Hitler had effectively exiled the German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm, and his wife to the Netherlands to “wait out the war”, a young soldier is assigned to the Kaiser's home as head of security but whose main mission is to spy on the household and to report any seditious, anti-Nazi activities going on there. He quickly falls for a bold, outspoken housemaid who has plenty of secrets of her own – not least of all being that is Jewish. What we thought Despite its setting and its plot, it would be a stretch to call the Exception a “Holocaust film” - both because it only touches on the Holocaust and the rampant anti-Semitism going on in Europe at the time and because these truly dark historic events are used mostly as context for the story it's trying to tell, rather than the story itself. The result is a film th...

Almost forgot to post this. Which is kind of fitting if you think about it... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about A convict with ten months left on his sentence makes a deal with the devil to get out of prison early to spend with his terminally ill son. The cost: making use of his brilliant forgery skills to create a fake copy of a Monet with which his former boss can replace the real one he intends to steal. What we thought Aside for doing weird, weird things on stage at a couple of awards shows and being the subject of not a small amount of controversy, we haven't seen much of John Travolta these past few years. Frankly though, even if The Forger is nowhere near as bad as most critics suggest, I can't really say that it was a particular pleasure seeing Travolta again. It's a pity, he was rather good for a little while there, back before he torched his own career with the whole Battlefield Earth debacle, but he has since become a ...