Because Everybody Else Has One

See, now this is how you do it! This review is also up at Channel 24 . (No spoilers ahead. Certainly not if you've seen the trailers) What it's about After a mission goes horribly wrong, the Avengers are confronted with a new resolution signed by most of the world's countries that would put them at the control of the United Nations. With Captain America and Iron Man already on opposite sides as to whether to go along with the will of the UN or not, tensions reach a boiling point with the return of the Winter Soldier: a dangerous killer and Cap's oldest friend. What we thought It's hard not to compare Captain America: Civil War with Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, both because of the fact that the two feature similar themes and that they both revolve around a showdown between their respective universe's biggest heroes, battling it out for the soul of (super)heroism. They're also both nearly two-and-a-half hours long and are the lin...

I've fallen somewhat behind what with paying work and what have you taking up my time so here are some quick thoughts about the films released over the last few weeks - including this past Friday! Heyo! 10 Cloverfield Lane. The studio didn't feel like showing this to most critics so I - gasp! - had to pay to see it. I honestly have no idea why the studio was so skittish, though, because this was a pretty terrific debut feature from first-time director, Dan Trachtenberg. Bolstered by three extremely strong performances from literally the only three people in the film (not including voices on radios and phones), John Gallagher Jr. and, most especially, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and John Goodman, this "distant blood relative" of Cloverfield fortunately drops that film's shaky-cam found-gfootage gimmick for something much more claustrophobic and stripped down. It's terrifically tense stuff that jumps between different genres with incredible grace and ease (I kn...

Completely forgot to post this. Not that it matters much. Everything about the Forest is forgettable so why shouldn't this be. This review has also been up at Channel 24 for a few days.  And, yes, there are some much more interesting movies up for review coming up - even if just in capsule form. What it's about Sara Price heads off to Japan to look for her twin sister, Jess, who was last seen entering the notorious “Suicide Forest”. What we thought Tapping into a real-world phenomenon like Japan's infamous suicide forest, Aokigahara (though actually shot in a forest in Serbia, apparently), which, to the best of my knowledge, hasn't featured in an American horror film before, should be almost enough to give the Forest an edge over most modern day horror movies. Sadly, though it's not without one or two vaguely creepy moments, the film constantly falls foul of the same trappings that have put the genre into such disrepair over the last decad...

A for Average. And, um, ignore the byline, the review up at Channel 24 is actually by me, not Gabi.  What's it about After a cataclysmic event wipes out humanity, a young woman and two men try to pick up the pieces of a fallen world as the last known survivors. It's not long, however, before tensions mount and complicated romances build. What we thought Named after the last of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible, Z for Zachariah is an intriguing mix of religion, romance and visions of humanity's end, played out first as an uneasy domestic drama before turning into a PG-13 psycho-sexual thriller. It would be nice to say that it all works but, sadly, for all of its ambitions, it never really comes together. I haven't read the Robert O'Brien novel on which it is based, but it does seem like the chief flaw of the film is that it makes a rather strange departure from its source in what must be some sort of bid for fans of YA dystopian fiction and...

This rather lengthy review only touches on my problems with the film but one crucial point I negletced to make in the original review was that there is an R-rated director's cut coming out in a few months when BVS is released on DVD so, while on the one hand that means that maybe some of the wonky pacing, the random dream sequences and unfulfilled character beats will be addressed (though I wouldn't hold my breath), this would mean that we will end up with an R-rated Superman movie. I'll let that sick in for a moment.  This review is also now up at Channel 24 What it's about Following the events of Man of Steel, Superman is hailed as a hero by most but three powerful individuals are less than convinced by the alien's motives. Senator Finch questions whether Superman's interests truly align with the country she has sworn to serve; genius billionaire Lex Luthor sees Superman as both a demonic force and something to be exploited for his own ends and Got...

If you thought they dragged out the Huger Games series, check this out... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Tris and the rest of our young heroes finally escape Chicago and find what lies beyond those walls is an answer to everything that they've been searching for but also conceal dangers far more deadly than they could ever have expected. What we thought The Divergent series has always been something of a loser in the YA dystopian future genre with its lack of clear direction and one of the stupidest premises around. While the third of this four part trilogy (yup, they split up the last book into two) spends much of its running time trying to justify the latter and fix the former, it still utterly fails to understand what made something like the Hunger Games series work as well as it usually did. The series' central idea that human beings could be so neatly divided into categories based on our dominant character traits has alw...

Another big week with only one or two truly notable movies. Here are my quick thoughts on everything but The Divergent Series: Allegiant, which will get its own full review by the weekend. Sink. Starting with a local, Afrikaans drama, Sink is clearly better than the vast majority of those godawful Afrikaans movies but, unlike something like Dis Ek Anna, it only really holds up against its own, quite particular Afrikaans film industry. Taken as a film in and of itself, it is very well intentioned and it makes it pretty clear that newcomer Brett Michael Innes has enough writing and directing chops that he can definitely grow into a very accomplished filmmaker in the future. He isn't there yet, though. Sink, which tells the story of a white couple trying to come to terms with the death of their Mozambiquen maid's young daughter under their watch, uses a non-linear approach to storytelling that robs the film of all its emotional power to the point that the first hour, at the ve...

Loads of things out this week, almost all of which I've seen. Check out my full review of the Young Messiah below but here are my extremely short thoughts on four other films. Knight of Cups I missed and I have no earthly idea what Safe Bet is but a) the latter wasn't shown to the press and b) I've long given up on Terence Malick's waffling, self-important and indulgent films, but, hey, I'm sure it looks great. Zoolander 2. A definite disappointment this, but it's nowhere near as bad as some have suggested. It's amiable and just about funny enough to get a pass from me but it doesn't have the quotability of the first one and the smart-dumbness has largely been replaced with dumb-dumbness. Not something to rush out and see, then, but check it out on TV in a few months with lowered expectations and you'll most probably enjoy yourself. Unless you hated the first one, of course, then you'd have to be as dumb as Derek Zoolander to watch its sequel...

This Jew's take on the apparently almost entirely made up story of a very, very young Jesus Christ! What could go wrong? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about As he and his family return to Judea/ Israel after years in exile in Egypt, Jesus Bar Joseph, aged seven, has to come to terms with his strange powers and the even stranger circumstances surrounding his birth. What we thought As a reasonably observant Jew, I am, most decidedly, not the target audience of the Young Messiah. And yet, that doesn't necessarily mean that the film didn't have a chance in hell of working for me. For a start, though I don't believe in Jesus Christ as the Messiah or the so-called Son of God, I do find the whole story of Jesus to be pretty damn good mythology. I don't care much for it religiously, in other words, but as a fan of great stories, it's certainly one of the better ones. And historically, it's really interesting too. Further, y...

Even by Charlie Kaufman's usual standards, this is something of an odd one... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Michael Stone (voiced by David Thewlis), a middle-aged author, stuck in a rut of mundanity and boredom, comes across the first ray of light in his miserable life. Miles from his wife and son in a hotel in a strange city, he meets Lisa (voiced by Jennifer Jason Leigh), an awkward, self-loathing young woman who nonetheless makes him feel more alive than he has in years. What we thought Anomalisa, as it is later explained in the film, refers to this young woman, Lisa, being an anomaly in the drudgery of our protagonist's life but, frankly, from top to bottom, Anomalisa is an anomaly of a film. It's one of the rare adult animated films outside of anime to get a major release, for a start, but, more importantly, every minute of the film is either horribly uncomfortable, ugly, unnerving, hateful or, more often than not, a mixtu...