Because Everybody Else Has One

Proving once again that importance, self-seriousness, and timeliness are not, in any way shape or form, enough to make a bad film good. This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about In the weeks leading up to the infamous '90s LA Riots, sparked by the vicious beating of a black man, Rodney King, by a group of white police officers and the ultimate acquittal of the cops responsible, a woman and her large group of foster children are drawn further and further into the racially-motivated chaos that ensues. What we thought Ever since winning her best actress Oscar for her role in Monster's Ball, Halle Berry has ricocheted from one terrible movie to another. Starting with the truly abysmal Catwoman back when film studios didn't realize that faithfulness to their source material was a large part of what made comic book films work, it has become an unwritten rule that Berry's name in the credits all but guarantees a lousy film. I wish I could s...

South Africa finally got the latest James Bond movie after it seemed to have come out everywhere else on earth first. Was it worth the wait, though? This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about A message from beyond the grave has James Bond hunting down a shadowy organization whose leader may have a connection to Bond's own past, while at the same time, even closer to home, forces within MI6 are conspiring to finally bring an end to the 00- program. What we thought Bond films have had a long tradition of being weirdly affected by their immediate predecessors, even though almost of all of them are stand-alone films with little to connect them but a handful of characters (and even then, the actors portraying them may not be the same). This started around the time Roger Moore took over as Bond and a dud like Moonraker would be followed up by the excellent For Your Eyes Only, which would conversely be followed by the middling-at-best Octopussy. ...

Is this the best Bond ever? Well.... With South Africa being seemingly one of the last places on earth to get Skyfall, we aren't just getting a film, as much as we're getting a Major Movie Event that has been hyped up, not only by a pretty damn aggressive  marketing campaign, but by some presumably hyperbolic praise by both critics and fans alike. The film may have a few lone dissenters - all of whom, incidentally, seem to really, really hate the film - but Skyfall has largely been met with a rather singular refrain, "The Best Bond Ever!" At this point then, assuming that I don't join in with the hateful minority, the question is less whether it's a good Bond movie, but whether it truly is the absolute best of the best of this now 50 year-old franchise. To be entirely honest though, it's an impossible question to answer. The various eras of James Bond all had very different flavours: how do you really compare the grit of Casino Royale with the Voodo...

But first, the one film from last week that I haven't reviewed yet - at least of those I've seen. Dream House is something of an oddity of a film in that it's a psychological drama that plays out like a ghost story. Sadly, though it's probably better than most reviewers suggest, it doesn't entirely work on either level. It's efficiently put together and, considering it boats always solid thesps like Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Naomi Watts, it's obviously well acted. It's just that, for a ghost story, its decidedly uncreepy and, for a psychological drama, it's surprisingly inert. All this, despite the grizzly murder that is the backbone of the film, as well as the big twist in the middle of the film that, though obvious in hindsight, actually managed to take me by surprise. If you're going to see it, try and go in with low expectations and as little knowledge about the film as possible (hope I helped!) but there's little reason not to w...

Not a great week for films... at least not based on what I've seen. French film Incendies and local flick Retribution were also released but I have not seen them. Cowboys and Aliens has the sort of title that begs to be either warmly embraced by those of us who like a good bit of schlock in our cinema diet or scoffed at by pretty much everyone else. The biggest problem is that the film tries to hard to win both audiences and, in the process, alienates even the b-movie-loving geeks who would normally flock to a film called Cowboys and Aliens. It's not a terrible film by any means - how could it be when you have John Favreau, the director of Iron Man, working with current Bond Daniel Craig, current "It" girl Olivia Wilde and Harrison Frickin' Ford in a crazy mashup of the science fiction and western genres - but it is much, much less fun than it should be. It does pretty well as a western and Craig makes for a solid "Man With No Name"-type gun-slinging...