Because Everybody Else Has One

Must... Not... Make... Pooh... Jokes! This review is also up on Channel 24 What it’s about With Winnie the Pooh and the Hundred Acre Wood long behind him, Christopher Robin is now a married man with a young daughter and a steady job. As the demands of his job threaten to make him lose sight of that which is most important in life, his wondrous childhood comes crashing into his life once again as Pooh comes looking for Robin to help him find his missing friends. What we thought Winnie the Pooh is a perennial childhood favourite that somehow continues to work its magic even on today’s kids; a generation of children brought up on the instant-gratification of the latest smartphones and gaming consoles, let alone the spacey, psychedelic horrors of the Teletubbies (that’s somehow still a thing, right?) or some of Cartoon Network’s most hyperactive cartoons. And yet, the quaint, genteel and notably uneventful world that A.A. Milne and Ernest Shepard created over a century ago ...

Who knew that Ewan McGregor had balls this big... This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about Seymour “the Swede” Levov is the envy of his local Jewish community as he follows his years as the most popular kid in high school with an adult life that includes his taking over his father's massively successful clothing business and having seemingly the perfect family life with his (non-Jewish) beauty-pageant wife and doting daughter. As his daughter comes of age and the 1960s rage on, however, the Swede's perfect life comes crumbling down. What we thought The acclaimed, Pulitzer-prize winning novel on which this film is based is one of those “classic” novels that utterly defeated me. I made it halfway through before the sheer misanthropic self-indulgence of Philip Roth's magnum opus had me throw up my hands in defeat and turn towards something a bit easier to swallow – something like War and Peace, perhaps (though, not really). Even after ha...

But is it our kind of movie? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about An ordinary British couple head to Morocco on vacation to try and sort out some of their marital problems but, while there, they come into contact with a charismatic Russian mobster who, after befriending the husband, convinces him to hand over a flash disk to the British government when he returns home. That, however, is only the start of their entanglement with the Russian, who, as it turns out wants Asylum in England for he and his family after his new boss makes it clear that he is out to “clear house” of older “employees” who have outlived their usefulness. What we thought John Le Carre seems to have become, over the past few years, the current “it” author in terms of TV and movie adaptations, what with his paranoia-drenched spy tails clearly resonating strongly with the current political climate. Hot on the heels of his highly acclaimed miniseries, the Night Manager, comes ...

OK, wow, so due to some personal stuff I have fallen way behind so there's a lot to catch up with. I'll do a roundup of these past few weeks but first a few full-ish reviews of the more notable films released. Admittedly, everything has fallen by the wayside thanks to The Avengers - kinda deservedly at that - but released here on the same week was this charming little comedy drama with the unlikely title of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen .  And make no mistake, it is a weird title. It may be based on a well-received and fairly successful book, but Salmon Fishing in the Yemen sounds - to me at least - like its either a weird bit of surrealism or an edgy political drama or, heaven help us, another Kite Runner, but it really isn't any of these things . What it is, essentially, is a good romantic comedy with a rather strange and messy backdrop. The messy backdrop involves a rich, eccentric sheikh who hires a stodgy scientist to help indulge his personal passion by constru...