Because Everybody Else Has One

Sorkin once again proving that, West Wing as a (very, very big) aside, the big screen is really where he is most at home.  And, once again, I hope you've already seen this review on Channel 24 . What it's about The true story of Molly Bloom, whose Olympic career as a skier was cut short after a random accident on the slopes but who then went on to run some of the most exclusive, high-stakes poker games in the United States. Her fortunes soon came crashing down, however, when the government seized all her money after learning of some short-lived and fairly minor illegal activity on her part during the games – but that only proved to be the beginning of her troubles.. What we thought Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, the Social Network) has always been a writer who needs a very particular kind of director to bring visual life to his almost supernaturally verbose scripts, as well as actors who can manage to keep up with the onslaught of words that threaten to drown ...

Question: How do you turn 15,000 pages of story into a 90-minute movie? Answer: You don't. This review is also up on  Channel 24 What It's About Loosely based on the Stephen King fantasy series, the Dark Tower tells the story of Jake, a teenager whose visions of another world may be written off as a sign of madness by his parents, doctors, teachers and friends but when a series of events leads him to that other world, he comes face to face with his visions brought to life: an eternal battle of good and evil between the The Man in Black who wants to bring darkness and death to multiple worlds and Roland, the last Gunslinger, the one man who could stop him. At the centre of their conflict is the Dark Tower, a single structure that lies at the centre of reality and is the only thing standing between the Multiverse and whatever darkness lies outside it. What we thought Spanning three decades, seven novels, a number of spin-off books, comics and thousands up...

Oh, Sean. Oh, Sean. What have you done? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about After a high-profile assassination of the minister of mining in the Congo, former special forces soldier turned mercenary hitman, Jim Terrier, tries to leave his old life behind him and embarks on a career working for a non-profit organisation. His past soon catches up to him, however, as he is attacked while on a philanthropic mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo and he quickly learns that his entire team is now the target of shadowy forces. What we thought Directed by Taken's Pierra Morrel, the Gunman effectively tries to do for “serious actor” Sean Penn what Taken did for fellow (once) “serious actor” Liam Neeson: turn him into an action star that can go head to head with the likes of Jason Statham or Dwayne Johnson. Also like Taken, it tries to mix serious world issues – human trafficking in Taken; American corporations' exploitation of third world cou...

A great man, to be sure, but is it a great movie? I'll give you a clue... no, it isn't.  Like the Great Man himself, there is plenty to admire about Mandela: The Long Walk to Freedom, but quite unlike him, it largely fails to live up to expectations and ends up as something surprisingly forgettable and disappointingly ordinary. Justin Chadwick, a British director who is no stranger to making films about and around Africa (First Grader) and, as befits this film's subject matter, is particularly adept at drawing out plenty of emotion from whatever story he's telling. Add to that a very solid cast, comprising both local and international talent, and a story that is pretty much incredible by default, as it depicts the life one of the most extraordinary figures in modern history, and it's not hard to see why so many people are won over by Long Walk to Freedom. Indeed, even though I am largely underwhelmed by the film, it's impossible to deny how moving it so...

What Transformers should have been but this ain't no Pan's Labyrinth It's been five long years since Guillermo Del Toro's last film, the severely underrated Hellboy II, so it was something of a disappointment - to this fan at least  - to hear that rather than taking that time to make another, more personal film like The Devil's Backbone or Pan's Labyrinth, the Great Man was instead making the kind of big, dumb blockbuster upon which Michael Bay has made his very bad name. And make no mistake, Pacific Rim is as big and as dumb as its premise suggests. If you assume, going in, that there's got to be much more to the film than huge robots punching huge monsters then prepare to be horribly let down. The film does spend some time setting up its plot involving giant alien monsters (Kaiju) attacking humanity who then strike back with similarly gargantuan robots (Jaegers), piloted by the best and brightest that the world's military has to offer, but neit...