Because Everybody Else Has One

Almost definitely not the film you've been advertised... and it's all the better for it. This review is also up on Channel 24 . What it's about After an accident brings her dancing career to a sudden end, Dominika Egorova is left with no money, no prospects and a mother to support. When her uncle, a powerful man in the Russian government, comes to her with an offer, she reluctantly accepts but what should have been a simple one-shot mission goes horribly wrong and she soon finds herself recruited to the infamous “Sparrow School”, which trains young people to use their sexuality against the State's enemies. What we thought If there was any doubt that the Cold War is back, Red Sparrow is the film to convince you that the the Russians are once again the ultimate villains of freedom and the liberal ideals on which most of the West rests. Obviously, this isn't about communism any more and, unlike most classic Cold War movies, this is less about all ...

Yes, that's how you punctuate this film's title. And, no, that's not the weirdest thing about it. Not by a very, very long shot. Please note, I may discuss some plot points in this review but I am reluctant to call them spoilers - because the film isn't really about its plot, which, as it so happens is literally thousands of years old. Still, if you want to know absolutely nothing about the film going in then feel free to not read this review until you've seen it. Then again, in this case, you might actually want to know a bit about what the film is before deciding to see it. That start-rating should give you an idea of how much I loved it but it's certainly not for everyone. Indeed, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who walked out of the screening I saw of the film who actively liked it. Take that as you will. Incidentally, I know I am guilty of using the personal pronoun a lot in my reviews, perhaps even too much so, but that practice has never...

Middle School is most definitely not the movie that most people have been looking forward to this week. As such, here are a few thoughts on two of the week's truly noteworthy films. As you may have guessed, my Middle School review can be also be found at Channel 24  but my thoughts on the other two films, no matter how short, are exclusive to Because Everybody Else Has One. Man, I really should have come up with a shorter name for this blog, though... Hacksaw Ridge is a potent reminder of both Mel Gibson's very real skill as a director of visceral, affecting, engrossing cinema (albeit cinema with all the subtlety of a very, very large sledgehammer) but it's also a reminder that it's not always easy to separate the artist from the art. However much this may be Gibson's "repentance" movie where he makes up for his past sins by shining a spotlight on a genuine hero whose story absolutely deserves to be widely known, I couldn't help but be distr...

Well, that winning streak was fun while it lasted... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about A decade after the events of X-Men: Days of Future's Past, our favourite mutants once again find themselves standing between humanity and a potentially world-destroying threat: this time in the form of Apocalypse, the god-like first mutant who decides to “cleanse” and remake in his image the world he awakes to after thousands of years entombed in an Egyptian crypt. What we thought Between Deadpool and the previous two X-Men movies, Days of Futures Past and First Class, it looked for all the world like Fox studios had finally gotten a firm handle on their Marvel Mutant-verse properties after seriously dropping the ball with the likes of X-Men: Origins – Wolverine and X-Men 3. Sadly, though no one in their right mind would dare suggest that X-Men: Apocalypse is anywhere near as bad as the worst X-Men movies, let alone Fox's manhandling of the Fantast...

We can all breathe a sigh of relief: Mockingjay Part 2 solidifies the Hunger Games saga as the gold standard in YA novel adaptations. As a fierce defender of Mockingjay Part 1 (I loved all the talky bits), it's kind of odd that I have to say that, for all that it gets very right, Mockingjay Part 2 makes a strong case for smooshing the two films into one three-hour long epic. The Hunger Games' final installment is an excellent capper to the series that impresses both as a gripping piece of entertainment and as impressively ambitious social commentary that deals with class warfare, traditional warfare, revolutions, the corruption of power and the way that the media is used and manipulated in all of the above. It's brave, smart and audacious filmmaking that just happens to be a major, big-budget Hollywood film aimed, nominally, at teenage girls. Unfortunately, the one thing that stops it from ever really coming close to toppling Catching Fire as the series' best en...

Oh, how wrong things can go. This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about George Pemberton's thriving timber empire is threatened by the pressures of the Great Depression, but when he meets and marries the enigmatic Serena, things take a turn – but perhaps not in the ways he was expecting. What we thought Serena should really have been something special. Based on a beloved novel, it reunites the wonderful Jennifer Lawrence with her increasingly impressive Silver Linings Playbook co-star, Bradley Cooper, for a thematically rich and complex period-drama, directed by Susanne Bier, an Oscar-winning Danish filmmaker. And it is something special. As long as by “special” you mean a stunning and singular example of a calamity of a film that is infinitely less than the sum of its parts. Serena had absolutely everything going for it but the result is a disastrous mess and one of the year's most tedious, dirge-like and frankly badly told movies...

Sorry for the delay but here are a few of my own thoughts on the somewhat underrated latest Hunger Games movie. Once again, a quick reminder and disclaimer that I haven't read a word of the novels and all my usually effusive views on the series are based almost entirely on the films themselves. I have no idea how close this is to the novel, in other words, and I don't particularly care - but I fully understand that if you're one of those fans who have devoured the books multiple times, your views may well be very different to mine. Continuing in the recent tradition of splitting adaptations of popular kid- or YA novels into two or more films, the latest Hunger Games movie captures only the first part of the final book in Suzanne Collins' massively popular series. It's unquestionably true that this is a decision based almost entirely on monetary concerns, what with the Mockingjay novel not being significantly longer than its predecessors and everything, but th...

And you thought the Avengers was packed... While Guardians of the Galaxy is still the year's biggest unknown quantity in terms of superhero movies, X-Men: Days of Future Past was always the one had the biggest potential for really falling flat on its face. Sure, X-Men: First Class restored the X-Men franchise after a couple of truly wretched entries in the form of X-Men III: The Last Stand and X-Men: Origins - Wolverine but First Class was a focused and ultimately very contained story. However X-Men: Days of Future Past was going to turn out, it was destined to be anything but contained. Indeed, it looked doomed to suffer from the same kind of Mutant overload that helped sink the already rather sinkable X-Men III. Based on one of the comics franchise's most beloved stories, Days of Future Past does indeed, it has to be said, feature a boatload of Mutants in a time-travelling story that spans decades and two quite different cinematic incarnations of the X-Men. Unlike that...

Just two movies left to finish off this week. Well, three technically but I have no earthly idea what The Perfect Wave is supposed to be. American Hustle.  Following hot on the heels of his last film, the quite terrific Silver Linings Playbook, American Hustle finds director/co-writer David O Russell on rather different ground. Moving from the character-driven intimacy of Silver Lining Playbook to a plot-and-style-driven crime caper that plays like a more flippant, less intense Goodfellas, it is, if nothing else, impressive how easily O Russell shifts gears from one genre to the next. American Hustle is a sprightly and attractive slice of pure entertainment that has what to say about identity verses appearance but somehow still feels slightly hollow for it. It may have garnered as many nominations as its predecessor and it's just as handsomely made, but it never quite manages to match the heart or the depth of Silver Linings Playbook. American Hustle tells the largely true s...

Is Catching Fire the Empire Strikes Back of the Hunger Games series? Improving on its already very good predecessor in every conceivable way, The Huger Games: Catching Fire only further establishes the Hunger Games as by far the best young-adult smash sensation since Harry Potter. I haven't read the Suzanne Collins novels on which these films are based but with adaptations this good, I don't particularly feel the need to - especially since most people who have read the books seem to far prefer the movies. Enough people have ripped into the Twilight franchise over the years that it's probably unfair, redundant even, to resurrect that particular dead horse for another solid beating, but the Hunger Games' artistic success shows just how far short the Twilight series came to reaching its own goals. Mark Kermode, in his own, obviously superior review of the film  notes that the success of the Hunger Games is in large part because Twilight paved the way and, though I h...

After a lazy holiday period, I have a whole lot of catching up to do. I am tempted just to do a quick roundup of mini reviews but it would be a great disservice to some of the great films that have come out over the last month. As such, I'm going to try and bash out as many reviews as I possibly can over the next couple of weeks, mixing both new releases and some relatively older films that are hopefully still on cinema. And if they're not, well, just consider these advance reviews of the inevitable DVD/ Blu-Ray release. At this point, it's all but impossible to tackle Silver Linings Playbook without putting it in the context of the deluge of Academy Awards nominations it has received. It's up for best film, best adapted screenplay, best director, best editing and, as the first film to do so in many a year, in all four acting categories. And yet, at the outset, it's hard to imagine, let alone believe, that Silver Linings has received this kind of attention a...

Moving onto this past weekend's releases, lets starts off with yet another review of The Hunger Games. Reactions have been mixed, but read on to find out what I thought. With Harry Potter done and dusted and the Twilight saga limping to its conclusion in a few months, it's no surprise that Hollywood has turned to another kids/ teenage/ young-adult literature phenomenon for its next big cash cow. To its credit though, The Hunger Games draws more heavily on the likes of Kick Ass , Hannah , Lord of The Flies and Battle Royale than on the adventures of sparkling vampires and boy-wizards. It's not perfect and, yes, questions of originality are not ill-deserved, but The Hunger Games is a refreshing change of pace after the dreariness of the Twilight Saga and comes dangerously close to actually living up to the hype. You may have heard much of this before but the story of the Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future where a great war has left the "have" an...