Because Everybody Else Has One

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...

Who You Gonna Call? Not the sexists, apparently... This review is also up at Channel 24 . What it's about When ghosts start cropping up all over New York City, a trio of paranormal-obsessed scientists team up with a subway worker, who saw one of the ghosts first-hand, to investigate and ultimately stop an apparent ghostly invasion of their city. What we thought Considering Hollywood's love of remaking and retelling beloved movies, books and comics, it's telling that no shoddy remake in history has been greeted with the kind of vitriol that this new take on '80s comedy classic has been greeted with. Even before the admittedly lackluster first trailer hit, reaction to the new, all-female Ghostbusters was overwhelmingly negative but, for all that there were some perfectly fair criticisms against remaking so beloved a cult classic, it was hard to get past the pure, unadulterated misogyny behind (or really smothered all over) most of the criticisms out ...

I haven't reviewed Me and Earl and the Dying Girl yet so I thought I'd team it up with this week's much tougher coming-of-age story. They certainly make for an interesting double bill. My review of The Diary of a Teenage Girl is up at Channel 24 , but first a couple of quick words on Me and Earl. In many respects, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is the quirkier, more indie version of the Fault in Our Stars. Again, it's about teenagers dealing with a terminal disease and again there is still the irony of it also being about growing up. Our hero of the piece, Greg (Thomas Mann)  makes amateur parodies of classic films with his co-worker (really best friend) Earl and he spends his whole life trying to remain invisible in a school divided along arbitrary but rigid lines. When Greg befriends "the dying girl" Rachel (Olivia Cooke) though, who has just been diagnosed with a otentiallyp curable form of leukemia, he is forced to confront his aloof relationship ...

So, I'll get to this week's genuinely good movies in a bit. This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Imogene is a failed playwright who moves from New York to live with her dysfunctional family in New Jersey, but what she finds there may just be even worse than she remembers. What we thought Imogene, or as it known in most other territories, Girl Most Likely has a good cast led by one of the funniest actresses of her generation but is the sort of quirky indie movie that gives quirky indie movies a bad name. OK, that's probably a bit unfair as the worst examples of quirky indie films are usually horribly pretentious (see Greenberg for a particularly egregious example of this) so Imogene is hardly the worst that the genre has to offer but it's still a bit of a noodly, directionless mess that badly wastes the talents of Kristen Wiig, Matt Dillon (where has he been hiding?) and Annette Bening. Worst of all, for an alleged comedy it's sadl...

Even putting aside Green Lantern, it's a pretty interesting week for films with a couple of comedies being particularly pleasant surprises. I Am Slave is this week's harrowing art film. This time the laugh-a-minute subject is modern day human slavery - specifically an 18 year old North African enslaved by an Arab family in London. That, in a nutshell, is the plot. And therein kind of lies the problem. The film's greatest strength by far is just how emotionally draining it is and if its sole intention was to really put the audience through the grinder as it educates them about the reality of slavery in modern England, then it is nothing less than an unequivocal success.           As a piece of storytelling, though, it is rather less impressive. It it somewhat heavy handed and the characterization is fairly shallow but, more than anything, its greatest failing in my eyes is the fact that I started to lose patience with it fairly quickly. While the acting an...