Because Everybody Else Has One

It's not just the mega-expensive Hollywood blockbusters that let the side down this week... This review is also up on Channel 24 What it's about Delphine Deyrieux is a highly successful novelist but after the major success of her more recent work, she finds herself suffering from writer's block and unable to come up with a new idea for her next novel. Enter Elle or “Her”, a young fan of Delphine's work who quickly befriends the older woman and convinces her to start writing something more autobiographical. Who is Elle, though? Is she just a passionate fan or something more sinister? What we thought Adapting the acclaimed French novel by Delphine de Vigan, Roman Polanski and his co-writer, Olivier Assayas, have crafted a film that is, at very best, an interesting misfire and, at worst, something that had no business leaving the page in the first place. Films about writing are quite common and Polanski draws on many of them here – from Mercy to ...

Brrrr... is there a chill in here or is it just Jake Gyllenhaal in his best ever role? This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about Lou Bloom is a “nightcrawler”, a freelance video-journalist who prowls the streets at night looking for grizzly accidents and violent crime scenes to film and sell to a local TV news station. In such a cut-throat industry, however, Bloom finds himself taking more and more extreme measures to get ahead – a perilous descent down a moral black hole that only feeds into his already anti-social state of mind. What we thought Nightcrawler is, all at once, an edge-of-your-seat thriller, a satire on journalistic ethics and a disturbing probe into the mind of a sociopath and, though it doesn't exactly always make for the most pleasant of viewing, it is compelling as hell. Especially for us (amateur or otherwise) psych-majors and philosophy enthusiasts. Lou Bloom (played with chilling brilliance by Jake Gyllenhaal) seems o...

No octopuses were harmed in the making of this movie... This review is also up at Channel 24 What it's about An amoral advertising executive is kidnapped and held in captivity for twenty years. When he is finally unceremoniously and unexpectedly released, he embarks on a trail of violence and vengeance to find out who kidnapped him and why. What we thought The original Oldboy, released way back in 2003, is a South Korean cult classic that took the psychological thriller in a bold and unprecedented demented new direction that made its American contemporaries look almost immediately tired and uninspired by comparison. Like the best cult movies, it isn't perfect and it alienated anyone who wasn't ready for anything quite so full on, but it was a smart, stylish and viscerally engrossing piece of work that may have been based on an already existing manga (Asian comic book) but always felt entirely fresh and original. It was also, quite easily, one of the decade'...

I sense another Tree of Life review coming up... The Master is, on a purely technical level, a masterpiece. It's a sharply dialogued, well crafted tale about the twisted co-dependent relationship between a cult leader (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) and one of his most fanatical disciples (Joaquin Phoenix) that features at least two truly exceptional performances, an unforgettable soundtrack courtesy of Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood and the kind of cinematography where each and every frame could easily be featured in an art gallery. That doesn't mean I liked it, though. Mind you, that's hardly surprising considering that it's written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, a filmmaker who puts the "challenging" in challenging filmmaking. You know you're dealing with someone who isn't afraid to alienate his audience when a biting look at life in the porn industry is by far his most accessible work. Even within critical circles, his films are often e...

There's no two ways about it, it's been a busy couple of weeks at the cinema and though I really do still need to see Aardman's Pirates! there's still plenty to talk about.  However, though I will probably still do roundups when the films really pile up, I've decided to from now on give each film its own specific post, regardless of how short the review is. This basically means that new reviews may well come out on a more regular basis from me and that it should be easier to find what you're looking for when navigating the site. I may go back and do this for older reviews as well but for now, this will be the new format going forward. Anyway, on with the show with one of the more interesting films released this year, Take Shelter.  Take Shelter is, at its heart, about a subject that isn't often tackled in American Cinema: the thin line between insanity and religious revelation, specifically the idea of prophecy. Now, admittedly, this does make Take...

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...

Jock of the Bushveld may have taken the number one spot in South Africa over the weekend but I don't see much life in it beyond that - certainly not overseas. The rest of the stuff on release this week are far more deserving of your cash - even if they do vary in quality quite a bit. First, and by far the best, is Super 8. Much has been said about this film basically being one long love letter to the films of its producer, Steven Spielberg and I'm certainly not going to argue with that. Super 8 does have the feel of a classic Spielberg blockbuster and, as a fan of the great man, it hit all the right notes as far as I'm concerned: the ET-on-steroids alien that just wants to go home; the Jurassic-Park-inspired monster action; themes of families and friendship; untrustworthy government types; a group of children being the lead characters and the sort of genuine sense of wonder and excitement that Spielberg, at his best, is known and loved for. It is also very much a love ...