Up until last year I had only ever seen the original "Planet of the Apes" (1968), and I had seen that years ago. The pre-eminent thing I’d heard of the "Apes" series had been how the budget had been slashed and slashed and slashed for the subsequent sequels. As such, I didn’t really expect much from it. Then, last year, my partner and I sat and watched the entire series of films (on VHS no less!). I was actually astounded at how good they (mostly) were, and how they all strove to say something about our society as humans then and now. It is a bonkers series, no doubt about it – the second film ends with the entire planet blowing up after a nuclear warhead is set off by a bunch of religious nutters who worship it (hmmm...) – but there is some serious intelligent thought behind it all. "Planet of the Apes" is a stone-cold cinematic classic and my favourite of the sequels is easily "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" (1972) – where the slave apes, led by the hyper-intelligent Caesar, throw off the shackles of slavery and revolt against their human masters. There is some barmy sci-fi in there, but the film is really aiming to say something and seems to carry a real anger inside it. The news that Fox were, once again, aimin...

It came as little surprise to discover "Point Blank", a French thriller about an ordinary man doing extraordinary things for his wife, was from the same director as "Pour Elle" AKA "Anything for Her" (2008), Fred Cavayé. I still haven't managed to lay my eyeballs on that quite regarded film (remade by Paul Haggis as "The Next Three Days" (2010)) but after my experience with "Point Blank", I am quite looking forward to. "Point Blank" is, quite simply, nothing more nor less than a cracking action thriller looking to take its audience on a ride. That it is so well made with no higher pretensions is refreshing a change. Things open with a life-or-death chase through the streets of Paris - one man being chased, two intimidating thugs chasing. It's a job gone wrong and is a great way to get the audience hooked within the first few minutes. But things calm down when we meet our main character: Samuel Pierret (Gilles Lellouche) is a hospital attendant. He's studying to become a nurse and he and his wife Nadia (Elena Anaya) are expe...

If this were to be a one-word review that word would be disappointing. This low budget sci-fi film about the discovery of a twin Earth had me rather excited. You would not be wrong in saying it was one of my most anticipated films of last year. With the advent of cheaper software packages for digital effects, there have been a number of similarly smaller budgeted sci-fi films with a higher intelligence quota than your usual Hollywood science-fiction. In addition, I had been hearing some good things about "Another Earth" and parallel/twin worlds are one of the great unexplored aspects of science-fiction in films, in my opinion. Instead, "Another Earth" misses the mark entirely. Up-and-coming new indie darling Brit Marling (who co-wrote and also starred and co-wrote another low budget sci-fi "Sound of My Voice" (2011)) stars as Rhoda, a bright young woman about to start her college life. She has an interest in astronomy and before she begins her great new life of study she and her friends have a final blowout party. It is while she is driving home from that party, more than a little inebriated, that “Earth-2” appears in the sky distracting Rhoda and causing her to plough into...

It's fairly obvious, but I'm just going to go ahead and state it upfront anyway: I am a white, middle-class male who grew up in New Zealand suburbia. I have never experienced racism first hand and my knowledge of 1960's America is limited to what I have learned from pop culture (my own historical proclivities tend towards the ancient). And through that (largely white male dominated) pop culture I have learned that minorities always need the help of a kindly white person to rise up and overthrow/stand up to the prevailing social hierarchy. Just look at the cinema of Edward Zwick who is the most recent purveyor of this kind of condescending film-making. Hollywood doesn't seem comfortable, or at least thinks audiences wouldn't be comfortable, with heroic minority lead characters. There's far more to be written (and has been) on the representation of African-Americans and Hispanics in American media and pop culture; far more than can be encapsulated within a movie review. "The Help" is one of the least egregiousness examples of this type of filmmaking; the maid characters of Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (

Procedural crime dramas are a dime-a-dozen on TV. And that statement has been true for years. Since “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (2000-present), the forensic procedural has become a particularly popular subgenre of the primetime staple: a cop-drama, but not, because they focus less on the Lenny Briscoe’s of the world and more on the Gil Grissom’s and Jordan Cavanagh’s. Debuting on the Fox network in 2005, “Bones”, based on real-life forensic anthologist Kathy Reichs’ popular series of novels, is a procedural that’s really no different than a dozen other shows. Except, actually it is sort of different, in one very small—but very important—way. And now in its sixth season, that tiny difference means everything. I watched the first couple of seasons of “Bones”, initially interested because it starred the guy who played Angel in two Joss Whedon’s series, and they really kept to that typical forensic crime-drama formula: focused more on the cases, than the characters. And, so I stopped actively watching and instead followed by proxy, because my parents love the show, hearing what ...

To bastardize a phrase: this is how the series ends; this is how the series ends—not with a bang, but a whimper. They say all good things eventually come to an end (or is that, “to those who wait?”—I forget, although its equally apt), but that’s true of bad things too. And ten years on, “Smallville” is certainly more bad than good. And I’m glad, quite frankly, that it’s over. “Inspired by Superman” is really all you need to know—this wasn’t a series of the legendary Man of Steel, at least not while he was flying around in cape. And for a time, that was fine. “Smallville” worked as a prequel of sorts. An occasionally interesting reinvention on a classic character, updated with a youthful vigor and plotting based around angst-y high school antics. It also worked because Clark Kent (Tom Welling), the boy who would become Superman, but wasn’t yet, seemed human, or at least a lot less of the infallible alien God on Earth, whose only undoing is a green (or sometimes red) hued meteorite, than he’d been for most of the character’s lifetime. But, eventually, at least to me, as time went on—as “Smallville” survived the death of the network on which it aired and was a tent pole for the rebo...

I’m not the biggest fan of Thai martial arts films. It isn’t that they aren’t visually thrilling, but the general rule when making one seems to place all the emphasis on fighting and very little on the actual plot. That isn’t to say Thailand isn’t capable of producing legitimately good films, but I’ve yet to see one that really blows me away. Perhaps the best example of this is Tony Jaa’s “Ong Bak” (2003), a film that had friends of mine frothing at the mouth, eager to talk about how good it was. Once I’d finally seen it, I didn’t get it. Sure, Jaa’s skills are beyond impressive, but the onus of the film was placed squarely on his techniques. What was the movie’s plot? Hell if I know. Something about an elephant or a statue… who really remembers? The only thing I can recall is Jaa throwing A LOT of elbows (that seems to kinda be his thing). I never bothered with the second film, but I did review “Ong Bak 3: The Final Battle” (2010) last year and found it to be even more of the same, only with a plot so convoluted I might as well have been watching it with the subtitles off. If there’s one thing Jaa’s original film is respo...

“The Guard” opens with an almost-literal bang, the words “fuckin’ posers” blaring on the soundtrack, as a group of young ruffians—chivalrous-less chavs—speed down a country road. The camera sweeps across the vast, green countryside, as the boys’ red coupe drifts between the lanes on the weaving tarmac—a strip of black cutting through the lush landscape of West Ireland. The speeders whiz past a white-and-yellow Ford, a cop car, but the camera stops on the officer, the Garda, or Irish policeman, inside. His face emotionless, in a daze, we hear the speeders horrific crash off screen and he guard’s stone face turns to a grimace, as he rolls his eyes in disgust. The guard leaves his roadside post to inspect the accident. It’s a horrific scene. The red car now mangled, upside down, bodies—the car’s recent occupants—strewn everywhere. He looks inside the ruined vehicle, then turns back to the first body on the road and starts rummaging through the corpse’s jacket pockets. He finds a baggy, shakes it, opens it, examines one of the tablets for a moment, cocks his head and then, satisfied, places the tab on his tongue. The screen flashes for a brief flicker of a frame with a smiley face, an editing flourish that establishes one thing: the g...

Bold bad girls, bigger and badder bad guys, and a bag full of money from a busted coke deal gone wrong, all coming together in a crescendo of crummy crime, culminating in a Mexican standoff in an old interstate diner—one with an old jukebox tucked away in a corner, supplying a catalog of obscure tunes for the soundtrack. Is this homage to Tarantino, or is it just a rip-off? That’s the question on which writer/director Aaron Harvey’s “Catch .44”—populated by a curious cast of interesting variety, including Bruce Willis, Forrest Whitaker and Brad Dourif—hinges. And sorry to say, “.44” is more outright plagiaristic than it is a thoughtfully playful pontification of pop culture references of the Quentin Tarantino school. Harvey’s film has a few things to like about it—namely a pair of oddball performances from Willis and Whitaker—but is otherwise so thoughtlessly trite, and clearly copied from the formulas of Tarantino’s (particularly earlier) scripts that it becomes a terrible chore and is kind of ...

I’m still stunned that “Supernatural” made it to a six—and even more perplexingly, a currently-airing seventh—season. By his own admission, creator Eric Kripke only planned for the fan-favorite CW series about monsters and two brothers who hunt them to run three seasons, and he never really expected it to even last that long. Yet, the show proved to be such a huge success for its writer (and perhaps more importantly, the struggling CW Network on which it aired) that “Superatural” is still going strong, almost two years after its creator walked away. But allow me backtrack to the show’s sixth season for a moment, as that is the one recently released on Blu-ray. And actually, let’s go back even further than that, to my review of season five: When he saw the numbers—in terms of fans, but mostly ratings—Kripke extended his sights on a taught five-season arc: one that would spell the end for brothers Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) and likely the series itself. Of course, studios and network executives bei...

Post Mortem (Pablo Larraín, 2010) Please note that Post Mortem has been released by Network Releasing both separately and as part of a two-disc set entitled Made in Chile: Two Films by Pablo Larraín, accompanied by Larraín’s thematically similar 2008 film Tony Manero.

Tony Manero (Pablo Larraín, 2008) Please note that Tony Manero has been released by Network Releasing both separately and as part of a two-disc set entitled Made in Chile: Two Films by Pablo Larraín, accompanied by Larraín’s thematically similar 2010 film Post Mortem.

Eli Craig's "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" comfortably situates itself within the "evil hillbilly" subgenre of horror films. Except it's from the hillbillies perspective, and they're not so much inbred vicious murdering good ole' boys as holiday home owning chaps who enjoy a bit of country music and dungaree wearin'. Yep, "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" is a bit of a piss-take. Now, I'll fess up to not being any sort of expert on horror films in general, or evil hillbilly films in particular, but "Tucker & Dale vs. Evil" seem to hit more right notes than not. The film begins in standard enough fashion, with a group of douchey college kids off for a drunken weekend in the woods. They come across our boys Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine) pickin' up petrol & supplies and are monumentally freaked out by them. The poor boys are just confused (and maybe a little hurt) by the college kids' reactions as they continue on to Tucker's recently purchased holiday home: a broken down piece o' crap that just happens to have once been the site of a brutal backwoods massacre (20 years a...

In 2005 it was announced that Pixar would be leaving the Disney family, their final film in their contract is "Cars" (2006). Pixar have been responsible for a massive amount of revenue coming into the house of the mouse's bank accounts. Their successful mix of heart felt stories with top pf the line CGI animation is second to none, their films continually out grossed traditional hand drawn animation films as well as Disney family films over the years. Traditional animation is now going the way of the dinosaur when Disney closed down their studio and setting up their own 3-D animation department. That venture was responsible for "Chicken Little" as well as "Valiant" (2005) and the currently in release "The Wild" (2006), "Valiant" didn't fare to well at the box office and "Chicken Little" only did slightly better but never quite reaching the Pixar ability to virtually print money. It was announced at the beginning of 2006 that Disney had bought Pixar shelling out $7.4 billion for stock making Steve Jobs the official king of the world (and now king of the heavens!). No...

Based on the book "A Day with Wilbur Robinson" this Disney animated film takes the foundations laid by the book and in traditional Disney style adapts them for their own purposes and includes a few Disney-esque themes such as family, the orphan theme and the light hearted nature of the film, thankfully there was not a lot of singing. The film was in production for sometime before its release and when Pixar finally merged with Disney and John Lasseter took over animation (including re-opening Disney's traditional 2-d hand drawn division which was closed under Michael Esiner's final years of control) he suggested further changes which director Stephen J. Anderson took and over the course of 10 months nearly 60 percent of the film was changed including the addition of new story elements. It's possible that the continuous changes applied under the hands of many people over the course of production resulted in the film being a mixed bag. It feels like a mish-mash of cool elements rolled into a picture with a very simple plot as the filmmaker's throw a veritable stock-pile of set pieces to...

"Submarine" is a distinctly British (specifically, Welsh) coming-of-age film with a strong, acknowledged influence from Wes Anderson. This is British actor/comic Richard Ayoade's debut feature film and, to my eternal shame, I still have not seen any of his "The IT Crowd" (2006-Present) or "Garth Marenghi's Dark Place" (2004). They're on the list. Meanwhile, this scene is one of my favorites, ever. Young Oliver Tate (Craig Roberts) is having a difficult time. He's a little different from other kids at school; he has a crush on Jordana Bevan (Yasmin Paige), an insular pyrotechnic; and to top it all off his parent's marriage is slowly falling apart. Tate narrates these events set in the 80's, with an intelligent wit and occasionally breaking the fourth wall. Craig Roberts as Oliver more than handles his own in a cast of older, more established actors. His dialogue and delivery cracks just as much as

The chief advantage of going to a movie instead of going to a play is in the production values. Generally speaking, the sets are more elaborate, the acting more polished and the special effects are more impressive. But there are some films that look like they could quite easily be performed as plays. Alfred Hitchcock’s "Rear Window" (1954) is one example – most of the action takes place on one set. Another is Sidney Lumet’s "12 Angry Men". In fact, I went to a stage production of "12 Angry Men" in 2004. While I enjoyed it, it paled in comparison to the film version. "12 Angry Men" is deceptively simple. In this black and white film, twelve people are locked away in a jury room. We only learn the names of two of the jurors, and even then only at the end of the film. The jurors’ task is to come up with a verdict in a murder trial. If they reach a guilty verdict, the judge has no choice but to impose the death penalty. The case seems like it is open and shut. Through the deliberations, a character study emerges for every individual in the room. We see the mild-mannered man, the elderly sage, the bigot, the young executive and so...

The acting trajectory of Will Ferrell has been an interesting one. After watching him yuck it up on “Saturday Night Live” (1975-present) for a number of years, Ferrell was lucky enough to be one of the few SNL alumni to have a seriously successful film career. After a few years of churning out comedies where he was essentially playing himself, I kind of bailed on showing up to his movies. His shtick got old – fast – and it looked like he had nowhere to go, but then I noticed he was lending his talents to smaller, independent films in dramatic roles that were completely against his typecast persona. I’ll admit to watching none of them, but I appreciated the fact that he was trying to branch out of being known strictly for his comedy. My first taste of what he’s capable of came this past week, when I sat down to watch “Everything Must Go” (2010), a film based on the 1977 short story “Why Don’t You Dance?” by Raymond Carver, and if it’s any indication of the talent he possesses, he should definitely be doing more roles in this vein. I’m sure he got just as burned out making big studio comedies as his fans did watching them (the diminishing...

Although the topic of “bests” in film will always be hotly debated in most circles inhabited by those souls so inclined to talk about cinema, whether it’s specific or overly broad—arguments over the best actors, genres and decades—there’s little point in questioning certain truths. One of those truths is that the New Hollywood era—a time when a group of young American filmmakers rose to prominence and broke the molds of the old studio system and its censors in a fashion similar to the French New Wave, producing culturally critical, sometimes exceptionally violent, and unusually anti-establishment productions all while fully-funded by big brass at Columbia, Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers—is one of the most important times in cinematic history. It just is, largely because of the directors who led the charge and how they changed movies forever. Although Arthur Penn, or more pointedly his breakout “Bonnie and Clyde” (1967), is credited with giving birth to the new era, filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin, George Lucas and ...

When I was a kid, I had a total and near-irrational love for the first three films in the “Star Wars” (1977-2005) saga. A love that had persisted—perhaps too strongly, until relatively recently—through most of the countless changes George Lucas has made to the film with each subsequent CG-laden revision of the so-called “Original Trilogy”. Despite those changes, I still generally like “A New Hope”, even if I no longer really respect it as the darning work of groundbreaking 70's cinema it once was. And “The Empire Strikes Back”—which has had the least amount of revisions—remains essentially the perfect sequel, and a near-perfect film. (It should be noted: those same changes have taken my initial toleration of “Return of the Jedi” and turned it into something resembling full-blown hate, especially with the recent “NOOOOO!” controversy). The prequels can (and always will) be defined by one word: disappointment. Mine was a dumbfounding disappointment, which began with an extremely rare, and hope-filled, school trip to the movie theater when I was 10 to see “The Phantom Menace” (1999). And it was a disappointment that festered inside me for half a decade, and finally ending with a half-h...

Every once in a while a film comes along that makes me want to completely reevaluate every score I’ve ever given. To rethink every review I’ve ever written. Sometimes it’s because the movie I’m currently watching, the one that’s causing the pondering, is so special, unique, wonderful and well made that the benchmark has suddenly and perhaps unfairly risen and nearly everything before it kind of gets reshuffled, lower, in the deck. Other times, it’s because a film is so unspeakably bad, even mediocrity would sate and cleanse my palate. And suddenly I wouldn’t mind watching that movie I gave a “C” to again, meaning maybe I should have given it a better grade the first time around? Was I too hard on blank, I wonder? Or too lenient on blah? But, usually, those thoughts fritter away soon enough, easily forgotten musings as I move on, dusting off another film and placing it into my player. And then plugging words into semblances we call sentences, forging paragraphs and forming a Word document into pages of useless, blabbering bloated criticisms I can then pass off as a review. That brief moment of questioning pushed back into the recesses of my mind to never really bother again. And then something like “Freerunner” comes across...

Previously on “Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”: Supervising producer Joshua Fine and story editor/writer Christopher Yost populate their Avengers team with a traditional lineup: Iron Man (voiced by Eric Loomis), Thor (Rick D. Wasserman), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Brian Bloom), Hulk (Fred Tatasciore)—non-Hulked-out Bruce Banner is voiced by Gabriel Mann—with Hank Pym/Ant-Man (Wally Wingert) and Wasp (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) also stepping in to fill out the floor space of the mansion. Fine and Yost mix a modern aesthetic—designs, characterization, and certain plotting all obviously pull from the movies—with some classic, comic-based stories from Kirby and Lee. … "Earth's Mightiest Heroes" is something that both youngsters—lets arbitrarily say ages seven and above—and a (somewhat forgivi...

Before I dive into volume three of Marvel and Disney's animated series "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes", it might be best to give a little background. Here's some of what I wrote—with a few tweaks and additions—in my earlier reviews of the series' two DVD releases: “The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” was the first production to come from Disney's ownership of the Marvel name, and, overall, it’s fairly good. Debuting on The House of Mouse’s XD cable network—a narrowcast specifically aimed at boys aged eight to thirteen—“Earth's Mightiest Heroes” was a surprising, late-entry release into the 2010 TV season. I expected a blatant cash-in on the immensely popular live-action films, but found the show to be a nice mix of action-adventure and actual characterization and plot (although, yeah, it’s also connected with the film universes, but that's turns out to not really be a bad thing). Supervising producer Joshua Fine and story editor/writer Christopher Yost populate their Avengers team with a traditional lineup: Iron Man (voiced by Eric Loomis), Thor (

Before I start talking about Michael Bay's latest robo smash-'em-up let's take it back a bit. Growing up, the original "Transformers" (1984-1987) cartoon was my favorite TV show by far. I raced home from school every day to watch, enthralled as these alien robots warred with each other. Sure, there was "Thundercats" (1985–1987), "Voltron: Defender of the Universe" (1984) and "G.I. Joe" (1985–1986) too but they couldn't hope to compare. It helped the Transformer toys were, in fact, two toys in one. Three even, if you count them as being a puzzle as well as a robot and car/plane/boat/whatever. The original Orson Welles (and, yes, Leonard Nimoy) starring original "Transformers: The Movie" (1986) movie was a seminal movie for my kid-self. I recognize the fact that it was out to sell me more toys, but damn if I didn't enjoy the hell out of it anyway. To give you an idea of the pop culture space this series was taking up in my brain, a live-action "Transformers" movie was the first movie I can ever remember wanting to mak...

I’d be willing to wager that, unless you’re a freaky film aficionado, odds are you haven’t seen something as original, bold & bizarre as “The Last Circus” (2010) in quite some time. I was immediately taken aback looking at the film’s cover art and synopsis when it arrived in my mailbox – and the treasures that awaited me on the disc inside proved to be even more insane than my mind imagined. I’ve been aware of Spain’s generous directorial exports for some time now – Nacho Cerdà, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, J.A. Bayona – these are a few of the names making waves in the genre community. My one and only encounter with one of Álex de la Iglesia’s films, however, was not a positive experience. Earlier this year I reviewed his English-language film, “The Oxford Murders” (2008), and barely made it through with my eyes open. That film limped along, weighted down by a dreadfully boring plot (math? Zzzzzz) that showcased very little of what made this film so much more enjoyable. I’d been aware that de ...

Jay: Miramax? I thought they only made classy films like “The Piano” and “The Crying Game.” Brodie: Yeah, well once they made “She’s All That” everything went to hell. I fully realize that a quote from “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” (2001) is a strange way to start a review of “The Cider House Rules”, but bear with me for a minute. Or at least a few paragraphs, please (I promise to get to my point eventually). One of the best things to happen in the road warrior-esque wasteland of home video distribution in recent months was Disney’s selling off of the Miramax catalog. The house of mouse was… sluggish (to say the least)… in bringing the many films produced under Bob and Harvey Weinstein at indie movie powerhouse Miramax, like they are with a lot of their non-animated catalog in all honesty, to blu-ray. And that dawdling pace caused a certain amount of distress for a lot of Blu-ray loving film fans because, as Jay pointed out, the Miramax banner did produce a lot of great films, and held a higher-than-average amount of Oscar-nominated titles in its stable. (At least mostly.) Films that definitely deserve prope...

There’s a saying that everyone has at least one book in them, and I suppose that’s probably true for (most) people and films too. Everyone has at least one story they could make into a movie. But, as the late Christopher Hitchens once said, “everybody does have a good book in them, but in most cases that’s where it should stay.” And that statement is certainly even truer of people and films. You might have a story to tell, but will anyone besides you and your best friend—who you wrote the script (and co-directed; and co-produced) with—want to watch it? That’s a question I have a feeling co-writer/director/producers of “Tanner Hall” Francesca Gregorini and Tatiana von Furstenberg never asked themselves. Had they, perhaps their film wouldn’t be such a bland, boring, banal waste of celluloid. It’s not that their film is awful—its nicely shot and adequately acted—but the story, an obvious pseudo-autobiography with undertones of self-referential 80's-ness despite its seemingly contemporary setting, appears to be one giant in-joke between the two besties. The film appeals to no one but its ...

It was only a couple of months ago that we lost the infamous star of “The Last House on the Left” (1972), actor David Hess. Though he was known for playing deranged, homicidal, misogynistic psychopaths on film, the man was a genuine talent and extremely accomplished in reality. It had been quite sometime since he’d made a picture audiences will remember for years to come, but his mark was already long since made on the genre when he passed. So, in some ways, it felt fitting to go back and watch his screen debut in director Wes Craven’s controversial, low-budget 70's shocker. There’s a lot that’s been said about this film over the years, and before I’d finally gotten my hands on a copy (the DVD that MGM released almost a decade ago) I had it built up in my mind as something profoundly sinister; a film that could almost be too much to handle. Of course, not only is that not true, but so few films can really live up to a hype like that. You have to remember that back in 1972 seeing something like this was considered shocking and graphic, some might even say obscene. We live in the 21st century, however, and, frankly, gore gags and psychot...

Did you know that a “Captain America” film was made in 1990? No? Ok, good. Now do yourself a favor and forget I ever mentioned it. Don’t seek it out, don’t watch the trailer on YouTube – just erase from your mind the mere notion of another film featuring Steve Rodgers’ iconic alter ego and go about your daily life. I, unfortunately, know it exists; I have seen it, and it is a sad, ugly thing. It’s clear to me that the filmmakers involved here – everyone from producer Menahem Golan, creator Stan Lee and director Albert Pyun right on down the line – put forth no effort in making a decent film. They didn’t even make an enjoyable piece of shit. Instead, they apparently burned through $10 million (let that sink in for a moment) crafting one of the worst examples of a superhero film since the never-before-released “Fantastic Four” (1994) that Roger Corman produced. At least that was an ashcan production, and everyone heading the production knew ahead of time that it wasn’t ever goin...

Revisiting films can be an interesting journey, the older the film and fonder the memories the more disappointing the film is upon re-watching as a adult. I've had films like "The Last Starfighter" (1984) and "Flight of the Navigator" (1986) totally ruined by having watched them recently, I should have kept the memory of them intact. Some films only get better with age, and it's almost impossible to believe that its been 15 years since the release of Pixar's fantastic debut CG feature "Toy Story" and its often films with copious amounts of CG that suffer the worst as time goes by, however Pixar's attention to detail and no-compromise attitude "Toy Story" still looks brilliant, holds up today and remains a classic animated film worth revisiting numerous times. It's a film that simply needs to be shared with as many people as possible. The road to "Toy Story" is a long, occasionally frustrating but overly satisfying one for the creators. Pixar was just a fledgling animation house, wowing exhibitors and viewers with their CG short films including the Academy Awards. Earning some kudos, they picked up a deal with Disney and soon began on the journey to get "...

It occurred to me as the end credits rolled on “A Serbian Film” (2010) that I must be incredibly desensitized to all forms of screen violence at this point in my life. Either that or the filmmakers failed to do what they so clearly intended – namely, to create a film so controversial and sickening that it would be forever etched in the memories of all who see it. Frankly, I found myself bored by the first hour and unimpressed with the final stretch. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this is a film everyone can watch. The average moviegoer would likely walk out in disgust before we even get to “the good stuff”, leaving only the hardened horror junkies to bear witness to director Srđan Spasojević’s pornographic gore fest. I’m just going to lump it in with “Inside” (2007), "Martyrs" (2008) and "Frontier(s)" (2007) as another example of a foreign film riding a tsunami of controversy & hype that is unable to deliver on actually being a solid film. This happens seemingly every year, and it almost always ends up with the same results – a lurid wave of gore & sex intended to mask the undeniable fact that there’s barely anything resembling a plot at play. Movies like “A Se...

"The Tree of Life" is just about as far away from a "typical Hollywood" film as you could get (but starring two of the most respected and well known Hollywood actors). This year's Palme d'Or winner at Cannes, it had played to some polarised audiences. And, evidently the audience (when I watched the film originally in theaters) was unsure what to expect either as there were a number of walk-outs - notably in the last 2 minutes of the film. To be fair, I'm not entirely certain what my own expectations for the film were but knowing Terrence Malick's previous work, I was sure there was going to be a focus on nature and large digressions around that. Well, "The Tree of Life" has that and then some. It is a beautiful film, with long moments that can only be described as cinematic poetry. There comes a point where you just have to give yourself up to it and let the wonder wash over and around you. These periods of visual trippiness and beauty easily give Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) a run for its money. In fact, the centre-...

Joe Cornish's "Attack the Block" is a film I have been reading a lot about over the course of the year - it has been playing many film festivals overseas, enjoying a gradual release across the United States and had great word of mouth spread through the blogosphere. When I was recently in the States, I was lucky enough to catch it for myself. If you have not heard of "Attack the Block" until just right now, it's an alien invasion flick set in a London block of council/low-rent flats with a young gang of "hoodies" as the heroes. It's well good. Comparisons have been made to Edgar Wright's debut feature, "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), and it's easy to see why: Cornish has taken a typically big budget American genre (in this case alien invasion) and transplanted it successfully to a very British setting; Cornish and Wright are mates and both worked on the script for "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" (2011) and have been working on an "Ant-Man" (to be released sometime in 2014) script for Marvel (Wright is also a producer for "Attack the Block"); both have performances from

Bill Brand (Thames, 1976) Created by Trevor Griffiths, Bill Brand (Thames, 1976) offered an attempt to explore the political landscape of Britain during the mid-1970s, through its narrative depicting the experiences of Bill Brand (Jack Shepherd), newly-elected Labour MP for Leighley (a fictional suburb of Manchester), in Westminster. The series has been claimed to have been rooted in an earlier Play for Today written by Griffiths, ‘All Good Men’ (BBC, 1974), which also starred Jack Shepherd and, like the later Bill Brand, dealt with the ideological conflict between one character’s (William, played by Shepherd) revolutionary ideals and the more measured views of his father, the former Labour politician Edward Waite (Bill Fraser). As the series opens, Brand is depicted as a...

The loss of a child is a horrible, devastating, thing—in many ways much worse than a child’s loss of a parent. Admittedly, I have absolutely no first hand knowledge of either scenario, so I’m speaking in generalities, even if they’re truthful one’s. I’m in my early twenties and don’t have children, much less a child who died. And both of my parents are alive and well. So, I’ll turn to a recent bit of pop culture—a quote from a TV show—to express my thoughts on the subject best. (Again, I’m twenty-ish and television is something I’m intimately familiar with. Pop culture, to my generation, is like a second—or maybe first—language.) In an episode of “American Horror Story” (2011-present)—a show I’m really digging, by the way—Constance (Jessica Lange), the aged southern belle who lives next door to the principal Harmon family, meditates on the loss of her daughter Addy, after she dies in a freak accident on Halloween. “One of the comforts of having children is knowing one’s youth has not fled, but merely been passed down to a new generation,” she says. “They say when a parent dies, a child feels his own mortality. But when a child dies, it’s immortality that a parent loses.” But it m...

One day—hopefully not anytime soon—“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” (2005-present) will end its run and The Gang from Paddy’s Pub, canned wine in hand, will say goodbye to FX, the cable network they’ve called home for over half a decade. Someone, somewhere in the horrible halls of the most insane annex of the NewsCorp Empire, knows this to be true, and that’s why they agreed to pick up “The League” (2009-present) a few years ago, hoping to have a suitable substitute waiting on a bench when the unfortunately inevitable eventually happens. It’s a strategy—not a smart or sound one mind, but a strategy—in place because in many ways, “The League” is a comparable show to “Sunny”, if also inferior in every way. It’s easy to see the logic in grooming “The League” as a replacement, and why, FX has giving it similar guidance in its early days. Like “Sunny”, “The League” had a short freshman season, running a quick six-episode order the first time out. And one of the few suggestions the FX brass gave to husband and wife show runners Jeff and Jackie Marcus Schaffer after that unassuming d...

I’d like to get inside the brain of whoever thought it was a good idea to have Samuel L. Jackson narrate a G-rated Disney documentary. Just a few minutes in there would be all I need to find out whether it’s one of the oddest, most blissfully innocent places in the entire universe, or just the mind of one of the greatest trolls to ever work in the movie industry. The decision to have Jackson narrate “African Cats” is a strange one considering his largely R-rated filmography, made even stranger in light of his recent gig as the much-more-fitting audio book narrator of disgruntled dad Adam Mansbach’s so-called children’s book for adults, “Go the F*** to Sleep”. Jackson's characteristic delivery of dialogue, although memorable, seems better fit for spewing vulgarities and waxing philosophy with a forceful badassness. And decidedly not fit for providing the narrative omnipresence of a Disney documentary about, let’s face it, kitties. Filmed entirely within the Maasai Mara Nature Preserve in Kenya, “African Cats” tells the story of three feline families. Layla is the oldest and most experienced lioness of the southern River pride ruled ...

I’m glad that director/writer/actor/editor Evan Glodell had the forethought to realize that if he’s going to make a romance/bromance film, best to hide it in the carcass of a script featuring a “Mad Max” (1979) inspired duo who are building advanced weaponry for the impending apocalypse. This isn’t a chick flick full of sappy emotion; it’s full of MAN RAGE and lots of testosterone, so if guys are going to sit through the relationship drama they’re going to need distractions like flame throwers, and cars that shoot flames, and things that are on fire and burning. Otherwise, we’d probably lose interest shortly after the opening credits. I actually pride myself on the fact that I’ve never voluntarily watched a “chick flick”, nor have I ever been unfortunate enough to date girls who are into watching such films. I will, however, watch romance films that are tailored to a man’s sensibilities. According to the bonus materials, Glodell was inspired to make this film (which had been brewing in his mind for a while) following a nasty break-up. Because, as we all know, nothing can fuel creativity like a woman ripping your heart out and stom...

I feel ashamed to write this, but here goes: I bought the limited edition 2-disc DVD of “Manhunter” (1986) when it was released something like 10 years ago - and I never watched it. I vaguely recall giving it a shot late one night, but I’m positive my teenage mind wasn’t ready for Michael Mann’s procedural crime thriller. There’s a measured pace to Mann’s films that some people aren’t prepared for. I clearly wasn’t, and I’ve spent the ensuing decade recalling it to be a bore fest that lacked what every film featuring the character of Hannibal Lecter must need: Anthony Hopkins. Of course, I now realize I was totally wrong about everything I just said. This is even more evident if you’re familiar with “Red Dragon” (2002), director Brett Ratner’s paint-by-numbers, dumbed-down version of the same film featuring a scene-chewing Edward Norton and audience favorite Anthony Hopkins as Lecter. It’s hard to even compare the two films since, aside from ...

Johnny Depp's appearance as Jack Sparrow (Captain) in "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" (2003) is one of the greatest, most succinct character introductions in modern film. He rides into port on a sinking ship, perched perfectly in the crossbeams and elevates an otherwise reasonably straight ahead pirate ghost adventure film to something special. Orlando Bloom’s Will and Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth are our nominal heroes but Depp’s Captain Jack saunters in and makes off with the whole film, grinning as he does so. He’s a fantastic character, and the film is a lot more fun because of him; "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" is an exceptionally well made blockbuster film. It’s a shame then, that no Pirates sequel has been able to capture what made the first film so magical. The first two sequels became over-stuffed with new and returning characters and needlessly overcomplicated plots and mythology. There were reversals, betrayals and c...

Sue: Dear Journal, I am in crisis. Not even the can’t-lose combination of boobs and fire can get me going anymore. Is it the raccoon hormones my new doctor gave me? Maybe. Here I am, thirty-one, and already a legend. What do I do as a second act? I’m simply at a loss. Last week I took to modifying my own flawless form just to feel something. How do I make things interesting again? How do I get those juices flowing? There’s an interesting moment around the halfway point of “Glee’s” second season—during “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle”—where Sylvester sits, pondering in voice over to her open journal, about her future. It’s interesting because, although its three creators, Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Ian Brennan, collectively write each episode, key characters are almost entirely shaped by one writer. Murphy handles Kurt’s storylines. Falchuk writes Finn. Brennan is in charge of the completely outrageous Sue. And while Murphy and Falchuk came to “Glee” from their partnership on “Nip/Tuck” (2003-2010), Brennan, a theatre actor whose spec script for a feature-film was the basis ...

Press Release: TIME TO REMEMBER is a series recounting through the exclusive use of British Pathe’s newsreel footage the dramatic social, political and cultural transformation of the Western World in the first half of the 20th century. Divided into 12 thematic episodes, this series is based on the stunning footage and narrative of the 1960s landmark documentary of the same name. Now updated for a 21st century audience, the TIME TO REMEMBER series promises to yet again captivate audiences of all generations and demonstrate its enduring appeal. Executively produced by David Okuefuna, TIME TO REMEMBER explores the iconic and pivotal moments, as well as the new and passing social trends, which served to define the first half of the 20th century. From Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee to the allied victory in 1945, via suffragettes, flappers and music hall stars, all aspects of the society are featured in this wide-ranging series. This 3 disc set includes all 12 x 30 minute episodes of the 2010 series (although I was only able to watch half of them). Each episode features footage from numerous episodes of the original series, re-edited for a modern audience and collectively covering the period 1896 – 1945. The footage so...

Oh, to be inside the mind of Guillermo del Toro. I don’t doubt it’s a chaotic environment, racing with macabre ideas at such a rapid pace that even he has trouble keeping up with them. Ever since he made a splash onto the genre scene with his Spanish alt-vampire film, “Cronos” (1993), he’s been rattling off more potential film ideas than he’d have time to tackle in his lifetime. His first major picture out of the gate was for Miramax, turning what was intended to be a 30-minute short film into a feature length theatrical film, “Mimic” (1997). Fans of del Toro will easily recognize the beginnings of his trademark style – austere environments, ripe with decay, every frame cluttered with an absurd amount of information and detail – but it’s a fairly well-known fact that the portly director has mostly disowned the film. I don’t think it’s a secret that the Weinsteins love to tamper with the films their producing up to the last minute – and sometimes even after they’ve been released – and the still-green del Toro got a first-hand look at how studio politics can affect a film. Rumor has it that Bob Weinstein was demanding changes constantly o...

I have to admit, as good of a filmmaker as Sir Ridley Scott is, being the man tasked to follow up the Academy Award-sweeping “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991) is as unenviable a task as I can imagine. Set ten years after the events in “Silence”, “Hannibal” (2001) was to have reunited the award-winning team of director Jonathan Demme, screenwriter Ted Tally, and stars Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. Author Thomas Harris finished his novel and sent it off to all the principals, but the reaction wasn’t exactly one of enthusiasm. Demme and Tally dropped off almost immediately, the former saying that he felt the novel was “too grotesque” and that it wasn’t what he was after tonally. This meant it was down to Foster and Hopkins to keep the film afloat. Rumors are that the studio was willing to recast both roles if necessary but, let’s face it, they knew there wouldn’t be a picture if they lost e...

For years, former Groundling’s member Kristen Wiig lurked in the background of movies from “Bridesmaids” producer Judd Apatow. Whether playing the passive aggressive assistant afraid of Katherine Heigl’s baby-bump in “Knocked Up!” (2007), or the yoga instructor not the least bit impressed by Jason Siegel’s nonsense in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” (2008), she’s always been memorable, making an impression in her few scenes sprinkled throughout already funny films. While Wiig’s been an integral part of the “Saturday Night Live” (1975-present) cast since 2006, and is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dark and dully uninteresting time for Lorne Michael’s late night sketch show probably past its prime, she hadn’t really made the transition to features in any meaningful sense until this year. Sparingly cast in small supporting roles in smaller indie comedies from Miramax, taking turns in both Greg...

Jimmy: Remember that girl I got pregnant that murdered all those people? Marcus and Javier: Yeah. Jimmy: They executed her. I got stuck with the baby. Meet the Chance family. Jimmy (Lucas Neff) is a listless twenty-something who still lives at home with his parents. When brand new baby Hope is dropped into his lap, the guy, lost in permanent arrested development working for his dad cleaning pools, really has no idea what to do. His mom, Virginia (Martha Plimpton), and dad, Burt (Garrett Dillahunt), can relate: they were teenage parents who kinda did a crappy job raising their son and don’t want him to make the same mistakes they did. But the Chance’s all love each other anyway, happily living what Jimmy describes as a lower, lower, lower middle class life under a roof owned by Virginia’s loopy grandmother affectionately called Maw-Maw (Cloris Leachman). And although Virginia tries repeatedly in the pilot episode to convince her son to give up his daughter for adoption before all of their lives are collectivel...

Hamlet with motorcycles no more? Season three of “Sons of Anarchy”, easily one of the most badass shows on cable let alone FX, is a bit of a different beast in its latest bakers-dozen of episodes. Creator Kurt Sutter’s focus shifts slightly away from crafting an at-times-not-so-thinly veiled, but always well-done, adaptation of Denmark’s most tragic price and his story. The familiar is replaced with the unknown and new—or meaner, more driven versions of the old, in the case of ATF Agent Stahl (Ally Walker) who returns with the force. Epic in scope the twisting, turning web of intrigue and backstabbing in which Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam), his stepfather Clay (Ron Perlman) and the other Sons of Anarchy get entangled, make the arc for season three still decidedly Shakespearian. But the tone and the tale are different. And that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not wanting his series to go stale, Sutter has taken the SAMCRO motorcycle club out of their element—out of the town of Charming—and set them down a path of death and destruction that ev...

Mother’s Day is basically another family-under-siege story, in the tradition of Panic Room or Hostage and if it had chosen to stick to the middle-ground like those films, maybe it would be more enjoyable. There is no denying that it is an effective thriller through to the end, but the early promise gives way to a messy second half that you have to disengage with to not get infuriated. If you invest in the characters, your commitment is cruelly rewarded with the film equivalent of a kick in the balls. It certainly isn’t all bad though. The story proper starts with three brothers on the run from a robbery. One has been seriously wounded. Meanwhile a couple and their friends are gathering for a party, while news channels warn of a storm. Little do they know that the three men are racing to their house, because it’s where they think their beloved mother still lives. They quickly take the group of friends’ hostage. One’s a doctor so he is forced to tend to the wounded younger brother, while the others suffer the volatile and unpredictable violence of the other two. Meanwhile, they call Mother… So far, so predictable, but it’s harmless stuff and entertaining enough. But when Rebecca De Mornay makes her entrance as the matriarch, i...

The Woman is an astonishing film and a breath of fresh air. Well… I say “fresh”, but by the end, it’s more “poisonous” and, I hope, toxic enough to leave a mark on American horror, because this sort of thing is essential for the genre to keep respect and relevance in the face of mainstream laziness, even if you don’t like it. It can afford comparisons with the original Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre; a satirical and vicious attack on the notions of family and human nature, in particular the sexualisation of women, bolstered by a rich film production from cult director Lucky McKee that is often beautiful, if that doesn’t sound absurd. It’s somewhat at odds with what you expect from cult horror flicks. For a start, consider that much of the film, including the soon to be infamous ending, is in daylight and it is tensely psychological rather than shock tactics so that by the time the credits come up on that brutal finale, it’s more like a release of pressure and you might find yourself thinking of the metaphors that Romero’s best zombie films played with. The zombie sub-genre has surely been all but lost to parody (albeit in excellent style) so The Woman might fill the gap. It is the story of a family man who finds a f...

Maniac Cop. Say that to yourself a couple of times. Isn’t that just a cool movie title? There were lots of its kind in the ‘80s. Predator; Robocop; Terminator; even Exterminator! That was one of the earlier ones, but still, those titles alone evoke memories of grown-up ultra-violent fantasy cinema that sounded even better when you were a kid and not allowed to see them, but you did anyway, even if you had to wait for a Friday night TV showing to sneak downstairs and watch it with the volume right down. The 18 certificate was a target not a warning, and you know what? Despite the violence, those films were far more innocent than the run of miserable and forgettable torture-porn horror we’re suffering at the moment. To add insult to injury, today’s kids are drowning in multimedia only aimed at them and have nothing to aspire to, with bloodless Terminator and Die Hard sequels getting 12A ratings anyway. Where’s the fun? The daring sense of abandon? Luckily we grown-up kids can capture the nostalgia again with releases like this. In truth, Maniac Cop is only average, but the story is simple enough to help your imagination fill in the short-fall: innocent people are being murdered, for no reason at all, not even a serial killer patt...