Released: 3rd September
Seen: 4th September
The story of Cinderella has been adapted countless times in multiple forms. From the legendary Disney animated classic of 1950 to the millennial favourite 1997 version that starred Whitney Houston and Brandi, to the Disney Live-Action version from 2015, there have been so many attempts made at this simple story that it feels weird to go five years without someone taking a shot at it.
Continue reading “Cinderella (2021) – More Like Sinderella”
Released: 5th August
Seen: 2nd September
You may have noticed that for a few months not I’ve not been able to do any reviews for films currently in cinema. In fact, the last film I even got to see in a cinema was In The Heights way back in June. Why? Because I live in Australia and I live in a state that’s had such a bad covid infestation that we’ve been in lockdown for over 2 months.
Obviously “Hobbyist reviewer can’t see films in a cinema” is a problem worthy of the tiniest violin in the grand scheme of things but it’s still the reason why I’m about a month late seeing The Suicide Squad and why films like Candyman, Shang Chi, Respect and Free Guy haven’t been reviewed here. If I can somehow rent them, or the lockdown ends soon, I hope to get to them but that’s why this blog is even more out of date than it normally is… but now I’ve seen The Suicide Squad, time to ramble on about how awesome it is.
Continue reading “The Suicide Squad (2021) – Absolutely Superb”
Released: 27th August
Seen: 29th August
Pygmalion is a 1913 play by George Bernard Shaw about a little flower girl being taught how to be a proper English lady after a bet between two men, Higgins and Pickering. If this sounds familiar to those who’ve never heard of Pygmalion that’d be because this play ended up being the inspiration for the mega musical My Fair Lady. It also inspired the 1999 film She’s All That, which hasn’t aged well but I promise you was a gigantic hit back in the day. It was part of this period of time where a lot of classic stories got updated for a 90s teen audience and it might have been the most successful of the bunch, although Cruel Intentions and 10 Things I Hate About You have seemed to live on a lot stronger in pulp culture.
Continue reading “He’s All That (2021) – That Don’t Impress Me Much”
Released: 4th February
Seen: 29th August
Let Him Go follows elderly couple Margaret Blackledge (Diane Lane) and George Blackledge (Kevin Costner), proud parents to their son James (Ryan Bruce) who is married to a young woman named Lorna (Kayli Carter). James and Lorna have their own son, little Jimmy, and things seem to be going well for this little family until one day when James falls from his horse and breaks his neck.
Continue reading “Let Him Go (2021) – Can’t Hold Back Anymore”
Released: 18 February
Seen: 25th August
The Little Things is a police drama about a pair of cops hunting down a serial killer. The cops consist of one wild card cop, Joe “Deke” Deacon (Denzel Washington), and one straight laced rule following cop, Det. Jim Baxter (Rami Malek). Together they make quite a strange pair as they hunt for their killer. It looks like they might have it when they run into oddball Albert Sparma (Jared Leto) and they focus heavily on him but could the difficulties of their job make them unable to actually solve the crime? It certainly seems to stop them from making a film that’s as exciting as it should be considering the talent that’s on screen… yeah, there’s so little to talk about with this one that one of MY reviews starts with the plot instead of a wild tangent, I’m just as shocked as you are.
Continue reading “The Little Things (2021) – Little Point”
Released: 1st April
Seen: 25th August
In a recent review of the movie Six Minutes To Midnight I pointed out that there were so many war films, particularly about the two big ones that the whole world took part in, that we had hit a point where it was hard to imagine someone doing something new with the genre. It’s grown stale, there is no real new story to tell and to back me up on this we have The Courier, a film that feels like it should bore me with its familiarity… but surprise, this one is actually good enough to work despite its recognizable tone.
Continue reading “The Courier (2021) – It Absolutely Delivers”
Released: 4th March
Seen: 23rd August
The “story about a small event that happened during one of the world wars” film is something that seems to come about yearly, either a film set during one of the wars that uses the horrific events as a backdrop for something else (such as the 2019 film The Aftermath) or actually telling a story that happened during either war (such as the 2020 film 1917). At this point it feels like we’ve been told every possible story about these two wars and yet they keep on making them for no perceivable reason other than an enjoyment of using the grimy filter that probably came with the cameras when they bought them… it certainly can’t be because there’s an interesting story worth telling because I just sat through Six Minutes To Midnight and it definitely didn’t have one of those.
Continue reading “Six Minutes To Midnight (2021) – Too Slow”
Over on Soda & Telepaths I wrote about the film Wonderful Paradise, the weirdest film I’ve seen all year. It’s delightful, it was part of the Fantasia Film Fest and soon’ll be part of the Sydney Underground FIlm Festival so look out for it.
One of the last things I watched for Soda & Telepaths during the Fantasia fest was Kratt, a strange little fairy tale that will send a chill or two up your spine… go read, give me work
Over on Soda & Telepaths, I reviewed the film Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It which is a fascinatingly strange dark comedy that’s worth a look. Now, you might’ve missed it as part of the Fantasia Film Festival but luckily it’s also part of the Sydney Underground Film Festival (which I will be reviewing next month, already got my pass cos I was going to be enjoying that festival no matter what)
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