Movie Review Sci Fi · 400 words
This is a frustratingly good movie. I wish I had the film-making vocabulary to describe it properly. As a fun sci-fi heist, it is a triumph. The special effects are light-years beyond Star Wars - both the original and the sequels. The multi-lingual world it presents is possibly the most realistic depiction of the future that I've seen. It is Firefly with a grander vision, bigger budget, and…
Continue reading →Movie Review Sci Fi · 1 comment · 250 words · Viewed ~223 times
It's rare to find a sci-fi / rom-com crossover - and it's even rarer to find one that's good. TiMER is excellent. Like all good speculative fiction, it changes just one aspect of the modern world - what would it be like if you knew exactly when you would meet your one-true-love? It doesn't bother much with the science part of sci-fi, it goes straight for the paradox. If you knew - really knew…
Continue reading →Movie Review · 2 comments · 450 words
There's nothing wrong with this movie. It's just so... ordinary. Partly, that's a failure of the superhero genre. They're all identical movies. I am strong enough to defeat common thieves! Here is a baddie who is somehow stronger than you! I will defeat you due to really believing in myself! Fan service post-credits scene. WW1984 hits all the tropes in all the right places. Superhero fans…
Continue reading →Movie Review · 150 words
An utterly superfluous movie. Have you seen Cube? Or perhaps Saw? Maybe My Little Eye? All identical. But this has put last year's zeitgeist as its title as a selling point. The major problem with this outing of the plot is that it invites us to participate in a puzzle but provides none of the clues. A good story lets the audience guess the answer just a second before the cast. Or, at least,…
Continue reading →Movie Review · 1 comment · 200 words
A group of college kids staying at a riverside cabin are menaced by a swarm of deadly zombie beavers. The moment that the zombie beavers deliberately chewed through the phone lines in order to strand our hapless heroes, I knew I was in for a treat. This is an unapologetic B-Movie. It knows exactly how much sex and violence it can cram into a 15 certificate. The female cast members mostly…
Continue reading →Movie Review NaBloPoMo · 3 comments · 350 words
I hate superhero movies - let's get that out of the way first. They're a bag of clichés, where flashing lights are considered an adequate replacement for new ideas. 2017's "Logan" is the only one I've found interesting. What happens to a Superhero after they're too old for this shit? What does it mean to keep a promise to someone who doesn't remember that you made it? How do we stop our children …
Continue reading →Movie Review NaBloPoMo · 150 words
A group of high school students form a coven of witches. A sequel to the 1996 film, "The Craft". This bills itself as a sequel to the mid-90's classic, but it's a completely independent movie. Although it is not as dark or scary as its predecessor, it's a fun and challenging film. What starts out as shrieky-teen glee gets pretty grim pretty quickly. OK, at times, it veers into "Toxic…
Continue reading →Movie Review NaBloPoMo · 350 words
Terence Eden is on Mastodon@edentI'm trying to build up my tolerance of scary movies. The Shining was pretty good - but not too scary. Now @summerbeth is making me watch An American Werewolf in London.❤️ 16💬 19🔁 019:50 - Fri 30 October 2020 I have a theory about certain movies. Take, for example, "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". It is not - so I theorise - a movie designed for audiences. It is …
Continue reading →Movie Review · 250 words
In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a San Francisco cartoonist becomes an amateur detective obsessed with tracking down the Zodiac Killer, an unidentified individual who terrorizes Northern California with a killing spree. This is a rather plodding police procedural. There are a few directorial flourishes, but lacklustre compared to David Fincher's previous work. After the first hour and a quarter…
Continue reading →Movie Review · 2 comments · 200 words
I've never seen "The Shining". Or, at least, that's what I thought. It turns out that every single shot in that movie has been recycled, homage'd, and parodied in the last 40 years. It gives the whole movie a weird sense of déjà vu as your brain struggles to identify which scenes you think you've seen before. It is a beautiful and kinaesthetic film. The camera chases the action in such a way a…
Continue reading →Movie Review · 150 words
Legendary performer Judy Garland arrives in London in the winter of 1968 to perform a series of sold-out concerts. It can't be stressed enough how magical a transformation Renée Zellweger goes through. Almost impossible to believe. Zellweger is nowhere to be seen or heard; it is 100% Judy. As a biopic, it straddles the fine line between reality and what we think we remember about Judy. This …
Continue reading →Movie Review · 1 comment · 500 words · Viewed ~207 times
There are two contradictory ways to view this movie. It's a dumb screwball comedy, sure, but it also tries to expose the depressing underbelly of the modern world. Part of the problem is that it rarely challenges the views that it exposes. It is content to let people make fools of themselves, but never asks them to reflect on their foolishness. Nor does it give us the tools to tackle hate…
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