Movie – Star Trek Beyond (pronounced as per the Madness song) I really wanted to like this one, but there wasn’t too much there. Plenty of visual spectacle, and some laughs, some character interaction, but there were too many scenes where my response was to think “I know who is going to win this conflict: what’s …
Category Archives: movie
movie – Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice
Movie: Batman vs Superman Not as bad as I thought it would be. Loud, PG-13 in its relationship sensibilities, literate in its vocabulary (but shows a gala event in a library that has no books). Crammed and over-crammed with plot, visually spectacular; but hard to connect with emotionally.
Movie: Spotlight
Spotlight is a Tom McCarthy (director of The Station Agent) film with an ensemble cast of seasoned Hollywood actors. Though not passing the Bechdel test, the presence of Rachel McAdams in the reporting team helped balance out what would otherwise be a throughly male-dominated environment. This movie seems like the logical, fictional successor to the 2006 …
movie: The Big Short
Movie: The Big Short A star-studded take on the Global Financial Crisis that’s part drama, part TED talk, and regularly breaks the fourth wall to help explain advanced financial concepts to the audience. Some needless adult content that seems to be included to push up the rating rather than help serve the plot. Perhaps its …
Movie: The Hateful Eight
Movie: The Hateful Eight Tarantino’s latest movie is part mystery, part character study of awful people, part scenes of violence that are in keeping with his usual tradition. The cinematography is strong – especially for a film that’s so often set in enclosed spaces. There’s so much objectionable content, it’s hard to know where to …
Movie: The Good Dinosaur
Movie: The Good Dinosaur Widely reported as the first bad Pixar movie, this is a beautiful looking film that lacks the spectacular quality of character and story we’ve come to expect from Pixar. There’s a set-up, an unhappy event, and then a lot of travelling, and a resolution, but not much else. A little too …
movie: The Lobster
Movie: The Lobster Colin Farrell again shows his commitment to his craft knows no bounds. In a dystopian future, single people have 45 days to find a match or they are turned into the animal of their choice. If you find that premise interesting, and you can push through some uncomfortable scenes, there’s much to …
movie: Bridge of Spies
Movie: Bridge of Spies I went into this fairly spoiler-free, having not heard of the historical person the movie was based on, and only watching the trailer briefly, and seeing this Tom Hanks / Jimmy Fallon piece. Spielberg is in good form here, even if the absence of a John Williams score (and indeed the …
Movie: Gayby Baby
Movie: Gayby Baby First-time feature director Maya Newell has a voice of maturity beyond her years. This film is an achievement in telling the stories of four Australian children, and their parents, who are all same-sex couples. The kids are great kids: loving and empathetic, and – as one of them says jokingly, occasionally pure …
movie: Last Cab to Darwin
Movie: Last Cab to Darwin I wanted an Australian film with lots of footage of the Northern Territory, and it offered that and more. Michael Caton (The Castle) is excellent as a Broken Hill cab driver who takes his first ever trip out of the town he was born in, in search of the NT’s …