The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (2013) - Movie Review

Ben Stiller, as a presence in Hollywood, frankly mystifies me. For a person who seems to have as much of an axe to grind on the establishment as he does, he sure spends a lot of his time in patently weaker productions. Sure, it’s as an actor, but it does feel like the game is playing him at times. I mean, the Meet The Parents series took a very steep decline that I can only hope is at its end and the Night At The Museum films, while okay diversions for kids, had way too much L.A. sheen to really buy into why Stiller would sign on for them… aside from the pay packet, of course.

Meanwhile, behind the camera, he’s made films like the epitome of clever filmmaking about dumb characters with Zoolander, the underrated comedic thriller The Cable Guy and let’s not forget his masterpiece as a satirical firebrand with Tropic Thunder. Something tells me that there was a bit of reality-influenced casting that went into his role in last year’s While We’re Young. Anyway, once again as prep for a newly-released film by the same director, time to take a look at his last release.

Trance (2013) - Movie Review

It’s time to continue to put further effort into these reviews than is really advisable as I look back into another director’s work who has a new release coming out soon. This time around, it’s Danny Boyle, a man is kind of frustratingly difficult to pin down in terms of an overall style. He has a very kitchen sink approach to his craft, something usually reserved for filmmakers on substantially tinier budgets: If it looks cool, use it! Not to say that he doesn’t come up with some amazing visual ideas for his films, like the absolute grime of Trainspotting, the video camera stock that almost looks like a TV news reel in 28 Days Later or even the hectic video game aesthetic adopted for certain scenes in The Beach. It’s just that the man just has so many ideas for how to present a story on film that it’s hard to pin down if he's a true original or just derivative; he’s like Ant from Atmosphere. Still, considering this is the same guy who gave us not only one of the best zombie films of all time but also easily one of the better Christian-oriented films with Millions, you’re usually gonna get quality work from the guy. Usually.

Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) - Movie Review

When Saw first came out to phenomenal box office returns, people soon became familiar with director James Wan’s supposed ‘torture porn’ style. After taking a producing role for the rest of the series, and his subsequent releases Dead Silence and Death Sentence barely received any critical attention (let alone positive attention), it seemed like he was going to stuck with that label for the rest of his professional career, if it would even survive beyond all that. Then came Insidious in 2009, and audiences took note. Rather than the industrial grime and twisted morals that have been attached to him thanks to the original Saw, Insidious blasted its way into cinemas and showed off Wan’s true style: Old-school horror thrills reminiscent of the haunted house flicks of the 70’s and 80’s. After that film set a far better preconception for the man, he would go on to even greater success with The Conjuring and even show his proficiency in genres outside of horror. However, same year that Conjuring was released, he went back to that staple that gave him the credit he desperately deserved… and critics weren’t all that into it. Time to dive in and see if it really deserves the flack it got.

Flight (2013) - Movie Review

Despicable Me 2 (2013) - Movie Review

Fast & Furious 6 (2013) - Movie Review

It’s catch-up time again on this blog, this time as part of the lead-up to Fast & Furious 7. I remember getting a triple DVD pack of the first three films in the franchise for Christmas one year and getting a tad obsessed with them for a time, to the point where they got me interested in racing games like the Need For Speed series just to further feed that hunger for high-octane ridiculousness. Honestly, it’s kind of spellbinding that what started out as a loose adaptation of a Vibe magazine article about an anonymous street racer has since turned into the primary action franchise of the 2000’s. The fact that this evolved out of a Rob Cohen film only makes this more confounding. So, before we get into the seventh instalment, time to check out the one that came.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) - Movie Review

Upon hitting cinemas, The Hunger Games ushered in what I like to call the ‘Third Wave of Modern YA Adaptations’. The first wave was caused by the early Harry Potter films and created a desire for stories involving destined child heroes in fantasy settings (well, a more immediate desire for them at any rate) with adaptations of The Chronicles Of Narnia and the like. The second wave was caused by the simultaneously over and under-abused punchline that is the Twilight series, creating a want to see romantic stories involving the undead. Such films that fall under this would include Red Riding Hood, The Host and Warm Bodies, along with many other trite bits of fluff. With the third wave, we have a sudden influx of apocalyptic settings, veering more into science-fiction than fantasy, and the ever-growing need to be taken seriously. In 2014 alone, we’ve had Divergent, The Giver and The Maze Runner as by-products of the Third Wave, not to mention The Hunger Games’ own Mockingjay which has just come out. Before I get to that movie though, I figured I should catch up a bit on the series, having only seen the first movie (It was really good, but mostly because of the second half).