The Greasy Strangler (2016) - Movie Review (1000th Post Special)

Well, this is going to be a very special review. This marks my 1000^th blog post, a number that has steadily built up over the past five years, encompassing movie reviews, lists, articles looking at my critical influences, and a few one-off experiments that didn’t really make it off the ground. What began with a spur-of-the-moment trip with friends to see a One Direction concert film has grown (or possibly mutated; the lab results are inconclusive as of yet) into not only an uneven-yet-prolific amount of writing material but also a chance to write for proper publications and even getting into doing podcasts. None of this would have been possible without my dear readers, every one of you who has ever taken the time to read what this uneducated dude has to say about the latest releases. I humbly thank all of you out there, and here’s to a thousand more.

The Edge Of Seventeen (2016) - Movie Review

What is it about coming of age stories that we like so much? They represent the harshness of reality that most teens go out to the movies to get the hell away from, and they remind most adults of a time in their life that is (thankfully) well and truly behind them. Not to say that such observations about the trials and tribulations of childhood and adolescence can’t be joyous, usually by way of showing triumph against the relatively massive odds; it’s just that the general mode of this type of story intrinsically involves some form of familiar cringe that, on paper, feels like a natural wall between the art and the audience.

So, with that in mind, why do we watch them? Well, maybe it’s because they offers us a chance of reflection on our own coming of age stories, giving some clarity to what many people would consider to be one of the worst periods of their lives. It also directly plays into our innate want for validation, and a story that people can recognize as part of their own creates an emotional connection that, more times than not, leads to a positive viewing experience. So, how does this latest coming-of-age story turn out? This is The Edge Of Seventeen.

Monster Trucks (2016) - Movie Review

Every so often, a trailer will come out for a film that… well, quite frankly, does the absolute least when it comes to selling a film. Specifically, failing to make the film look even a tenth as dumb as it probably is. This is most certainly one of those examples, and considering this got a special New Year’s Eve screening last, this technically falls under the 2016 list. Call it a technicality, but I don’t want to disrespect this new year by having it be related to this garbage.

Allied (2016) - Movie Review

While the popular conception of the period drama is usually confined to stuffy and immaculately dressed stories set in Victorian England, it’s actually far wider in scope than that. It basically applies to any film that is set in a specific time period that isn’t the present: Ouija: Origin Of Evil technically counts as a period piece. In staging the days of old, filmmakers need a certain level of fidelity to the era in which the story is set in order to do what all good films should be capable of and making us believe that what we are seeing isn’t something that was shot a year or two ago.

Sure, some films use that disconnect between the setting and time of release to rather compelling effect like the intentional anachronisms in A Knight’s Tale. But that’s an exception to what would ordinarily be considered the rule: If it’s set in a particular time period and the film relies on the specificity of that period, then adhering to it is probably a good idea. So, what happens when one of the most forward-thinking filmmakers still working today sets out to make a period romance?

Dangal (2016) - Movie Review

New year, new film selection, same old asshole taking time out to look at them; yep, it’s beginning to feel a lot like 2017 around here. New year’s resolutions are have devolved into single-sentence punchlines with how often they end up just discarded, but around here, I’m putting one in place to make more of an effort to see more foreign films. Given the selection at my local haunts, this shouldn’t be much of an issue, but I’m going to be spending a bit of time in January looking at a few films that I just didn’t manage to catch last year. So, in finding a meeting point between the two, let’s look at this Bollywood film. This is Dangal.

Top 11 Biggest Surprises (2016)

2016 was a pretty depressing year. Whether you believe in a higher power or not, the incredibly high mortality rate for childhood icons and life-long heroes was enough to make us at least question if someone on-high was trying to mess with us. However, I wouldn’t exactly call this a bad year overall because while the real world may have been rather uninviting, the more creatively inclined definitely got their shit together. Aside from seeing industry titans in the realms of music like Metallica, A Tribe Called Quest and Nick Cave release some of their best material in years, this has also been an astoundingly good year for movies. Not only that, this has been a surprisingly good year in that regard with a lot of films being a lot better than I think anyone could have expected them to be. So, in light of wanting to show 2016 as being far more entertaining than the world seems to have given it credit for, here are my picks for the Top 11 films of 2016 that were far more entertaining than they had any right to be… and in keeping with my last list, chances are that you’re not going to like our first entry.

Top 11 Biggest Disappointments (2016)

Happy 2017 everyone! New year, new crop of films, same old dickhead set to talk about them, and in light of how the new year is where we’re supposed to do things differently than the year prior, I’m going to do something a little different with my year-end lists. I’m going to go over the films that were legitimately surprising in terms of quality, for good and for bad. What films in 2016 did I leave the cinema having gotten a lot more (or a lot less) than I was expecting? Well, time to find out. Now, this isn’t necessarily a list of the year’s worst; I actually still like some of these to a degree. It’s just a list of films from the year that didn't deliver to my personal expectations. This is my list of the Top 11 biggest disappointments from 2016… and chances are that a lot of you are going to hate my #11 pick.

Finding Dory (2016) - Movie Review

One of the brightest feathers in Pixar’s cap, 2003’s Finding Nemo is a film that I watched the hell out of as a kid. Hell, it was the first film where I actually took time out to watch the director’s commentary for, and this was all pre-Critic bear in mind. That said, looking back on it, I was rather perplexed at how much I adored this movie… until I watched it again recently for the first time in many years. Wow.

I seriously don’t recall the last time a film made me weep quite this much while watching it. A heart-warming story about family and the forces of nature, one without any real antagonist to it which is a serious rarity for family films, it holds up as one of Pixar’s genuine masterpieces. Naturally, with the studio in the process of making new instalments to some of their most popular works like Toy Story, The Incredibles and Cars (notice how I said “popular”, not “good” because of that last one), they also decided to make a follow-up to Finding Nemo. If this was any other studio but Pixar, I would question this decision; however, after seeing what utter perfection they could cook up for prolonged franchises like Toy Story 3, I have quite a bit of faith that this film could work out. Let’s dive right in and find out.

Moana (2016) - Movie Review

Before the House of Mouse brought Marvel and Star Wars into their collective fold, they had already proven their worth for rather shrewd business ideas with the Disney Princess canon. Taking what is essentially their most iconic characters and bringing them under a single banner has led to a lot of hot debating over the worth of both the label and the characters that fall within it. Now, this has resulted in more than a few feminist critiques over how these characters work as people to aspire to be, and there are certainly some problematic instances under that umbrella, but that’s not exactly my field of discussion. Besides, as a man, my opinion concerning who is an appropriate female role model would just end up being discarded before I even start talking.

I don’t claim to have sat through all of the films in the canon, but I’ve seen enough to know that there are some good (Mulan), bad (Snow White) and everything in between when it comes to assertion. So, with this latest inclusion within the canon (that I’m sure will debated until the end of days as to whether it even counts as part of the Princess Line), I’ll admit that I’m interested to see where this studio will go next.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (2016) - Movie Review

Jack Reacher, as far as I’m concerned, is one of the few recent action films that I would consider to be a genuine classic. A marked departure from the hyper-masculine and quite over-the-top action films that have become the norm of late, it made its mark with the titular rogue military genius as the main character, surrounded by good actors, better writing and a sense for action that is incredibly brutal and hard-hitting. Oh, and being the only good film Jai Courtney was attached to for many years afterwards probably helped. Well, after writer/director Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise went from that film to making the latest iteration in the Mission: Impossible franchise, director Edward Zwick has set up a sequel to the film that I hold in quite high regard. I know that I’ve made it a point of directly comparing sequels/continuations of older films to said older film… and this is going to be much the same, so get used to it.

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) - Movie Review

There are few filmmakers working today that I so thoroughly despise as much as Roland Emmerich. The jester pretending to be the king of the modern disaster film, his understanding of science and history is matched only by his ability behind the camera; i.e. he fails at all of them. Ever since the late 90’s, the man has maintained a steady reputation for absolute garbage, latching onto conspiracy theories (or, in the case of The Day After Tomorrow, what the popular consciousness has warped into a conspiracy theory despite the reality of things) to create stories about that honestly feel like an alien’s attempt to understand humanity, relating to the common man only through the broadest and laughable of stereotypes.

People give Michael Bay crap for making money out of dumbing down his own audience, but Emmerich is far guiltier of the same sins while not getting nearly as much widespread loathing. His 1996 work Independence Day, the first real taste the world got of how he thinks the world works, is held in relatively high regard but, quite frankly, I don’t see it. I’d say that I welcome the chance to proven wrong in thinking that this sequel is going to suck, but let’s be honest: There’s no chance of that happening.

Assassin's Creed (2016) - Movie Review

Against every semblance of better judgement that I possess, and an understanding of the low standards of the genre, this is easily the film that I was looking forward to the most all year. And no, that’s not just because I’m a fan of the video games; I’ve had my fun with the Assassin’s Creed series, and I actually have to give credit to AC 2 for giving me the pen name that I still use to this day, but that’s not why I’m seriously looking forward to this one.

Instead, it’s because this film is being directed by Aussie filmmaker Justin Kurzel, who showed some serious skill last year with his excellent adaptation of Macbeth. Add to that how lead actors Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard are also returning as our leads here, and one of the most badass trailers we’ve gotten all year, and I am definitely anxious to check this one out… even though I am fully aware that it isn’t going to be a great work of art. That may seem at odds with my own personal hype but, as I dig into this thing, I’ll hopefully be able to clarify that.

Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) - Movie Review

The Ice Age series is little more than a relic of early-2000’s animation. Made by Blue Sky Studios, who would go on to secure their place as easily the weakest animation studio working today, the only real notable aspect of these films is how they have managed to keep a consistent decline since they started out, and bear in mind that the first film isn’t even that good to begin with. Computer graphics that have aged about as well as a puke-stain on what used to be your favourite shirt, annoying as all hell voice acting and only a couple of admittedly nice moments to help salvage it, something that would become far less prevalent in the sequels. As much as I wish I had covered this earlier on in the year when it first came out, that prospect meant re-watching all the films in the franchise so forgive me for holding it off for as long as humanly possible. But these things must be done, and it’s not as if this is even likely to be the worst film I’ve looked at recently, so let’s just get this over with.

Why Him? (2016) - Movie Review

The glamourous life of a film critic and spending more time at the cinemas than I do awake in my own house means that I actually understand very little of regular human interaction. That said, knowing how awkward social situations can get to start with, I still understand why meeting the potential in-laws is as nerve-wracking as it is. In fact, again with my lack of experience in the matter in mind, it’s possibly the most awkward prospect of any courtship and the myriad of possibilities (or even just the fear of those possibilities) can lead to quite a bit of misery. As any good comedian knows, misery makes for good comedy, and sure enough that scenario has made for pretty decent rom-com material for many a decade now. Yeah, it may be old hat by now but it has given birth to some good chuckles in the past. Of course, I didn’t realise exactly how old hat it was until I sat down to watch this thing.

Marguerite (2016) - Movie Review

As I mentioned earlier this month, if an incredibly niche idea is worth making into a movie, might as well make it two. After sitting through Florence Foster Jenkins, and genuinely being quite impressed with the thing, discovering another film based on the same extraordinary person was rather intriguing. Rather than sticking to the real-life events of the tuneless songbird, this French outing instead touts to be inspired by those events and going in its own narrative direction. So, without automatically seeing fault in diverting from actual events (or it very well could be accurate and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference), how does this altered take on the idea turn out?

The Girl King (2016) - Movie Review

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword Of Destiny (2016) - Movie Review

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon may not be a perfect film, but it is most certainly a great film. Officially putting Ang Lee on the map, and given his output we can debate the worth of that till kingdom come, its combination of breath-taking fight scenes and phenomenal writing, not to mention outright iconic music, resulted in what I would genuinely consider to be a work of art. But more so than its merits as a film in its own right, its place within film history is difficult to ignore as well. An international co-production, it has gone into legend for basically breaking the Hollywood system and what films should be expected to make an commercial impact, becoming an exception to the rule that would end up having new rules written around it. With all this in mind, and considering the unexpected quality control that can go into Netflix releases, the prospect of a sequel to a film like this is certainly interesting. But considering the Sequel Rules made around those that are made over a decade after the fact, and the low expectations for success, how did it turn out?

The Conjuring 2 (2016) - Movie Review

While the original Saw gave James Wan his official debut and Insidious gave audiences a real taste of what Wan’s style of filmmaking was, it was The Conjuring that gave him the break he desperately needed. Aside from being a critical darling when it came out, and being a friggin’ awesome horror flick in its own right, it also proved that Wan wasn’t completely dependent on Leigh Whannell’s scripting to deliver a gripping story. With a nicely retro approach to scares and an insane level of dedication to adhering to the era in which the story was set, not to mention a great cast, it’s the kind of horror film that I can easily see being remembered several years from now.

Then came the spin-off film Annabelle, Wan teaming back up with Whannell for Insidious: Chapter 2, and then Wan being a creative consultant for Lights Out… wow, that’s a bad track record in terms of horror flicks. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the guy’s work but, in terms of confirming that this sequel to probably his most celebrated work will actually be a success, it is less than convincing, shall we say. Of course, because I will never get tired of saying it, I’m willing to be proven wrong on this one.

The Boy And The Beast (2016) - Movie Review

Aaaaaaaah! (2016) - Movie Review

Aside from being a very emotional year both on and off-screen, 2016 also seems to be the year of the crazy because there’s been a lot of weird shit to hit our screens. From the food comedy that made us lose our lunch Sausage Party to the poignant drama about the human condition using a literal bloated corpse with Swiss Army Man, even down to yesterday’s digital murder of sanity that is When Black Birds Fly, we’ve had no shortage of bonkers around here. So it’s really saying something when I have to admit that today’s film might be the weirdest of the lot. How so? Well, let’s grunt right in and I’ll hopefully explain why.