The Shallows (2016) - Movie Review

Were shark movies ever cool? I mean, outside of the original Jaws, they only seem to be getting sillier and sillier. Sure, it’s easy to say that now in the post-Sharknado age, but these films been like this for a long time. It’s the ultimate irony that a film that helped define Hollywood as it stands today would also go on to spawn easily one of the most B-movie of the notable B-movie sub-genres.

From the laughable special effects to the hokey acting, right down to the (if you’ll excuse the term) jumping the shark moments like having them be driven by revenge or an exterior need to advertise for Sea World, leaping out of the water to take bites out of airplanes or even grouping together to form tornadoes to attack people, the sub-genre has a pretty prominent reputation for being hilariously ridiculous. Considering all this, making a film nowadays that is meant to make audiences take sharks seriously again is a pretty tall order. So, how does this particular feature turn out in that regard?

Café Society (2016) - Movie Review

For as much as I’ve argued otherwise, I do understand that separating the actions of the artist with the published art can be harder said than done. The amount of times I hear Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport around my house (long story involving younger siblings) on a daily basis is made even tougher knowing what and where Rolf Harris is writing nowadays. Yes, we’re talking about the king of all things neurotic and Jewish Woody Allen once again, and in an attempt to keep with my central doctrine concerning this, I have actually liked his recent output. From the outstanding character drama Blue Jasmine to the sharply written rom-com Magic In The Moonlight to the wonky but still commendable morality play Irrational Man, I don’t have much to argue with in terms of his artistic output. However, once it gets to the point where said artist essentially inserts himself into the art, that disconnect proves ever trickier.

The Age Of Adaline (2015) - Movie Review

When it comes to speculative fiction, there are a number of narrative ideas that are fairly universal across that rather nebulous umbrella: Totalitarian regimes that are only slight exaggerations of the governments of today, using intergalactic aliens as an analogy for illegal aliens, taking the idea of those who don’t learn the past are doomed to repeat it to its logical extreme, fashion in the future will only continue to get more ridiculous, etc. One of the ideas that is surprisingly common is that of the immortal lover: A romantic interest that has far less or far more of a lifespan than your own and the consequences of having a relationship with them. Anyone who has experienced the now-faded scourge of the vampire romance, or watched Doctor Who since the 2005 reboot, will be more than familiar with this idea so telling it in a way that won’t just be digging up old narratives is difficult. Hell, it’s been used that many times that even I’ve written about it before (Shameless plug, I know, but check it out here; it was as part of a crowd-sourced book on the idea of Immortality).