Motherless Brooklyn (2020) - Movie Review

A prominent actor decides to write, produce and direct a noir-soaked story as their personal passion project… I’m getting an unwelcome feeling of déjà vu. To go one further, say what you will about Ben Affleck, he at least proved his salt as a filmmaker years before trying this gambit; only other directing credit Edward Norton has is for Keeping The Faith back in 2000, and outside of some uncredited punch-up work, this is Norton’s first attempt at writing a screenplay on his own. The end result isn’t nearly as dire as that lead-up may suggest, but it’s not exactly smelling of roses either.

The Lighthouse (2020) - Movie Review

I didn’t know what to expect from the sophomore release of Robert Eggers, who gave us the quite fantastic The Witch a few years ago. I don’t even think it’s possible to expect anything from this, either from the viewpoint of someone trying to pick something to watch or as someone in the cinema seat with their ticket in hand. It legit got to a point, around the point of this film’s final reel, that I found myself giving in to the weirdness. I stopped trying to rationalise what I was seeing and just let it all wash over me… and then I made the trip back home. Time for another deep dive as I try and put down on paper why this film is so fucking brilliant.

Aquaman (2018) - Movie Review

 

For several decades, Aquaman has been the laughing stock of DC’s core group of superheroes. Try as creatives like Paul Dini and Bruce Timm tried to rescue him from his ‘underwater Doctor Dolittle’ perception, his depiction in the Superfriends Show has remained his rather undignified persona in the popular consciousness. In a stable of characters that include Space Jesus, World’s Smartest Emo and Bondage Princess, Aquaman remained the one that was the hardest to take seriously. Of all the characters that have been itching for a big-budget blockbuster about them, the king of the oceans is the one who could benefit most from some cinematic re-examination. And with a story credit from Geoff Johns, a comic book writer who has seen tremendous success in reinventing large swathes of the DC universe, it looks like his chance to shine has finally arrived.

Death Note (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Light Turner (Nat Wolff) is just your average high school student. That is, until he discovers a notebook called the Death Note, a tool of the death gods where if a person’s name is written within, that person dies. Wanting to use this power for good, he is encouraged by the death god Ryuk (Willem Dafoe) to rid the world of crime using the Death Note, becoming known as Kira. However, as Light’s father (Shea Whigham) is called on to investigate the series of mysterious deaths, and a mysterious detective (Lakeith Stanfield) is brought in to assist, Light’s mission is about to get a whole lot tougher.

The Great Wall (2017) - Movie Review

Lines of argument like what I’m about to get into are usually the sorts of strawman burning matters that get people lynched on social media for daring to voice it. But as I have already brought up this point in previous reviews, it’s worth repeating: I don’t care about “whitewashing” controversies when it comes to film casts. Or, at least, I don’t buy into them nearly as much as critics have in recent years. The reasons why are many and varied, from how people tend to cherry-pick examples to rage against to the inherent hypocrisy involved in isolating only this instance (white actors portraying non-whites) as a bad thing. But the biggest factor for my own reasoning is that, considering the utter crap I’ve highlighted on this blog, I can think of a myriad of worse sins that a filmmaker can commit than anything involving ethnic (or non-ethnic) casting. So, imagine my lack of reaction to how the only thing that anyone seems to discuss with this film is how a white actor was cast as the lead in a film set in China and populated by and primarily made by the Chinese. Time to dig in, and let’s see if there’s anything else worth discussing.

John Wick (2014) - Movie Review

Keanu Reeves, in my opinion, gets a bad rap. Everyone just seems to gauge his performances with either Bill & Ted or The Matrix, as if the guy hasn’t made any other movies apart from them. His method of acting, which is definitely low-key but not as banal as others make him out, did him well in movies like Devil’s Advocate, My Own Private Idaho and A Scanner Darkly. Hell, I even liked him in the much-maligned Constantine, which I seriously think people were too harsh on as a whole. Then again, even I can see his duds: Much Ado About Nothing, while excellent, proved that Shakespeare isn’t Keanu’s style in any way, The Day The Earth Stood Still was phenomenally dull and 47 Ronin from earlier this year was just plan terri-bad. So, where does his latest effort John Wick stand?