Roald Dahl's Matilda The Musical (2022) - Movie Review

Matilda, both the Roald Dahl book and the Danny Devito-directed film version, were foundational texts for me as a kid. One of my first real exposures to autism-coding in storytelling, Matilda was something of a hero of mine growing up. A child brilliant beyond her years, struggling to grow against apathetic parents and a cruel headmistress, at the center of a story all about the evil that is letting children down. Add to that the iconic depictions offered by the film, between Mara Wilson as the ultimate ND avatar in Matilda and Pam Ferris as the stuff of nightmares in Miss Trunchbull, and you’ve got a story that has a sizeable place in my heart. I figured a musical version of that same story would be decent, but only decent. Not something that could wrestle control away from both of those foundations to become… well, my new favourite version of the story.

Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (2022) - Movie Review

It’s quite impressive how well this film turned out. I feel it’s important to open with that because there are quite a few things here that, if the production team weren’t as synchronised as they are, could’ve turned this into a complete shambles.

Dolittle (2020) - Movie Review

When you’re someone who’s railed against the cinematic plague that is family films about talking animals for as long as I have, reviews like this are inevitable. A look at what can be considered the initial harbinger for the favourite kid-pleasing gimmick of hacks around the world: Doctor Dolittle.

Big-budget adaptations of the original series of books are… basically cursed, from what I can tell. From the hype disaster of the 1967 version with Rex Harrison, to the admittedly decent Eddie Murphy version (that would end up spawning a league of straight-to-video sequels, making whatever merit its beginning had pretty much moot), this isn’t a story known for doing well at the box office. And fresh off of his linchpin performance in what is now the highest-grossing film of all time, Robert Downey Jr. is the latest to try his hand at this infamous character. And it seems like we have somehow reached a new low for this property.

Last Christmas (2019) - Movie Review

Seems like Paul Feig is sticking to his wannabe-European kick. After last year’s quite surprising tribute to French cinema with A Simple Favour, a pretty damn good effort all things considered, Feig’s latest appears to be his attempt at a British rom-com, akin to Love, Actually or Bridget Jones’s Diary. Snagging the co-writer of Bridget Jones’s Baby to both co-write and star in this film is probably part of that attempt, although it’s not as if people need much of an excuse to show off Emma Thompson still being enjoyable after all this time.

Between its Christmas setting, and its main gimmick involving the discography of George Michael (2019 has indeed been the year of the jukebox musical), I can’t say I was really expecting anything from it other than maybe some good laughs and a few feels. I certainly wasn’t expecting a big heap of coal to get dumped in my lap.

Late Night (2019) - Movie Review

I’ve gotten into a fair few of my personal hobbies over the course of these reviews. Beyond the obvious, that is. Comic books, anime, music, hip-hop first and foremost, and just about anything I can pull from as a reference point over my 24 years of pop culture intake. But more than any of those, even the ones that I’ve dedicated a solid junk of my own life to immerse myself in, my first love will always be comedy.

Cracking jokes with friends, putting random shit out on Twitter to see if it gets a reaction, looking for any excuse to twist the topic of conversation into a punchline: I live for that shit. I’ve spent more time thinking about my own philosophy regarding comedy and what makes people laugh than any sane human being should, although you’d be forgiven for not picking up on that just from what I write on here, as rambling and didactic as it frequently turns out. My point is that the art of comedy is very important to me, and I take great pride in any laughter I get over the course of my day-to-day routine, and when films like this come out, I can’t help but jump out of my seat and basically yell at the screen “Thank you! Someone else out there gets it!”

Men In Black: International (2019) - Movie Review

There are a lot of different forms of bad movie out there. Some are obvious, some take time before the true problems come forward, and some start out as good ideas that, for one reason or another, sour into what becomes the final product. I’ve no doubt covered all three of these varieties in past reviews, and as much as outright, unmistakable shite can be quite painful to sit through, it’s the latter that always ends up feeling the worst: The movies where I can see something much better buried underneath.

Knowing the patchy history of the Men In Black films, this latest entry failing to perform shouldn’t be much surprise, given we have one solid film (1), one mediocre film (2) and one that people mostly didn’t like if they even cared to remember it existed (3). But all the same, this kind of compromised art still hurts to witness for one’s self.

The Children Act (2018) - Movie Review

Religious freedom is a tricky idea to discuss at any great length, especially nowadays. While it seems a given that people should be free to harbour whatever beliefs they may have about themselves and their place in the celestial scheme of things, friction manifests when it comes to the intersection between one’s own beliefs and the actions of others. With the recent developments regarding acknowledge of LGBT rights, it seems like people are screaming for their right to religious freedom now more than ever… even if it largely amounts to being free to vilify and belittle others without recourse. And even further than that, there are times when upholding one’s own faith means that others end up in direct harm, even death.

Johnny English Strikes Again (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: The database of MI7 has been hacked, compromising the identities of every active agent in the organisation. Left with no other alternative, the British Prime Minister (Emma Thompson) brings in retired agent and now school teacher Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson). With the aid of his partner Bough (Ben Miller), Johnny sets out to find out who was behind the hack, finding trails that lead him to the mysterious Ophelia (Olga Kurylenko) and technology magnate Jason Volta (Jake Lacy). Shame he's still a little too dense to realize that.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Collected) (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) is a sculptor, retired arts professor, and the patriarch of a family full of aspiring and at least formerly-aspiring artists. His son Danny (Adam Sandler) moves back in with Harold and his wife Maureen (Emma Thompson) and begins to reconnect with his family roots. However, as Danny interacts with his sister Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) and brother Matthew (Ben Stiller), he begins to reflect on the upbringing that Harold gave all of them, and if he can improve in terms of raising his own daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten).

Alone In Berlin (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: When news reaches them that their son has died on the front line, German couple Otto (Brendan Gleeson) and Anna Quangel (Emma Thompson) begin to feel disillusioned with the Third Reich. Wanting to voice protest, but knowing full well what the consequences of that would be, Otto decides to rebel in a different way. He starts writing postcards, detailing how the Nazi regime doesn’t have their best interests at heart, and leaves them all over the city of Berlin. However, once police detector Escherich (Daniel Brühl) starts to find them and senses a pattern developing, Otto and Anna will have to think fast if they want to keep spreading their message to the people.

Beauty And The Beast (2017) - Movie Review

The 1991 version of Beauty And The Beast, to put it simply, is fucking perfect. Yet another classic film that took a modern reimagining for me to check out in the first place, I can scarcely recall a supposed ‘classic’ that made me fall head-over-heels in love as quickly as that film did. The animation, the music, the sharp characterisation, the voice acting, the morals; it’s rare that I’ll ever define a film as being beyond improvement but, quite frankly, that’s how hard I fell in love with this thing. Yeah, I’m late to the party but I’m sure as hell not leaving in a hurry.

 

Now, I would ordinarily get a bit anxious in the face of this because, well, remaking this film seems like a bad idea on the surface. However, given the quality standards of the recent string of Disney live-action remakes, I have at least some faith that this film will at least be entertaining. I’ve been making it a habit of talking about how most if not all of my expectations for this year’s releases have been proven categorically wrong… and now, it’s time to see the absolute nadir of that effect.

Burnt (2015) - Movie Review

Of the many, many things that I don’t possess nearly as much expertise in, or feign to have expertise in at least, as film, food would have to be one of the bigger ones. I have little to no interest in cooking shows that don’t includes the words “Iron Chef”, my taste buds have dulled from so much fast food that I wouldn’t be able to taste each of the secret herbs & spices even if I was actively told what they were, and I cannot for the life of me take the more cut-throat kitchen dramas out there seriously. Maybe if I spent long enough in the more hoity-toity restaurants of the world, then maybe seeing chefs completely lose their shit would make a bit more sense to me. Or maybe if I had watched a lot less of Gordon Ramsey’s signature freak-outs when I was growing up; that might've helped too. So, with all this in mind, I’m probably not the ideal audience for this kind of film. But it’s not as if this is the first, nor will it be the last time that this will happen, so it’ll be regular snarky business as usual.