Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald (2018) - Movie Review

J.K. Rowling has an interesting approach to the lore of her own stories. In the rather hefty gap between Deathly Hallows and the theatrical debut of The Cursed Child, she kept on adding little bits and pieces to the characters of one of the most beloved childhood franchises. From Dumbledore's sexuality to Hagrid’s mental health, it seemed like she needed the Fantastic Beasts films to happen, if only to provide an outlet for all the things she never found time to squeeze in before. It's like she's writing her own fanfiction.

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (2017) - Movie Review

While a lot of the music-loving world still adheres to the idea that Yoko Ono cost us one of the greatest bands to ever touch an instrument, I subscribe to a similar but far less recognised notion. Namely, that Madonna cost the art of cinema one of its potential legendary filmmakers. Guy Ritchie, as has been discussed on this blog before, was responsible for one of my all-time favourite films with Snatch. After that feature, and hooking up with Madonna, Ritchie took one of the biggest stumbles of any filmmaker still working today.

 

Between the star-vehicle-cum-wrong-headed remake of an Italian classic with Swept Away, to the equally wrong-headed attempt to merge Ritchie’s British crime sensibilities with the teachings of Kabbalah with Revolver, the man found prominence in Hollywood from then on but he never managed to recapture that flame he once had. However, even considering the story we have today, it seems that he has indeed gotten back to his roots… in the single weirdest way possible. Let’s get started with today’s film and I’ll explain how.

Spy (2015) - Movie Review

One of the first reviews I wrote for this blog was on 2014’s Tammy. Now, while I can kind of get why other critics didn’t like it (maybe not to the extent that they do, but to a certain degree), I will always give it credit because it was the film that did what The Heat was unable to: It made me like Melissa McCarthy. It got me to better appreciate her sewer-rat mouth sense of humour as contrasted with her meek and rather downplayed side, and also because it didn’t involve nearly as much over-the-top shouting as The Heat did. So, when trailers for this film hit, I… was mostly into it because it featured king of British badassery Jason Statham, but McCarthy’s limp-dicked unicorn line caught my interest as well. So, with this year’s increasingly strong pedigree of action films, will she continue the trend or be the one to break it? This is Spy… and immediate points deducted for quite possibly the most generic film name I’ve ever seen.