Murder Mystery 2 (2023) - Movie Review

After the atrocity we dealt with yesterday, I’m in the mood to push my luck, much like a naïve man who just survived a shootout and is now under the impression that nothing can kill him. As such, knowing that even the depths of Happy Madison rarely reach the utter revulsion of Freelance, I’ll be spending today and tomorrow looking at the four HM releases that made it to Netflix.

Tár (2023) - Movie Review

As soon as I was done with this two-and-a-half-hour film, I audibly asked “What?”. And judging by the amount of giggling I heard from the rest of the audience at the cinema, I wasn’t alone in that reaction. That reaction is still strong within my mind while I’m trying to write this review out, so if this comes across as more aimless and meandering than usual… well, I at least appreciate you recognising that I’m not always like this.

1917 (2020) - Movie Review

It’s the production gimmick to end all production gimmicks. A combination of the director, cinematographer and editor(s) working in such perfect unison as to pull off a feat that makes film scholars drool all over the world. I am of course talking about the legendary filmmaking technique of the one-shot: A film where everything that takes place is captured in a single camera take.

Not that all one-shots are created equal, though. Some come about through enough clever editing tricks that separate shots are arranged so that it all looks like it was done in one take, like with Birdman or some of the more memorable sequences from the films of Alfonso Cuarón. Others are more legitimate in their claims as they actually are made up of just a single shot, like the legendary Alexander Sokurov film Russian Ark. And sure enough, the latest production to attempt this has been sparking all kinds of awards buzz for the last few months, and it’s only recently made it over here to Australia. But is there more to this film than just the gimmick?

Stockholm (2019) - Movie Review

Stockholm Syndrome, much like PSTD, schizophrenia and autism, is a term that has been so consistently overused in the popular consciousness that you’d be forgiven for completely forgetting what its original meaning even was. Hell, it even makes for one of the most under-discussed on the flip-side, both in actual psychiatric academia and in how there are far too many romantic films out there that require that condition to make any bloody sense, yet never get brought up in the narrative proper.

Considering all this, this film about the incident that gave the condition its popular name could serve as a refresher for those who use it too willingly to describe real-world scenarios today. Shame it doesn’t really turn out that way, or turn out much of any way by film’s end.

Miss Sloane (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Lobbyist Elizabeth Sloane (Jessica Chastain) has been brought before a congressional hearing under suspicion of violating U.S. Senate ethics law. She recalls the events of the last three months, specifically her involvement in getting a gun control bill passed into congress and the efforts of her and her team to secure the votes. However, in the process of trying to win the battle, her determination has led her to increasingly dubious choices that may show her to be the bigger threat than the people she’s fighting against.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) - Movie Review

Freelance agent Mahan reporting in. Mission: Complete the Experiment to quantify the success rate of Hollywood cinema, in light of recent evidence that the system may be in jeopardy. Secondary objective involving target Harvey Weinstein has been handed off to field agents, and it appears to have been successful. Target has been held accountable for their actions and the flood of corroborating intel has ensured further action will be taken. Dossier for today’s objective: Kingsman, product made by Matthew Vaughn in 2014.

Approaching The Unknown (2016) - Movie Review

Grimsby (2016) - Movie Review

Sacha Baron Cohen: Julliard-trained artist who seems tailor-made to star in modern-day movie musicals. Or, if you go by the majority of films where he is the lead actor, a professional troll with the comparable intelligence of the average Youtube commenter. Seriously, look at his in-character work like Borat, Bruno and The Dictator, and then look at his other roles in Sweeney Todd, Les Miserables and even his non-singing role in Hugo. This isn’t so much a showcase of range, as much as it is possible evidence of a secret twin sibling and/or malformed cloning experiment. For the record, I like a fair bit of Sacha’s work; I mean, Borat is probably one of the better mockumentaries to have been made and Bruno’s talking penis has burned into my brain ever since I first watched that particular feature. Sure, I’d much rather hear that voice put to Sondheim than to sophomore, but I have a certain appreciation for his style of extremely abrasive sense of humour. Still, even with that in mind, today’s film isn’t looking too good, to the point where all I can hope for is that Mark Strong finds a way to salvage this whole thing. One can only hope that he doesn’t have to.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015) - Movie Review

'Mark Millar' and 'movie adaptation' have a very odd relationship with each other: While the films adapted from his work are mostly good, they take a lot of liberties with the source material. Kick-Ass, through its re-writing of Big Daddy's character, completely shifted the tone of the film and made it a lot less bleak which actually worked to the film’s benefit. Wanted, save for the main character’s abilities and backstory, has pretty much nothing else to do with the original book, a definite shame given its initial premise. Since Millar and director Matthew Vaughn struck gold before with Kick-Ass, it would make sense that he would also bring his book The Secret Service to the big screen. It doesn’t hurt that Vaughn was co-plotter on the original book as well.

The Imitation Game (2014) - Movie Review

Looks like it’s typecast time again, this time turning our spotlight on Benedict Cumberbatch. He's made a real name for himself in the last few years playing neurotic and narcissistic geniuses both fictional (the titular detective in Sherlock) and non-fictional (Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate). In fact, Cumberbatch is getting so close to absolute overexposure that he might as well be called Rule 63 Jennifer Lawrence at this rate. However, also like Lawrence, his performances in films are pretty much guaranteed to be good even if he isn’t always in the best films (August: Osage County, The Fifth Estate, Star Trek: Into Darkness depending on who you ask) so I’m not in a good enough position to complain about that. What do we get with today’s film? Time to find out: This is The Imitation Game.

Before I Go To Sleep (2014) - Movie Review

The plot: Christine (Nicole Kidman), after suffering a terrible accident 10 years earlier, keeps losing her day’s worth of memories every time she goes to sleep, and can’t remember anything past her early 20’s. However, she soon discovers that it wasn’t a simple accident but that she had been attacked.  With the help of her husband Ben (Colin Firth) and her neurologist Dr. Nasch (Mark Strong), she sets out to find her assailant.