Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) - Movie Review

I did not like the first Venom film. And as much as me even bringing that up again is just adding more fuel to the underlying “critics hate movies that audiences actually like” conversation… fucking hell, that entire line of thinking, predicated on insisting that film critics might as well be a completely different species than every other kind of filmgoer, is one of the most annoying parts of the larger conversation regarding cinema. I mean, it’s a superhero film made by one of the biggest studios working today; it doesn’t need to be defended like it’s this groundbreaking indie underdog. At any rate, we now have a sequel, and what is being presented here is not only a lot more likeable than what came before, it’s honestly a comic book idea that hasn’t really been done before on the big screen.

Capone (2020) - Movie Review

Five years after his career-defining clusterfuck with Fant4stic, writer/director/editor Josh Trank has returned with a decidedly lower-key feature, covering the final year in the life of notorious gangster Al Capone. For a lot of the past five years, there’s been debate about what exactly caused Fant4stic to turn out as bafflingly as it did, with Trank himself attributing it to studio interference. I myself wondered if that was the case, as it was the only explanation that could come close to making sense of what happened… but the only real way to prove that was if Trank was able to come back, properly in the driver’s seat, and deliver a feature that showed he still had the talent he showcased so bracingly back with Chronicle. And far as I'm concerned, he actually managed it here.

Venom (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Investigative reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) suspects that something is going on at Life Foundation, run by the ostensibly altruistic Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). However, after an attempt to sneak into the Foundation goes awry, Eddie makes his way home... only to find that something has come with him. Now bonded to an alien organism that calls itself Venom, he sets out to get to the bottom of Drake's plans before the entire city, and the entire world, are put in jeopardy.

Dunkirk (2017) - Movie Review

Christopher Nolan is one of those directors who seems to ferociously divide audiences, usually in reference to the director’s more staunch defenders. He has made some truly incredible films, like the cerebral heist flick Inception and the ground-breaking superhero film The Dark Knight, both of which I’d count among my favourite films ever… but the guy’s reputation has been stuck in a bit of a mire for a while now.

 

Interstellar wasn’t that well received overall, and while The Dark Knight Rises still holds up as a good Batman film, it and combined with his involvement in Man Of Steel resulted in the current state of the DC Extended Universe, one that was definitely painted with Nolan’s dark brushstrokes from his Batman work. Naturally, as is the case with pretty much all of his films, the marketing for his latest has been rather inescapable. Knowing my own hesitance to full-force advertising of films and my want for him to pull through with a film that I don’t have to defend quite so hard as something like Rises, this is already looking like an interesting situation for a film’s release.

 

But that’s all background noise; what’s the actual movie like?

The Revenant (2016) - Movie Review

After how much I dug Birdman last year, I was definitely looking forward to seeing more work from director Alejandro González Iñárritu. So, in prep for this release, I checked out his other filmography… and noticed something disconcerting. While I undoubtedly consider Birdman to be the best film he’s done to date, it’s also the most unlike everything else he’s made so far. Iñárritu’s usual method of story-telling is with numerous interweaving character arcs, some of them seemingly completely disconnected from each other, to convey a specific theme. Birdman, by contrast, is so linear that it is shot and edited to look like a single continuous take (for the most part) and focuses mainly on a single character. It’s kind of like claiming to be a fan of Darren Aronofsky, but saying your favourite film of his is The Wrestler; it isn’t exactly the best representation of the man’s work as a whole. With this new information, I began to anticipate today’s release more shakily than I was expecting to. However, indicative of standard oeuvre or not, I will give this film the benefit of the doubt regardless; I’m not going to just badmouth a Leo DiCaprio film purely based on principle.

Legend (2015) - Movie Review

In the world of film, there are very few prospects with as high a grade of difficulty as the dual role. On the surface, it’s an actor’s greatest dream: A chance to showcase range within the confines of a single film, be it for comedy like with the cinematic works of Mel Brooks and Monty Python, for dramatic purposes like with the HBO adaptation of Angels In America or even to add a touch of the surreal like with Spike Jonze’s Adaptation. However, this is assuming that all actors are able to maintain multiple personas at once on set, and even then it can just as easily be used for evil as it can for good. One look at the Seltzerberg catalogue shows a ready use of this technique, with frankly embarrassing and nipple-twistingly painful results. A good rule of thumb when attempting this on film is to stick with characters who will naturally look like each other to begin with: Basically, clones or identical twins. As such, today’s film seems to be a decent place to try this out, not to mention bringing in a capable actor for it in the form of Tom Hardy. But intentions are one thing; do they actually pull it off?

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) - Movie Review

This review marks the first of three films in the next couple of months that will require me to brush up on my 80s-90s action series… which should have come around a lot sooner than this, considering these are the kind of films that are required viewing for any self-respecting movie buff, but better late than never. The first Mad Max film furthers the thinking that the biggest of accomplishments come out of the smallest of budgets, as the visual aesthetic, characterisation and overall grit of the film highlight some of the best that Australian cinema has to offer. Unfortunately, the follow-ups didn’t hold up nearly as well for me: Road Warrior was rather dull given how many times I’ve seen its Western-inspired plot and character development, despite being easily one of the most influential films of all time; and Beyond Thunderdome joins the list of films that make me question anything Rotten Tomatoes has to say. I was expecting 80’s cheese, but what I was given was literal pig shit. So, based on what came before it, my expectations aren’t that high given how we have approximately one-and-one-quarter good films to go on. But does this film at least deliver on the promise of fire-spewing electric guitars?