The Queen's Corgi (2019) - Movie Review

Oh, nWave Pictures; welcome back, old friend. Having covered two of this studio’s previous features, and considering their 2013 effort The House Of Magic was part of my rather formative initial year at this reviewing biz, I can make a pretty solid claim that they are one of the most unnecessary animation houses working today.

At their worst, they can provide aggressively annoying nonsense meant to placate kids, and even when they find their groove, they usually only end up shining when it comes to animating chase scenes. Everything else ends up in the realm of dead-eyed plastic (or, in the case of The Wild Life, dead-eyed pottery). With all this in mind, their latest is somewhat of a surprise, as it’s definitely a lot riskier than their usual. However, chasing that risk results in one of the most horrifically misguided ‘family’ films I’ve ever watched.

King Of Thieves (2019) - Movie Review

In some of my other reviews, I’ve bemoaned what feels like the status quo in regards to the treatment of older actors. The notion that, in order to get anything of worth out of folks like Robert De Niro or Morgan Freeman, they have to be stripped of their dignity and paraded around in stories where their age is part of the joke. Now, I get the underlying reason why people like De Niro accept those kind of roles (they want to put money away for their kids, so they’re not exactly picky with their scripts), but at the same time, essentially selling out doesn’t mean that one has to throw away any and all standards in the process.

Point Break (2016) - Movie Review

 

What is it about crime flicks that make them probably the most widely referenced and quoted of any genre? Even if you’ve never seen a Lethal Weapon film, chances are you’ve heard someone say “I’m getting too old for this shit” at least once in your life. Among the more widely influential would be 1991’s Point Break, which established a blueprint that would be followed by every film involving a cop/agent going undercover and making a connection with their target. Sure, it hasn’t aged well as a result of how much it’s been copied, not to mention its 90’s surfer musings about finding that rush, but it’s still a decent film in its own right. Can’t go wrong with Keanu Reeves giving one of his better performances and Patrick Swayze as the equally charismatic and recklessly thrill-seeking antagonist. So, naturally, it was going to get a remake at some point, and apparently no-one wanted to compete with it because this was the only film to be released come New Year’s Day. Or maybe it was because they didn’t want the shame of having to be connected to it in any way, even if just by the release date. Even though the real answer should be pretty damn obvious, let’s take a look just to be sure: This is Point Break.

The Gunman (2015) - Movie Review

Sean Penn is one of those legendary Hollywood actors that even if you’ve somehow managed to never see anything that they’ve been in, you most certainly know the name at least in passing. As someone whose knowledge of cinema mostly consists of what came after the year 2000, it should come as no surprise that I’m not as familiar with Penn’s work as I should be. Outside of some surface knowledge about his relationship with Madonna and how badly that ended up, I’ve only seen him in one other film to my knowledge: 2013’s Gangster Squad, where he was exceptionally awesome as the enemy gangster Mickey Cohen. In fact, that performance was just that good that I’m actively excited about this based on that alone. So, how does Penn turn out in what looks like an attempt to Takenise him, what with this being directed by the same guy who made Neeson a modern day action fixture?

Love, Rosie (2014) - Movie Review

One of the key events that lead me to watching new films as intently as I do was when my therapist recommended a movie for me to watch as part of my therapy. It was a British rom-com called About Time, which I thoroughly enjoyed and got me thinking more about the idea of movie-watching as a form of therapy, something I might revisit at a later date. Anyway, it was a short while later that I decided to go with my current plan of watching all the new releases, as well as revisiting as many of the movies from the last few years that I can, and with that I gained a certain… relationship with romantic comedies. While every other critic has cinematic PTSD, given how bad most rom-coms get, I look at new releases in the genre as a little reminder of something that got me to where I am now as a critic. Doesn’t hurt that today’s movie also comes from the same general geographic location.