The Greatest Beer Run Ever (2022) - Movie Review

I still don’t think Green Book was that bad.

Admittedly, I haven’t seen it since I reviewed it for FilmInk, and I definitely agree that it did not deserve Best Picture at the Oscars (even with how little I care for the ceremonies, that decision still managed to annoy me)… but I dunno, I didn’t mind the film itself. I have respect for the way the Farrelly brothers deal with disability and societal attitudes towards the ‘stupid’ and ‘crazy’, and I think Peter managed to effectively translate that empathy towards the effects of racism in that film. I mean, I recognise that it’s part of a less-than-ideal tradition in Hollywood concerning such stories, but for what it is, I think it got a worse rap than it ultimately deserved. Only time will tell if his latest will suffer the same fate, but once again, I find myself on the favourable side with his work.

Gold (2022) - Movie Review

Considering the summer heat is officially kicking in down here in Australia, I’m probably in the most ideal state of mind to engage with a film about a guy trying to survive in the desert. And considering this first came out near the end of January of this year (deep in the middle of the last summer), I’m willing to bet that that timing isn’t a coincidence. Trust me to be both timely and late to the party at the same time.

Firestarter (2022) - Movie Review

The 1984 film version of Stephen King’s Firestarter is… okay. It doesn’t reach the oft-underappreciated heights of the better movie adaptations, nor does it succumb to the amazingly goofy lows of those ‘90s TV miniseries. It mainly gets by on the personality of its cast, especially Drew Barrymore and George C. Scott, and while the treatment of its superpower-adjacent thrills was a little bland (especially compared to how bombastic King adaptations regularly get), there was enough on offer to make the whole package watchable. With how much of an upgrade more recent King adaptations have been, the idea of remaking this particular feature seemed understandable enough; there’s a lot left to work with. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was a feature that would feel this much like I’d been licking drywall for an hour and a half.

The Beach Bum (2020) - Movie Review

I’m not the biggest fan of Harmony Korine. In past reviews, I’ve dropped shade about how I don’t like his depictions of the dregs of society (The homeless, the lower-class, the celebrity impersonators, etc.), but that’s more of a surface-level detail for me; something that makes me hesitant to approach his films, even for a re-watch. What makes me reluctant to rough it out once I start is this vibe I keep getting from his films that I don’t have any use for them, as entertainment or as thematic text. I at least respect films like Ken Park (although that’s mostly for its place in one of my favourite moments of Aussie film critic history), but his habit of lackadaisical narratives just doesn’t work for me. I walked away from Spring Breakers feeling like I didn’t get anything out of the experience, and despite Korine’s best efforts, the same is true for his latest.

Scoob! (2020) - Movie Review

Okay, I think it’s time to leave the Aussie indie scene alone for a bit. And yet, I’m still going to be talking about something that’s close to home for me… just not as literally. As I’ve mentioned in reviews past, I grew up glued to Cartoon Network, and in many ways, I still am. When you’re responsible for the likes of Cartoon Cartoons, Adult Swim, Toonami and getting Run The Jewels to team up, you’ve more than earned your place in my heart. And part of that adoration is a respect, if not entirely being entertained by, classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Again, I’m much more familiar with the studio’s later work, but thanks to Boomerang, I had Scooby-Doo, Josie And The Pussycats, Hong Kong Phooey, Wacky Racers, and Captain Caveman in my media diet as a kid. I’m bringing all this up now because, holy hell, it feels like a film like this was made with an audience like myself in mind.

Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil And Vile (2019) - Movie Review

In light of certain… takes that have cropped up in regards to Todd Phillip’s Joker, a film we’ll be getting to once it makes it to Aussie cinemas, I want to reiterate something: Films should be allowed to have lead characters that aren’t good people. Narratives about seedier characters, whether they’re born primarily from a writer’s imagination or varyingly based on real-life deplorables, can make for great works of art, let alone film.

The Greatest Showman (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: P. T. Barnum (Hugh Jackman), after being laid off from his job, has stumbled onto an idea. He decides to create a show for children of all ages, comprised of the many peculiarities of the world. As his show gets off the ground and New York is shown such oddities as the pint-size General Tom Thumb (Sam Humphrey), the bearded lady Lettie Lutz (Keala Settle) and trapeze artist Anne (Zendaya), Barnum starts to lose sight of why he is in “show business” in the first place. Will he stick by his co-stars and his family, or will the spotlight drive to the very people he set out to disrupt?

The Disaster Artist (2017) - Movie Review

Some films go down as the greatest of their era. Some go down as the greatest of any era. Some go down as the worst of their era, and then trickle down into being the worst of any era. But some films, a rare few, manage to find a middle ground: Something that by all rationality should go down as one of the worst but is instead remembered as something great.

 

There’s been quite a few examples of this in my lifetime alone. The all-round shoddy production values of the Birdemic films have kept coathangers in everyone’s hands since the first one’s release in 2010. M. Night Shyamalan, for many years, was regarded as one of the absolute worst, with such crowning jewels of hilariously awful as The Happening and After Earth under his belt. Hell, depending on who you ask, even the Twilight series enters into this realm of reputation. But for my money, no singular bad film has given me more joy than Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 magnum opus The Room.

 

And apparently, I’m not the only one, seeing as the film’s reputation has grown so much over the last few years that we now have a Hollywood production all about the making of the infamous classic. But how does it hold up?

Baywatch (2017) - Movie Review

 

If you’ve been following my other reviews this year, you’ll notice that I haven’t made it a secret about how surprising a lot of this year’s films have been so far. I honestly don’t know if it’s directly because of my own expectations or if a lot of filmmakers this year have been getting better at left-hooking the audience, but I am getting less and less confident about films actually matching up with general audience anticipation. And yet, even with that in mind, this is the one film that I was looking forward to the least out of everything expected to come out this year. What’s more, as each piece of marketing revealed more about it, the worse it ended up looking. It’s quite a feat to take the teaser poster, with just about the least subtle dick joke I’ve seen in quite a while, and somehow go further downhill from there but that’s how this thing looks.

 

By this point, I think my expectations for this are at their absolute lowest; unless we end up with another perplexingly offensive offering, which isn’t exactly out of the realm of possibility, there’s no way this could be as all-time awful as I’m expecting it to be. Could it?

Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016) - Movie Review

Bad Neighbours 2: Sorority Rising (2016) - Movie Review

2014’s Bad Neighbours, or Neighbors as it is known in the U.S., might be one of the best stoner comedies of recent years. Nicholas Stoller struck gold on this one, using the tried-and-true formula of weed smokers contemplating their place in life and the prospect of getting older and creating some genuinely thought-provoking work. It might have some of the best character writing of the entire year’s crop worth of films, up to and including Zac Efron’s weirdly relatable antagonist turned near-supervillain. And, of course, it was also my first proper exposure to the absolutely brilliant use of music that is a trademark of Point Grey Productions, making me better appreciate film soundtracks from then on. So, naturally, when the sequel was announced, I was undoubtedly looking forward to it. Sure, it seems to be following Sequel Rule #2425 (If in doubt, swap the genders out), but I have enough faith in these filmmakers and these actors to still bring decent product. I’ve mentioned before that I have no issue with being proven wrong when it comes to expectations; yeah, not so much this time, so let’s just hope it all works out.

Dirty Grandpa (2016) - Movie Review

There is something inherently funny about watching older people do things associated with younger people… I think. At the very least, it’s humorous enough to warrant being the main subject matter for films, TV shows and YouTube clips. Hell, I looked at a film that centred on that same branch of comedy with Sisters. Of course, such a concept works better when it isn’t being inflicted on someone with a tremendous amount of respect to his name. Like, say, legendary actor Robert De Niro. While the man is still attached to some decent work thanks to his connection with David O. Russell, he has still had a serious low-point in his career of late. When you go from working with visionaries like Scorsese and Coppola to being in Little Fockers, you know you’re in trouble. So, time to take a look at the downward spiral of depressing screen appearances as we peer into what is already being called the worst film of the year… oh dear. This is Dirty Grandpa.

We Are Your Friends (2015) - Movie Review

Now for the third and final part of our look into the recent music-centric releases; oh, I do love obvious market trends. First, we had Straight Outta Compton, where I was well within my element given how often I seem to drop hip-hop titbits in these reviews anyway. Then, it was Ricki And The Flash, which had me well and truly out of that comfort zone into the realm of milquetoast drama involving oldie rock. Today, it’s a drop straight down the middle in terms of familiarity with the genre in question: Electronic dance music. I went through a period of swearing off most EDM out of pop elitism, especially dubstep back when Skrillex was first getting big media buzz, but have since grown a bit more accustomed thanks to artists like Parov Stelar and Pogo, along with rediscovering just how awesome the Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack was. That said, though, the whole EDM rave culture just feels… alien to me. So, with a certain affinity for the music but quite the distance from the lifestyle, how does this film weigh up?