I love discovering a fantasy series on my own – one that I come to without the influence of hype or expectations. It is rare these days, but it does happen. For me, this was Hounsom’s Worldmaker Trilogy, which has ...
Read More »Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle feels like the first draft of a film. It is slight, underdeveloped, and transparently written to a template. This has clearly been created to cash-in on the recognition of the property (do kids today even ...
Read More »Are we living in the Golden Age of TV?
We are told this is the golden age of television. That we live in a bold new world where high-powered dramas pursue long-form stories with feature film-like production qualities. It is a rather tiresome platitude. Aside from an obvious vanity ...
Read More »Suburbicon: This one stinks
Everyone likes George Clooney, don’t they? He’s witty, he’s charming, handsome, an advocate for good causes, blah blah blah… For all his easy on-screen charisma though, seeing one of his directing credits fills me with trepidation. Maybe that is unfair: ...
Read More »The Disaster Artist: Oh, hi Mark
The “Citizen Kane of bad movies” gets its own tribute film. The Room defies belief at its sheer lack of logic, ridiculously bad acting and baffling production decisions. You don’t need to take my word for it: we had a ...
Read More »Battle of the Sexes: does she have the nerve?
Fair disclosure: I am not a tennis aficionado. Although I did know about the high stakes exhibition game between Women’s Champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and former ace Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), the details and wider context of the ...
Read More »Justice League: What did you expect?
Something was wrong with Superman’s face. I was watching this film and in the first scene something was amiss with Superman’s face. It was almost as if he were on the brink of developing a harelip. Since then, I have ...
Read More »Call Me By Your Name
It has not been a bad year for major gay films and good ones at that. Moonlight was obviously acclaimed and I am an enthusiast for Park Chan-Wook’s film The Handmaiden. Now their ranks are joined by the highly accomplished ...
Read More »The Party: You could consider murder
Janet has been promoted to the Shadow Cabinet after years of graft and campaigning in the party. To celebrate the occasion, she is hosting a little soiree with some close friends and their partners. However, her lately distracted and dispassionate ...
Read More »Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View
When I was a kid, I loved reading the Expanded Universe novels, particularly the ones I owned on cassette tape read by Anthony Daniels. They were my constant companions on family road trips (well, them and my Michelle Kwan biography). ...
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