Monthly Archives: September 2018

Map-It: Chef’s Table

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TL;DR – With Volume 5 just released and Volume 6 just around the corner we take a moment to map out all of Chef’s Table

 

Chef's Table. Image Credit: Netflix

 

Map-It –

 

If you have been reading my reviews for a long time then you will undoubtedly know that I have a deep love for David Gelb’s striking food documentary series Chef’s Table on Netflix. It is a world full of beautiful food, fascinating stories, and a deep exploration into a world that I don’t really get to visit. Well today the fifth volume (six if you add in France which we do) has dropped and I wanted to take a moment to combine my love of both food and cartography and thus chart out every restaurant visited throughout the series so far (and even into the next volume since the names of the chefs have already been announced). With the maps, if a chef had more than one location featured, we picked the central place explored in the episode.

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TV Review – The Good Place: Everything is Bonzer!

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TL;DR – It’s back and it is just as clever and fun as always.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

The Good Place: Everything is Bonzer! Image Credit: Netflix

 

Review –

The Good Place, what a little gem of a show this is, a real cracker. When I first watched it I had no idea what I was getting in too, and like everyone else, I was blown away by the direction the show took at the end of Season One. To the point that even now when we are still talking about Season Three I want to be coy about what that changeup was in case someone has not seen it yet. For the last two seasons, I watched it all in a binge watch session, so I am interested to see how it plays out week by week for this season. Well with that in mind, let’s come Down Under say hello and look at Australian universities with flags in every room.

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Movie Review – Searching

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TL;DR – A film that is both revolutionary filmmaking, but also deeply centred on the question of what would you do if you lost everything

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Searching. Image Credit: Sony

Review –

Films can be revolutionary for a number of reasons, maybe they have a new actor that blows the world away, maybe they are looking at a subject that no one dared venture before, or maybe they revolutionise filmmaking in some way. With Searching, we have the later because this is a film that is shot entirely from the perspective of a computer screen. We see the YouTube video, the webcam, the documents as if we were living in the screen and peering out in the world. It is both disorientating but also oddly comfortable as it has all the tactile notions of the world we live in. With that in mind, today we are going to see if this is a film that is just a gimmick, or if it is using this new technique to tell a story.

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Countdown – My Personal Top 10 Films of All Time List

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TL;DR – Today we countdown my Top 10 films of all time; from towns where there are a lot of ‘accidents’, to all forms of Sci-Fi, to do you know the man with six fingers on his right hand, and everything in between.

Countdown –

Recently I watched the CineFix crew countdown their Top 10 films, and it had me thinking what are mine? Now it was at this point where I of course naturally spiralled as how can you reduce thousands of films that you have seen into only a Top 10. Just before I threw my hands up in resignation and chucked in the towel I happened to catch an episode of Movies with Mikey on how he determined the best sequel. With this in mind I wondered if there was a set of criteria that I could use to categorise the films into a list that I would be happy with, and after some work, I came up with the following criteria that work for me.

  • Films that are beautifully constructed
  • Films that mean something to me
  • Films that are always re-watchable
  • Films that have added to my love of the craft of cinema

With this criterion in mind I went through all the likely candidates and with a bit of a struggle I think I have been able to come to a final list, well at least until I change my mind next week, which is always a chance.

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Movie Review – Mandy

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TL;DR – This is a film that is all about the style, and if you dig it you find it to be one of the best movies ever, or like me you if you don’t, well then it turns out to be a dull frustrating mess

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit thing, but you don’t need to stay for it

Warning – There are several scenes that have extensive strobe effects

Mandy. Image Credit: RLJE Films

Review –

Style is something that can make or break a film for people, it is one of the reasons that you tend to see a lot of dull monotonous films pumped out, desperately trying to be something for everyone. So in this regards, I deeply respect Mandy, for in no way playing it safe, and committing to its style like there is no tomorrow with a full line-up of sex, violence, and nudity. Unfortunately, the style did not gel with me at all, so while I appreciate what the film was trying to do, I cannot say I found it to be a particularly good film at all.

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TV Review – The Orville: Season One

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TL;DR – While at first look this might have been just a Star Trek homage or at worst a blatant rip-off. Instead, it finds its feet and becomes a charming exploration of the future and the mess and opportunities that could come.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

The Orville. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox & Fuzzy Door Productions.

 

Review –

I have been wanting to catch The Orville for quite a while but there was no streaming or TV that picked it up here in Australia, so I was expecting this was something that I might only get to see when it dropped on Blu-Ray. But with SBS announcing they had picked it up and would be showing Season Two I jumped on a watched the whole first season in one night, which meant that clown appeared at a very confronting time late at night. But binged the first season I have, and now it is time to jump in and see if it was worth the wait. Now before we dive in, a quick reminder that as we will be looking at the season as a whole, there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Movie Review – Ladies in Black

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TL;DR – This is a film that is filled with joy from start to finish, a truly beautiful film   

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Ladies in Black. Image Credit: Sony

Review –

There are times when you need to delve into the complex machinations of a political intrigue or see two superheroes brawl in the ruins of a fallen civilization or explosions in space as ships rocket past. However, there are times when you need to take a step back and just immerse yourself in the world of other people living extraordinary lives filled with glamour and beauty.

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Movie Review – Mile 22

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TL;DR – This is a film that fails at almost everything it sets out to do bar maybe one or two decent action sequences

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Mile 22. Image Credit STX Entertainment

Review –

I really enjoy action films, I appreciate the skill that has gone into the fight choreography, the explosions, and gunfights, brawls, all of it. While films that are about something are better for incorporating those themes, I don’t think it is necessarily barrier to enjoy an action film if the craft is there. This week I had not been feeling the best so I thought I would go see Mile 22 as I kind of pick me up, and well the fact I was the only one in the cinema should have been the first clue that this was not going to go as planned.

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Movie Review – The Predator (2018)

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TL;DR – There is a lot of great production here, and strong acting, but it has clearly been hacked apart in the edit leaving a disjointed mess.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

The Predator. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox

Review –

The first Predator film was maybe the pinnacle of the 1980s macho-action film genre, I can remember watching it for the first time, probably far younger than I should. It was Arnie at his best hunting down an alien hunting people for sport and while there were sequels nothing ever captured the intensity of the first film. When I heard they were bring it back and giving it to Shane Black I had high hopes that at the very least it would be an interesting film … and then the last week happened and I can’t believe how disappointed I could be at such a promising director. Now the film is here and well, you can see the vision, but you can also see where the studio has taken a hatchet to it.

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TV Review – Ultimate Beastmaster Season 3 (Survival of the Fittest)

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TL;DR – Another iteration and they have refined the formula even more and it works really well … also Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

 

Ultimate Beastmaster Season 3 (Survival of the Fittest). Image Credit: Netflix

 

Review –

There are many reasons people watch Beastmaster, for some, it is the athleticism, for other, it is the face plants into the water, and for some, it is the unique format of the multi-country multi-format show that only Netflix could pull off. This is the third iteration of the series and this time the format has been changed up, and we have new contestants, new obstacles, new countries, new hosts, and still one angry beast.

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