Category Archives: 2016 Reviews

Movie Review – Moana

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TL;DR – A beautiful film from the animation, to the story, to the characters, a must watch this holiday season

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

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

Moana. Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

Moana is a powerful story which is brilliantly animated, wonderfully acted and tells a great story. All of that would have been enough for me to recommend it to you, but on top of this Disney took a big risk in telling a story from Polynesia a place that rarely gets a look in this modern media landscape yet it is full of fascinating stories. I highly recommend you check Moana out at the movies if you can.

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Movie Review – La La Land

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TL;DR – La La Land has its issues, but it was such a joy to watch and I walked out of the cinema with a smile on my face and a song in my heart, and I can’t remember the last movie to do that to me.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

La La Land. Image Credit: Lionsgate.

Review –

La La Land is a rare movie for these days, not only is it a live-action musical in an age where musicals are mostly restricted to animated children’s movies (with the odd Les Misérables to change things up), but it is also is an unapologetic homage to the films of the classical era, your Singin’ in the Rain and such like. However on top of all this, La La Land is also a very modern movie set in modern times, so at its core is this juxtaposition of old and new. Now this is a very difficult tightrope to manage, if you go too old the film will feel dated rather than the homage it is, and indeed if you go too new, then all those call-backs start to feel gimmicky and forced. Luckily for La La Land, it turns out to be the goldilocks of filmmaking, and a case study in getting that balance right, look there is a reason it is an Oscar favourite for many.

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Movie Review – Rogue One (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story)

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TL;DR – A bit of a mess at times, but any complaints I have are overridden by the strongest ending in the franchise’s history.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Rogue One (Rouge One: A Star Wars Story). Image Credit; Disney/Lucasarts.

Review –
So here we are with Star War’s first attempt at a standalone film (a film set in the Star Wars universe, but not one of the main numbered entries) and a prequel no less, by any measure this was a risky gambit for the Mouse House, because the last thing you want to do to your $4 Billion investment is damaging the brand with a bad movie. Now this coupled with extensive reshoots in a year where extensive reshoots have led to mediocre films like Suicide Squad and outright failures like Fantastic Four had a lot of people concerned, is the prequel curse going to continue? Well, I am happy to say those reshoots must have only improved the movie because Rogue One is a blast. Now is it a perfect film, oh no, it has some real problems, but any issue I could have with it is blasted away by some quality filmmaking. Now we will be discussing the story later in the review, so I’ll put a  Spoiler Warning out before that, but I feel with a property like this, it is important to say, I will be discussing aspects of the film and the characters and you may find that to be spoilery, so you have been warned to continue with caution.

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Movie Review – For The Love Of Spock

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TL;DR – For The Love Of Spock is a beautiful reminder that human beings are immensely complex entities and a masterpiece in asking the question of where do our views of a man intersect with who he really is.

For The Love Of Spock. Image Credit: 455 Films.

Review –

Tomorrow Rogue One is coming out in cinemas and once again Star Wars is going to absorb the cultural and science fiction landscape for a while, but before that happens I wanted to take a moment to look at the other sci-fi juggernaut Star Trek, and as we draw to a close on the 50th anniversary of Star Trek it is only fitting that we examine one of the characters that started it all Spock, and the man behind it Leonard Nimoy, and of course who is better to tell that story than Leonard’s son Adam.

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Movie Review – Office Christmas Party

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TL;DR – This is the same kind of movie as every R-rated comedy of the last couple of years, but thankfully with a bit more substance than usual

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Office Christmas Party. Image Credit: Paramount.

Review –

So as we race to the end of the year, and in the lull before Star Wars destroys the box office, in its wake, we have Trolls and Office Christmas Party fighting it out to see who will get that dollar, dollar bill. Since I don’t have children I don’t have to be subjected to that Trolls nonsense (truly you guys are the MVPs) which I was over about the same time JT was performing at Eurovision, so instead this week we have Office Christmas Party. OCP is another in a long line of R-rated comedies that have sprung up in the aftermath of Hangover and Bridesmaids, and has many similarities with other films that we have looked at this year like Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Bad Neighbours 2, Grimsby, and Dirty Grandpa, indeed it fits into the same category as The Night Before which was last year’s R-rated Christmas comedy, and more so it seems to be taking a lot of queues from Unfinished Business with its plot, but somehow OCP makes it work when most of these other films were a mess.

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Movie Review – Underworld: Blood Wars

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TL;DR – Honestly this was a surprisingly good film, though that may have something to do with my super low expectations I had going in and that I have never seen an Underworld film before.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Underworld: Blood Wars. Image Credit: Sony.

Review –
I think I need to start this review off with this small issue, while I have always been meaning to watch all of these Underworld films until now I have never actually gotten around to it. You know each time a new one would come out in cinemas, I would endeavour to marathon the ones I missed and then watch the new movie, but alas I never actually ever got around to it. Also then Twilight was released and that killed any drive I might have had to watch the battle of werewolves and vampires. However it’s been four years since the last entry so this time instead of making the commitment to marathon the previous films I went blow it, let’s just go for it and see how good it is going in blind. I wanted to make that clear because not only did I come to Underworld: Blood Wars without seeing any of the previous films, I also come to it with really low expectations, like Leo McGarry going to a vice-presidential debate low. But despite this (or likely because of it), I have to say I was quite surprised how well I actually enjoyed Blood Wars. I mean let’s be clear here, this is not a cinematic masterpiece, but it is the best of this type of film I have seen in quite a while.

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TV Review – Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life

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TL;DR –  Honestly it is a bit of a mess at times, but usually, that is part of the charm for Gilmore Girls, but this time round I don’t think they quite stuck the landing

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

It is one of my secrets … well not anymore … that in the late 2000s I binge watched all the episodes of Gilmore Girls over a couple of months. So while I enjoyed the series, got annoyed with the lukewarm ending, I wouldn’t say it is one of my favourites or indeed in my top 30, but it was still a TV show that I very much enjoyed. Honestly the fact that I am reviewing a new Gilmore Girls is quite a rare turn of events on many fronts, we have a series coming back from cancellation after nearly 10 years and we have the original writers and showrunners returning after leaving, something that is very rare in Hollywood. So after 10 years does the show still hold up, did bringing the creators back mean we will finally get the conclusion that we wanted … um yes and no.

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Movie Review – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

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TL;DR – Is Fantastic Beasts a perfect film, no, but it is a really entertaining one, and it is a good continuation of the Harry Potter universe

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

I came late to the whole Harry Potter universe, I didn’t read the books growing up, and in fact, I was quite old when I eventually read them all. If memory serves me correctly, I read through them all back to back, and watched all the films, in-between Deathly Hallows Part 2 being in the cinemas and when it was out on DVD. So I have always come to the Harry Potter Universe in a different manner, so for me, the books dramatically improve after that twist at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire because I liked the more mature tone. But I know that for many people the opposite is true, so I was interested to see how I was going to respond to this newest entry into the Harry Potter Universe – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – The first film in this universe I got to see at the cinemas.

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Movie Review – Mercenary (Mercenaire)

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TL;DR – A powerful story of exploitation, honour, family and what it means to be free and does it come with a price

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Mercenary (Mercenaire). Image Credit: Ad Vitam.

Review – Recently I was able to go along to the Pasifika Film Festival here in Brisbane put on by Event Cinemas, the NRL, Screen NSW and West Sydney University. It was a really interesting insight into Pacific culture and stories, the universal medium of expression. There was a selection of fascinating films from right across the Pacific and I was able to so see the amazing Mercenary of which we will be talking about today.

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Movie Review – The Accountant

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TL;DR – When people ask me what a close but no cigar film is I will now be able to use The Accountant as my go-to example, it’s an ok film, but it could have been so much more.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

The Accountant. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review – The Accountant is a really interesting movie, it has one of the strongest cast in cinema at the moment, and has some fantastic set piece action sequences, and some really important representations. However, and I am sorry to have this however so close to the start, as a movie it just doesn’t quite work. So in this review, I am not just going to review the film, but also break down why the film just doesn’t work as well as it could have.

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