Tag Archives: Drama

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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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 – 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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TV Review – Luke Cage ‘Ep. 1, 2, and 3′ review

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TL;DR –  Luke Cage starts the season with a slow build, but the tension it creates is amazing, and more importantly it hooks you in for the long run.

Score – 4 out of 5 Stars

Luke Cage. Image Credit: Netflix/Marvel.

Review –

Well off the back of both a movie series that keeps going from strength to strength (Team Cap all the way) and some groundbreaking TV adaptions (like who knew that Daredevil could be likeable) Marvel is simply killing it at the moment. Indeed the Netflix experiment itself is still growing exponentially, it’s a service that can show everything from Chef’s Table to Stranger Things and all in between. Within all this, we get the next in the Marvel/Netflix joint project Luke Cage (after Daredevil and Jessica Jones), and like its predecessors, Luke Cage is provocative, but also brilliantly made. For this review we are going to look at the first three episodes ‘Moment of Truth’, ‘Code of the Streets’ & ‘Who’s Gonna Take the Weight’ because they clearly set the scene and the tone for the rest of the season. Now we are going to be talking about these episodes in detail, so to be clear spoilers are now in effect.

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TV Review – Designated Survivor ‘Pilot’

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TL;DR –  A great opening episode, that advances the drama, grounds the show, and gives us the groundwork for an interesting mystery.

Score – 4 out of 5 Stars

Designated Survivor. Image Credit: ABC.

Review –

I’ve been looking for a while now for something to fill The West Wing sized hole in my life and lot shows have tried. Homeland is a critical darling, but I found it a bit meh, Commander in Chief had a good start, but could not escape its premise, House of Cards is brilliantly done, but too depressing for the inner optimist in me, in fact the closest I have got to this is Parks and Rec. So I was really interested to see if the new Designated Survivor could be that show, and from the first episode the signs are quite positive.

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Movie Review – Snowden

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TL;DR – It’s not a bad film, but it is more boring that it should be given the exciting subject material.

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

Snowden. Image Credit: Open Road Films.

Review –

Edward Snowden is one of those people that invokes a very polarising response from the general public, he’s either a hero or a villain, a patriot or a traitor with very little grey room floating around. Now when I first heard they were doing a movie about Snowden, I was really quite interested because as part of my day job I have actually taught about these issues like intelligence gathering, Five Eyes, Media etc. Also, the original documentary Citizenfour by Laura Poitras is an amazingly well-constructed documentary, informative while being thoroughly engaging, and truly worthy of the Oscar it received last year. So I was able to go see Snowden and how was the final product? … well um … unfortunately, it’s just a bit boring.

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Movie Review – Nerve

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TL;DR – Nerve is an ambitious film that gets a lot of credit for tackling one of the big problems of the Internet, its mob mentality, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Nerve. Image Credit: Lionsgate.

Review –

Nerve as a film is sort of a first, well at least for me it is, as it is the first mainstream film I have seen that really attempts to address the rise of the YouTube celebrity, the Social Media star, the Internet Mob, and the clear problems that come from displaying your lives online for all to see. However, unlike other attempts to engage in this topic which come off as either old people making a film, they think young people will like or indeed, the moralising ‘lazy silly millennials have it too easy’, Nerve is trying to engage with these important issues, but not in a condescending way.

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TV Review – Stranger Things

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TL;DR –  Engaging, Emotional, Tense, and about the most 80s thing you could ever watch, but boy should you ever watch it.

Score – 4.5/5 Stars

Stranger Things. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

Stranger Things is a weirdly wonderful TV show, it is a complex web of 80s references, homages to films of that era, and call backs to the classics of the horror genre. All of that could have been done as a ham-fisted cash grab, banking on nostalgia over substance, *cough* Transformers *cough*, instead it is a well-crafted story with real talent, both in front and behind the camera, that draws you in at every moment. Now as I am reviewing the entire season at once there will undoubtedly be spoilers ahead, so if you have not seen Stranger Things yet, beware, and maybe come back once you have watched it.

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TV Review – Cleverman Season 1

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TL;DR –  Cleverman is revolutionary TV show in many ways, its freshman season was a powerful work of cinema, though not a perfect one.

Score – 4 out of 5 Stars

Review –

For those who have not seen the show yet, and you should go fix that, Cleverman is the story of Australia in the not too distant future. Where we lock people up just because they are different or because it is politically convenient for the government to shift the blame on to them, where people have to shed aspects of their cultural identity to try and protect themselves from harm just because they are perceived as being different, and where the government can use the catch-all excuse of ‘national security’ to hide things from the population and to deflect condemnation of the international system. So you know it’s clear that this is fiction because that would never happen in modern Australia…  To do my overview of the first season of the series I am probably going to spoil a couple of things, so you have been warned now to only proceed if you have watched the show.

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Movie Review – The Nice Guys

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TL;DR – A pretty solid buddy/cop film, not something I have seen in a while, it does have a lot of style, but it hasn’t quite got the substance to go along with it.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Nice Guys. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

This is an interesting film in that it is a good old fashioned buddy/cop film, and it has been a while since I have seen a good one, yes I am looking at you Bastille Day, in fact it is a genre that you just don’t see that often anymore, which is a pity because while it can be very cliché, when done well it is a lot of fun to watch.

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