Tag Archives: review

Movie Review – Ultras

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TL;DR – An interesting film, exploring interesting issues, but does not quite come together   

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

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

Warning – There is a lot of strobe lighting used in a sequence towards the end.

Ultras. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

For me, sports, particularly football is something that I have only really gotten into recently. So it is something that I have tried to explore more, with what makes it tick, what drives it, and what drives people to love it. Well, today we have a film from Italy that explores all of this, but from a different perspective, that of the hardened supporters of the Italian football league.

To set the scene, we open in as a man walk through a crowd where everyone knows his name, as we wander through the town we arrive at a wedding, where flares are lit and everyone is having a good time. Which is of course when we cut to a montage of the more colourful moments in Italian football history, full of riots, flares, and a long rivalry between teams from Naples and Rome, or Napoli and Roma. It here where we see that behind the bravado is a sadness, a sadness of time gone by.  

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TV Review – Altered Carbon – Season 2

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TL;DR – It continues the story gallantly, but the second outing is more restrained and does not fix the problems of the first season.  

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Altered Carbon – Season 2. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

A couple of years ago, there was this odd TV series on Netflix that I described as “if Westworld and Blade Runner had a baby with Ghost in the Shell as the midwife.” It was odd, it was out there, and even though it had some limitations it kept powering through. Well, I have finally caught up with the second season and I have to say it is more of the say, which is both good and bad.

So to set the scene, we open in a dive bar on some desolate system out in the deep black. On the stage is a singer (Jihae) singing a haunting song when a synth that had just needle cast in-system. Trepp (Simone Missick) is a bounty hunter, and a good one at that, and she is looking for one Takeshi “Tak” Kovacs. But in what sleeve is he in? Possibly only the malfunctioning AI Poe (Chris Conner) behind the bar knows? Well, Trepp buts a bullet in his back and brings him to her employer Horace Axley (Michael Shanks). All Tak has to do is protect Axley and he gets to keep this new body (Anthony Mackie). But more importantly, he knows where he can find Quellcrist “Quell” Falconer (Renée Elise Goldsberry), the person he has been searching for all these years. It’s a good bargain, right up until the moment he needle casts in and finds Axley dead on the ground, and all of Harlan’s World is out for his blood. Now we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there may be some [SPOILERS] ahead.

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Video Game Review – Mýrdalssandur, Iceland

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TL;DR – It was a fantastic experience from an execution, experience and price point perspective

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Mýrdalssandur, Iceland. Image Credit: caves rd.

Review –

These days, video games can be created by vast teams with hundreds or even thousands of people working to bring a vision to life. However, there are still those games, or in that case more of an experience, that is the focus of a single creator’s vision. Today we look at just such a case with Matt Newell’s Mýrdalssandur, Iceland.

Now I should make clear right from the start, this is not a game, but more of an experience of walking around the titular Mýrdalssandur that you can find on Iceland’s southern coastline. It is a place of wondrous beauty and stark contrasts of green moss and black volcanic rock. If this sounds familiar to you, then it is likely that you have seen it before in Rogue One or other similar films.

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Movie Review – The Legend of Baron To’a

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TL;DR – A bonkers fun film from first till last    

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

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

Awards:

Nominated – Explosive Action

The Legend of Baron To'a. Image Credit: Madman.

Review –

Do you know what I needed this week? I needed a bit of fun, you know what I think a lot of people need this week, a little fun, well, have I got news for you. It has been great over the last couple of years to see Pasifika Cinema go from strength to strength and today we get to look at another entry into the great canon.

So to set the scene, we open in on the great Baron To’a (John Tui) himself as he does a tour of his home and local cul–de–sac Kinlock Ave. He is the heart of the local community and he is most proud of his son Fritz (Lotima Pome’e). However, it cannot last and twenty years later when Fritz (Uli Latukefu) returns to help sell his house after his uncle Otto (Nathaniel Lees) stops returning his calls he finds that the sac is a very different place than what he remembered.   

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Movie Review – Queen and Slim

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TL;DR – It is a provocative and powerful film, while it does not hit every note right, when it excels it does so with gusto   

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

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

Awards –

Nominated: All The Tension.

Queen and Slim. Image Credit: Universal Pictures.

Review –

Some films are just there to provide a little entertainment and then to be done and there is nothing wrong with that because everyone needs a little fun in their lives. However, other films want to be provocative, some films that want to educate, some films that want to hold a mirror up to society, and some that want to all of that and more.  

So to set the scene, we open in a diner in Ohio as two people start the awkward banter of getting to know each other. Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) is interested to know why Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) picked tonight to respond to his Tinder request after leaving it on hold for weeks, well Queen just didn’t want to be alone that night. After dinner Slim is taking Queen home when they are pulled over by police Officer Reed (Sturgill Simpson) for a very minor traffic infraction. While the officer is checking the car for drugs (which are not there nor was there any reason to believe there was) Queen, a defence attorney gets out of the car and the officer shoots her in her leg. A scuffle ensues and Slim in self-defence shoots the officer in the head killing him. What do you do? Do you stay and try to explain what happens, or do you run? You run!

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Movie Review – The Way Back (Finding the Way Back) (2020 film)

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TL;DR – A film that feels more personal than I have seen in a while and at the very least a loot messier     

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

The Way Back. Image Credit: Warner Brothers.

Review –

There are many things that make reviewing The Way Back a difficult prospect. Part of that comes from intentional narrative devices that help the film in some ways and hinder it in others. Also, this is just a really raw film at times looking at a subject material that is both important but also deeply relevant to the lead actor. Which gets us into the realm of how much of this is performance and how much of this is reality thrown up on the screen. All of these are difficult things, but they were because in many respects this is a difficult film.

So to set the scene, Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) spends his days alone, even when he is surrounded by people. He wakes up with a beer, he showers with a beer, he drinks on the way to work, he hides booze while he is working, and he drinks himself silly when he gets home. After Thanksgiving dinner with his sister Beth (Michaela Watkins) who is clearly concerned that he is not seeing anyone after his marriage with Angela (Janina Gavankar) fell apart he arrives home to find an odd message on his phone. His old school wants him to come back and be the new basketball coach.

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Exploring the Past – Consequences (Posledice) (2018)

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TL;DR – An exploration of the effects of toxic masculinity and all its consequences.   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Consequences (Posledice). Image Credit: Temporama.

Review –

There are films out there that sometimes you can see the trajectory coming a mile away, you see the pain incoming and like a crash in slow motion you can’t look away. Today we look at just such a film, one of pain and sadness and inevitability.

So to set the scene, we open in on Andrej (Matej Zemljic) who spends his days not being at school and his nights parting away. One night ends with him punching a woman and that rightly is that. He is sent to a juvenile correction facility as a last chance before jail time. Here he meets Žele (Timon Sturbej) the local ringleader and it is here when we see that this story is not going to end well.

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Movie Review – Dark Waters

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TL;DR – A film that comes at you like the rising tide, slow at first and then before you know it you have become overwhelmed     

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

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

Dark Waters. Image Credit: Universal Studios.

Review –


Having grown up in the era of Erin Brockovich, I am hard-wired to like a good biopic, especially one where someone takes down a major corporation that should have known better. Well, today we get to see a film that does pretty much all of that and does it very well indeed.

So to set the scene, we open back in the 1970s as a bunch of kids go skinny dipping in a lake in Parkersburg, West Virginia only to get shoed away from the site by men from the DuPont Corporation in a boat firing foam at a residue building up on the surface. Sometime later, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Robert Bilott (Mark Ruffalo) has just been made a partner in the Taft Stettinius & Hollister law firm when he is interrupted in a meeting by Wilbur Tennant (Bill Camp) an old friend of Robert’s grandmother. He has a problem with his farm, ever since DuPont built a rubbish tip next door to his property all of his cattle have been dying of odd diseases. Robert is reluctant to intercede but he makes a trip out to Parkersburg and finds things are not what they seem.

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Movie Review – Yeh Ballet

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TL;DR – a fun film about finding your place in the world through a talent you never knew you had   

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

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

Yeh Ballet. Image Credit: Netflix.

Review –

We continue our look at Indian cinema this week with an interesting film that has recently arrived on Netflix. It is a film that charts the highs and lows of two kids finding a new outcome for their lives. Also, it is kind of cool that it is all based on a true story.  

So to set the scene, we open in on the Mumbai slums as Asif (Achintya Bose) competes in a festival of people stacking on top of each other to get the prize hanging above. Elsewhere Nishu (Manish Chauhan) has made it onto the TV and while his raw talent is impressive, his lack of skill lets him down. Both of the boys have a trajectory of where their lives are headed and neither of them is happy with where it is going. All of this changes when a local talent scout and dance studio owner (Jim Sarbh) brings over the cantankerous Saul Aaron (Julian Sands) to coach his students in ballet and he sees something brilliant in the two boys from the slums.       

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Movie Review – Guns Akimbo

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TL;DR – There is a kernel of a good idea here, and there are parts of it where you can see how it could have made a really good film, just maybe not the one we got    

Score – 2.5 out of 5 stars

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

Guns Akimbo. Image Credit: Madman

Review –

When you here that the premise of a film is that someone has bolted guns to Daniel Radcliffe’s hands and let him loose in the world. Well, that congers up a lot of images and expectations, indeed Daniel has been bouncing from one delightfully odd film to the next since his time in/as Harry Potter. At the very least, it is the kind of set up when you know before walking in that it is either going to be amazing or a dumpster fire but not in-between. Well trust me, I am just as surprised as you that I got it very wrong.   

So to set the scene, Miles (Daniel Radcliffe) is your usual loner who lives a less than great life as a code monkey for a soul-sucking corporation. But at night, he finally comes alive as he trolls, well other trolls. One night, however, things take a turn as he discovers ‘Skizm’, which is kind of like Twitch but with murder, indeed we are introduced to the program with Nix (Samara Weaving) annihilating another contestant because two people start and only one comes out alive. Well, Miles starts trolling the chat and eventually gets noticed by the admin Riktor (Ned Dennehy) who smashes down his door, knocks him out, and performs a little surgery. Miles wakes up with a splitting headache … oh and two guns bolted to his hands.

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