Tag Archives: review

Letterkenny – An Exploration of a Uniquely Canadian Romp

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TL;DR – This is a delightful insight into a part of Canadian life.

Disclosure – I watched these episodes on SBS.

There are 5000 people in Letterkenny. These are their problems.

Letterkenny Review –

As Christmas Day approaches (or if you are outside of Canada, you will get it on Boxing Day), it means that a Canadian institution is drawing to a close. It’s a show I discovered once by seeing a GIF on Imgur about kids falling off bikes, which is an odd entry point into a deeply amusing series. We have explored Letterkenny previously, but before we dived into the final season later this week, I thought it would be an excellent time to examine just what makes Letterkenny work as well as it does.

So to set the scene, welcome to Letterkenny, a town of 5,000 in rural Canada, and these are their problems. In this small town, we have several distinct groups. The Jocks, which given this is Canada, are the Hockey Bros Reilly (Dylan Playfair) and Jonesy (Andrew Herr). Who is into getting Ws, takedowns, snipes, and billet sisters. You have the Skids, led by Stewart (Tyler Johnston) and Roald (Evan Stern), who spend most of their time in their parent’s basement consuming illicit material and playing video games. Then there are the Christians with pastor Glen (Jacob Tierney) and his complicated relationship with who he is, oh and the local Mennonites Noah (Jonathan Torrens) and Anita Dyck (Sarah Wayne Callies). The Natives from the local reservation are led by the infamous and illusive Aunty Tanis (Tiio Horn), who oscillates between an ally and an enemy. But of course, no discussion about Letterkenny can be made without the contribution of The Hicks, Wayne (Jared Keeso), Katy (Michelle Mylett), Daryl (Nathan Dales), Dan (K. Trevor Wilson), and of course, the McMurray’s (Dan Petronijevic & Melanie Scrofano), and Gail (Lisa Codrington) who runs the bar. They are the heart of the town and also, sometimes, its fists.

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The Boys in the Boat – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A perfectly okay film that refuses to integrate any of the themes it proports to be exploring.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

The boys lined up with their oars.

The Boys in the Boat Review –

Today, we look at an interesting biographical film because, at its core, it is more interesting for what it does not do than what it is that we see in the final product. This creates a film that, by all metrics, is perfectly okay from a technical perspective, but the moment you integrate any of the narrative, you find it to have the solidity of balsa wood.  

So to set the scene, it is 1936 in Washington state, at the height of the Great Depression. Joe Rantz (Callum Turner) has spent most of his life sleeping rough but still managed to get into the University of Washington. But when financing becomes tight, he decides to take up an opportunity with the University rowing team because it comes with a room and a small financial compensation. The Washington University rowing team has not won a race in a long time, and coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton) is starting to feel the pressure from above to place or get replaced. But could this new batch of rowers be the best crew he ever taught? And in an Olympic year, no less?

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Jet Lag: The Game: Artic Escape – We Raced From America’s Northernmost to Southernmost Town – Nebula Review

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TL;DR – This is the start of a fantastic time as they race across America.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Nebula service that viewed this series.

The first Flop.

Jet Lag: The Game Review –

One of the joys I have discovered the past year [thank you to my brother for recommending it] is the wonderful Jet Lag: The Game. This is a weird geography game starring Adam Chase, Sam Denby, Ben Doyle & guests. Geography, Maps, Chaos, and Chasing, count me in. Each new season is a different game, and with the new one starting today, well, we thought it would be an excellent time to explore just why this series works as well as it does.

So to set the scene, Jet Lag: The Game is always some sort of geography competition. In this season, the two teams are racing from the most northern town in the United States of America, Utqiagvik, Alaska, to the southernmost, Key West, Florida. The way the game works is that to go anywhere, you have to unlock a mode of transportation by performing challenges. Once a challenge has been completed, it is locked from the other team. Oh, should I add that there is only one ticket out of Utqiagvik today. We will be looking at the episode as a whole from here, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead. 

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Wonka – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A delightful romp through Wonka’s past, full of musical energy and more than a few full-belly laughs.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film.

An overhead shot of dancers making a W out of umbrellas.

Wonka Review –

I am going to be perfectly honest with you from the start, when I heard that there was going to be a prequel based on the back story of Willy Wonka, I could not help but roll my eyes. The constant francisation of the cinema landscape has led to many of these projects that just feel like they are going through the motions rather than having anything interesting to say. However, now that I have seen it, I am glad to say that I was wrong.

So to set the scene, we open as Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in a mysteriously unnamed European City. He has spent the past few years sailing around the globe, finding the best combinations for chocolates, and he is now ready to share them with the work at the famous Galleries Gourmet. But Wonka has a kind view of the world and is not prepared to be crushed by the Chocolate Cartel run by Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Prodnose (Matt Lucas), and Fickelgruber (Mathew Baynton). Nor does he read the small print before taking a room in Scrubbit’s (Olivia Colman) Laundry as recommended by Bleacher (Tom Davis), a less-than-savoury individual. However, just when things are at their lowest is when you can really shine, and his new friend Noodle (Calah Lane) helps him find that.

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Leave the World Behind – Movie Review

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TL;DR – What happens when the world slips away from you but only fragments at a time until you don’t even realise you ran off a ledge?

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service that viewed this film.

An Oil tanker crashes into the beach.

Leave the World Behind Review –

The disaster film is such an intriguing genre, especially when you are not sure what disaster you are in or even if there is one going on. For me, it is not the disasters themselves that bring the core of the work, but how people respond to the crisis. This week, we look at a film that focuses mainly on that, and I found it to be deeply compelling.  

So to set the scene, Amanda Sandford (Julia Roberts) and her husband Clay (Ethan Hawke) have had a long, stressful year, and one morning, as Amanda was up not sleeping, she decided to randomly book the family for a trip away in a hamlet by the beach. The aim is to leave the world behind for a time, and the house absolutely provides all of that. All is going well until an oil tanker crashes into the beach, and the TV and Wi-Fi stops working. Which is when late at night, there is a knock on the door when the purported owners of the house, G.H. Scott (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter Ruth (Myha’la), arrive and decide to stay.   

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The Boy and the Heron (Kimitachi wa Dō Ikiru ka, 君たちはどう生きるか) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A heartbreaking and devastating exploration of grief set to a beautiful backdrop and wacky characters.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Mahito walks through grass.

The Boy and the Heron Review –

When you look at the great animation studios of history, one name does tend to stand out, so much so that we wrote a whole article about The Beauty of Ghibli. For a long time, we thought that there would be no more films because creator Hayao Miyazaki had retired. However, it seems like Miyazaki-san does not like to take it easy, and it means that we get another of his movies, and who am I to disagree?

So to set the scene, Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki/ Luca Padovan) is a young boy during WW2 who is haunted by the day he watched as the hospital with his mother inside burned to the ground. He has not really had a chance to process this when his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura/ Christian Bale) marries his late wife’s younger sister Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura/ Gemma Chan) and moves into her estate in the countryside, where a Grey Heron (Masaki Suda/ Robert Pattinson) pays a particular notice to the new arrival.  

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Silent Night (2023) – Movie Review

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TL;DR – I respect this film for trying something new, even if they don’t actually pull it off.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Silent Night Review –

There are some directors that you have to watch when you hear they are attached to a project, and if you are a fan of action, then you know that John Woo is one to get yourself into a cinema. Add to this is a hook that I have not seen played like this before, and I was intrigued, well, at least I was when I walked in.  

So to set the scene, we open with a man running, hands covered in blood, as tires screech and bullets fly. Two cars are in battle as bullets fly around, and the man is chasing them down. You think he might be succeeding as he flings a metal bar into the window, crashing the car. That is until Playa (Harold Torres) gets out of the crashed car and shoots Brian (Joel Kinnaman) right in the neck. Brian can speak, but that is only the start of his trauma, and he decides that he has to do something about this.

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Bottoms – Movie Review

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TL;DR – It races right up to the line of being a parody without crossing it, a bunch of laughs even if not everything lands.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There are mid-credit scenes.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

PJ and Josie at rock bottom.

Bottoms Review –

After mainly being obliterated, the R-rated teenage comedy has returned in recent years, which means a whole new generation gets to have their EuroTrip moment. But can a more mature comedy focused on teenagers work in this new world? Well, that is the question we are looking at today.

So to set the scene, friends PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) are at the bottom of the social picking ladder at Rockbridge Falls High School. Even more so when they run over the star quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine) a month out from the big game against rivals Huntington High. But when you are on the bottom, there is nowhere else to go but up, and it is in that moment that the girls arrange a fight club. On the surface, it is all about empowering the women of the School, but in reality, it is all about getting laid.  

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The Princess – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An interesting concept, strong action and cast, but one that didn’t have the thematic strength to make it to the end.    

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Disney+ service that viewed this film

The Princess sleeps in her bed.

The Princess Review –

One of the types of films that I like is when a filmmaker takes a familiar concept and then flips it on its head. Think like John Wick, who presented a slasher film in a way that we were rooting for the killer. This week, we look at a movie that is doing a similar thing, in taking the idea of a princess trapped in a castle by an evil lord and changing the narrative of a rescuer coming to save her to her slashing her way out of the place.  

So to set the scene, we open in on a picturesque castle by the coast, and as we come closer, we see a woman on an elegant bed. The only thing to cause concern is that the woman, a princess, is in chains and is trapped in her room. As two henchmen come to check on her, she dislocates her thumb and uses her chains as a weapon as she takes the guards down one at a time. The Princess (Joey King) has been forced to marry Julius (Dominic Cooper) against her will. He did not take the rejection well, capturing the castle and imprisoning the royal family. Now The Princess is at the top of the tallest tower, the escape is at the bottom, and there are a lot of enemy soldiers between her and the exit.

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Finch – Movie Review

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TL;DR – An emotional journal to find safety in a world that has fallen into disaster.     

Rating: 5 out of 5.

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

Disclosure – I paid for the Apple TV+ service that viewed this film.

Finch. Image Credit: AppleTV+.

Finch Review –

One genre I have always found interesting is that of the lone survivor. Why they were left alone could be from them being forgotten, marooned, left behind, well, anything. Fighting against the elements and even time to survive. Indeed, Tom Hanks is famous for playing a similar situation in Cast Away, so you knew it had to be an exciting premise to get him back into this realm.

So to set the scene, in the not-so-distant future, a solar flare wiped away Earth’s ozone layer exposing the globe to a massive surge of radiation and also setting off a global EMP. This baked the planet, killing nearly all the plants, animals, and of course, humans. One of the last people alive is Finch (Tom Hanks), who has survived in St Louis in the basement of the robotics company he worked at. He has one mission, to finish building Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones) an android, so there would be someone to look after Goodyear/Dog (Seamus) after he was gone. Things were going well until a supercell arrived. It will last for over 40 days, 40 days too long. So they all have to make a trip across the country to safety.  

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