Anomalisa is a Charlie Kaufman… it’s probably time we gave him a thing. You know, “a Spike Lee Joint”. How about “a Charlie Kaufman pearl”? The screenwriter has brought us many art house pearls: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Synedoche, New York. Every time he […]

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Gods of Egypt is a fantasy adventure from the mind of Alex Proyas. The Egyptian-born director has built a cult sci-fi empire, having directed such films as: Dark City, The Crow, Knowing and I, Robot. The story follows a thief as he joins forces with a mythical god on a quest across Egypt. Unfortunately, while the […]

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Hail, Caesar! is an oxymoronic post card from the Coen brothers. On the one hand, it’s a light-hearted, madcap, send-up of the Golden era Hollywood of the ’50s. Then on the other hand… or wing, it’s also a comic behind-the-curtain examination of studio politics as Capitalist America tried to subvert any hint of Communist ideology […]

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Deadpool, “the merc with a mouth”, is a comic book character from Marvel who featured in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds has played a number of superhero characters, but seemed like the only choice for the immoral, over-the-top and juvenile, Deadpool. This is his origins film, an action adventure comedy and sci-fi thriller that could […]

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Spotlight is a biographical and historical drama turned thriller about the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight”, a team of investigative reporters who tackled alleged child abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston, exposing a religious, legal and governmental scandal that send shock waves across the world in early 2002. The Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage opened the issue of sexual […]

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The Hateful Eight is a Quentin Tarantino film, which has drawn inspiration from The Thing and Reservoir Dogs. The crime drama mystery western is set more than a decade after the Civil War and follows a stagecoach, as a bounty hunter and his passengers find shelter in a cabin inhabited by some mysterious strangers.

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The Revenant is a gritty survival adventure masquerading as a grim western, which while brutal remains beautiful and spirited. We follow the tale of a frontiersman, whose desire for revenge gives him the strength he needs to carry on after being mauled by a bear and being left for dead by his hunting party in […]

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The Big Short is a film that follows four men, who predicted the impending economic collapse of the U.S. mortgage bond market in the mid-2000s. While director Adam McKay is best known for Anchorman and his affiliation with Will Ferrell, this biographical drama is mostly infotaining, only funny in a tragic kind of way and […]

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Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the long-awaited sequel that re-ignites the Star Wars Universe with a seventh episode. After a successful Star Trek reboot, Spielberg-in-the-making J.J. Abrams was entrusted to deliver a film that picks up the story decades after the original trilogy, now existing within the Disney empire under the banner of recent acquisition, […]

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The Gift is an elegant and unconventional mystery drama thriller that will surprise you. This is a fine production from the mind of Joel Edgerton, who writes, directs and stars. The story follows a married couple, who are forced to unearth dark secrets when they confront an old acquaintance, after relocating to a new city […]

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Ocean Driven: The Chris Bertish Story is an inspiring surf documentary about self-belief, will power and the human spirit. Describing himself as a Waterman, Bertish has been instrumental in getting the film finished over the last 4 years, another achievement in itself, in addition to writing Stoked!, an inspiring story about courage, determination and the power […]

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James Bond used to be about cheesy one-liners, full-blown chauvinism, ridiculous spy gadgets and over-the-top espionage action adventure. The franchise was overhauled with Casino Royale, going for a tougher blonde Bond and a deconstruction of 007 as we know it. Daniel Craig has been the poster boy for this modernisation and while it’s become more […]

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Maggie isn’t a traditional zombie movie… it’s more of an art house zombie drama. There are no car chases across a post-apocalyptic America of zombie hordes and for the most part, everything takes place in one location. The pacing is slow, the style is understated to a fault, the focus is on drama and it […]

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A Walk in the Woods is just like its movie title: breezy and understated. That’s the inherent charm of this adaptation of Bill Bryson’s novel, it’s an easy-going and amusing adventure drama that ambles along, never straying too far from the path. The path is the Appalachian trail, a 2000 mile hike and six month […]

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Bridge of Spies is a biographical and historical drama thriller starring Tom Hanks and directed by Steven Spielberg. By now, you’ll already know if this film is for you, heralding two of the biggest and best names in Hollywood… ever.

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The Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, are two of the most notorious gangsters in history. The English crime bosses operated in the Lower East End of London in the ’50s and ’60s and were involved in armed robberies, racketeering, arson, assaults and murder. It’s surprising that in an age where Guy Ritchie Brit gangster […]

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A woman is raped every 26 seconds in South Africa. That statistic doesn’t carry enough weight… even if you get Charlize Theron to follow it up with “Real Men Don’t Rape”. This isn’t surprising when you consider we’re living in a culture, where sexual harassment and coercion are viewed as normal male behaviour. In South […]

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Black Mass is the true crime story of James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger, Jr., a notorious American criminal, who haunted the world’s most wanted list for years. The violent South Bostonian crime boss, and brother to a state senator, became an FBI informant to crack down on the Mafia family, whose operations were getting in the […]

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Necktie Youth is a black-and-white drama with a documentary feel that attempts to capture the Zeitgeist of South African youth culture. We’re thrown into an experimental haze of young, affluent and disillusioned South Africans, whose journeys intersect with the deeply affecting live-stream suicide of a local Jo’burg girl.

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The Martian is a Ridley Scott film. While the director is best known for Alien, and less so for Prometheus, he’s gone for a much more scientific space film, undertaking the adaptation of Andy Weir’s novel. It’s been accurately described as “Apollo 13 meets Cast Away” as the realism of the NASA lunar misadventure is coupled […]

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Rolling Stone magazine is a pop culture institution, which has sculpted the landscape of American media since its inception in 1967. Through the ages, from Hunter S. Thompson’s political reporting to becoming a cultural loudspeaker for youth-orientated lifestyle, getting the Annie Leibovitz treatment and gracing the cover with an interview story has been the stamp […]

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South Africa is home to many prime surf spots including: Long Beach, Dungeons, Dunes, Cape St. Francis, Eland’s Bay, Jeffrey’s Bay, Nahoon Reef, Wild Coast, Muizenberg and South Africa’s surfing capital, Durban. It’s birthed a growing number of surfing movies including: Otelo Burning, Blue Crush 2, The Perfect Wave, Ocean Driven and now Die Pro.

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Dark Places is a movie with a personal slant for lead actress, Charlize Theron, who witnessed her mother kill her father in self-defense after he arrived home drunk in 1991. Gillian Flynn’s novel has been adapted to film by Gilles Paquet-Brenner, after David Fincher did the same for Gone Girl. Instead of a married couple, […]

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Hitman: Agent 47 is a video game adaptation from up-and-coming director, Aleksander Bach. While explosive and visually stimulating, this action thriller starts with great promise and then becomes increasingly dull as we try to connect with stilted performances and insubstantial characters.

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Impunity (Freedom from Punishment) is a South African outlaw romance thriller based on a story by Trish Malone and adapted to film by director Jyoti Mistry. We trace the exploits of a love-struck, ultra-violent, on-the-run couple, who are connected to the murder of a politician’s daughter, as Impunity tries to get by on titillation and experimental style.

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The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is now a Guy Ritchie film adaptation of the cult TV series of the same name, which ran from 1964 to 1968. Ian Fleming contributed to the show’s concept by suggesting a TV-friendly version of James Bond, which became Napoleon Solo. While Solo was intended to be the main focus, Illya Kuryakin’s […]

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Fantastic Four was a film with serious potential featuring:Chronicle’s exciting director, Josh Trank, accomplished screenwriters including X-Men’s Simon Kinsberg and an up-and-coming cast with Whiplash’s Miles Teller, Fruitvale Station’s Michael B. Jordan, it-girl Kate Mara, Toby “Koba” Kebbell and even that kid from Billy Elliot. When stars collide… it’s either a magical union or a black hole.

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The classic sci-fi adventure, The Incredible Shrinking Man, wowed audiences in 1957 for its cutting edge blend of otherworldly proportions. Now more than 50 years later, we’re getting another little-big sci-fi adventure with a hero named Scott, which is just as spectacular and entertaining.

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Thina Sobabili translated as The Two of Us is a brave, gut-wrenching and realistic drama about the exploits of a brother and sister in the Alexandra township of Johannesburg, South Africa. We’re introduced to Thulani and his sister Zanele, who become the focus of this shoestring budget production, which was self-funded and shot in the space of a […]

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Ex Machina is a sci-fi thriller and drama from Dredd, Sunshine and 28 Days Later… screenwriter Alex Garland, whose directorial debut is eerie, beautiful, sparse and thought-provoking. It’s a wonderful piece of science fiction, delving into the arena of artificial intelligence with unsettling, provocative drama and keeping an air of suspense with mysterious motives and […]

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