-
movie review
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Life of Pi
19 Dec 2012 by SPLING / 2 Comments
Life of Pi is a breathtaking adventure drama from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon director Ang Lee. Based on the book by Yann Martel, this beautiful film tells the story of Pi Patel, a young Indian boy whose survival at sea forms the basis for a spiritual journey of epic proportions.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey
12 Dec 2012 by SPLING / 2 Comments
Bloemfontein born author, J.R.R. Tolkien, would have been very proud of Peter Jackson if he was still with us today. The Lord of the Rings trilogy, undoubtedly the greatest trilogy of all-time, has a special place in most people’s hearts and movie collections and is the new standard by which all fantasy adventures will be […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Looper
05 Dec 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Where will you be in 30 years? More importantly, who will you be and would you really like the you you’ve become? Before we get too ahead of ourselves, that is essentially what’s at play in Looper, a new sci-fi actioner starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, from the mind of writer-director, Rian Johnson (The Brothers Bloom).
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Skyfall
28 Nov 2012 by SPLING / 4 Comments
Skyfall is the third James Bond film starring Daniel Craig, an actor who has successfully managed to keep himself detached from his Bond status in Hollywood. This can be attributed to his mission, which has seen him play 007 in every anti-Bond formula film since Casino Royale.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Jeff, Who Lives at Home
21 Nov 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a slacker comedy with a difference. Our hero is on a journey, the kind that we sometimes mistake for everyday life, in which he lets his destiny simply unfold as a series of interconnected signs, after his mom tells him to get something from the shop.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Cold Light of Day
14 Nov 2012 by SPLING / 2 Comments
The Cold Light of Day is as inane as its title. It’s cold – thanks to a wishy-washy script and wooden performances; it’s light on intrigue and intelligence – two pillars of great espionage films; and ironically most of the action sequences happen at night.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Cloud Atlas
07 Nov 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
The Wachowski Bros. brought us The Matrix, a film that redefined action sequences and challenged audiences to wrap their minds around a nightmarish vision of the future, now. The sci-fi actioner was revolutionary and set in motion a multi-million dollar franchise and a trilogy with diminishing returns.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Campaign
31 Oct 2012 by SPLING / 1 Comment
Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis and U.S. politics… one thing’s for certain, The Campaign couldn’t have come at a better time with all the political sentiment surrounding the next U.S. Presidential Elections and the Obama vs. Romney showdown.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Copposites
24 Oct 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Copposites is a body swap crime comedy from I Now Pronounce You Black and White writer-director Oliver Rodger. It’s refreshing to see a high concept comedy from South Africa, starring local comedians Rob Van Vuuren and Siv Ngesi, with support from Nik Rabinowitz, Alfred Ntombela and Loyiso Gola. Sadly, this stellar comedy line-up is wasted […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Ruby Sparks
17 Oct 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
The girl of your dreams usually stays there, but what if she didn’t? What if she lived in your mind and in your house? Describing Ruby Sparks as a high concept fantasy “romcom” is an insult to the film. It’s so much more… sidestepping the temptation to distort her physical attributes, they’ve written the story […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: How I Spent My Summer Vacation
10 Oct 2012 by SPLING / 2 Comments
How I Spent My Summer Vacation, originally Get the Gringo, stars Mel Gibson in what has been described as an unofficial sequel to Payback. Love or hate the man, he’s still got loads of moxie and star power. He may be a washed up celebrity in real-life, but Gibson’s still a live-wire on screen and […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Casting Me…
03 Oct 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Casting Me… is a character-driven semi-biographical indie comedy romance inspired by Clerks. Instead of Kevin Smith, we have Quinton Lavery, whose real-life antics as a casting director have spilled over into film as we journey with the man on his quest to write and direct a film after hours and win back his sweetheart.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Dredd 3D
26 Sep 2012 by SPLING / 2 Comments
Hollywood has run out of ideas, which is why they’re starting to reboot projects that failed to reach their full potential… like Sylvester Stallone’s Judge Dredd. The idea of seeing a second attempt at this comic book hero, wrapped in a 3D bow and sporting a relatively unknown cast was about as appealing as snorting […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Flowers of War
19 Sep 2012 by SPLING / 4 Comments
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II describes events leading up the 1937-1938 Nanking Massacre with an account of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army. The controversial book was one of the first to introduce the massacre to the world in the English-language and inspired Geling Yan to write […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Dark Tide
05 Sep 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Dark Tide is a shark thriller starring Halle Berry and directed by Blue Crush and Into The Blue director, John Stockwell. The film is set in Simon’s Town, South Africa, which lends it some Proudly South African flavour with its setting, film crew and local acting talent. Although, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Total Recall
29 Aug 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
It’s difficult getting the balance right when you approach a remake. You need to offer the audience enough nostalgic hooks, entertainment value and enough reinterpretation to justify recycling a movie title. Unfortunately, the new Total Recall doesn’t work as a tribute, only sells eye candy and delivers a patchwork refresh to a superior film that […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Ted
22 Aug 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
This story of a talking toy and a boy is very Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin, but Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane has taken it a step further, going beyond the innocence of childhood and delivering a down-and-dirty modern twist in his feature film directorial debut, Ted.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
15 Aug 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th U.S. President, who in his several years in office, led America through the Civil War, maintained the Union and ended slavery before he was assassinated in 1865. The great man has been immortalised, which explains why Steven Spielberg is releasing Lincoln, a biography starring Daniel Day-Lewis, and Seth Grahame-Smith’s fantasy horror novel Abraham […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: A Million Colours
08 Aug 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
A Million Colours is based on the true story of two best friends, who fought the system that tried to separate them, after they shot to fame in 1975 with the release of the South African film e’Lollipop. Muntu Ndebele and Norman Knox didn’t see life in black or white, at a time when the […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Woman in Black
18 Jul 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Daniel Radcliffe stars in The Woman in Black, his follow-up to the beloved Harry Potter series, which shaped his career. Now the young British actor has the challenge of overcoming Harry Potter in the same way that Sean Connery had to shake his James Bond persona. To start the disassociation, Radcliffe has chosen The Woman in Black, an adaptation of Susan Hill’s popular […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man
11 Jul 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Whatever your reservations about the new Spider-Man remake, The Amazing Spider-Man delivers the goods. Sam Raimi’s version set the standard with Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker in a slick CGI action fest for comic book fans. Marc Webb takes the same formula and reinterprets the story for a more psychological, dramatic take on Parker and his demons.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Rock of Ages
04 Jul 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
If you always wanted to be a rock star when you grew up, Rock of Ages is your movie. Just like Guitar Hero gave disenchanted closet rock stars the ability to play guitar like a rock god
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Dictator
27 Jun 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Sacha Baron Cohen has just given birth to General Aladeen, another outrageous personality in his latest character comedy, The Dictator. The British comedian continues to export his brand of risque, politically incorrect, fish-out-water comedy to the Americas, continuing the legacy of Ali G, Borat and Bruno.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Mad Buddies
20 Jun 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Mad Buddies is a return to conventional storytelling for Leon Schuster, whose box office achievements have been limited to South Africa with over-the-top local characters like Mr. Bones and Mama Jack. While these films have been runaway commercial hits, they haven’t managed to mimic the international appeal of The Gods Must Be Crazy. The madcap toilet humour, slapstick comedy and […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Prometheus
13 Jun 2012 by SPLING / 5 Comments
Ridley Scott’s long-awaited science-fiction film Prometheus has crash-landed. Prometheus was initially intended as a direct prequel to Alien, but has been set apart as a stand-alone work within the Alien universe. This sudden change in direction suggests that there may have been some serious problems during filming, something that Scott may have done in an attempt to salvage Prometheus and its crew from the fire.
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Men in Black 3
06 Jun 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
A decade seems to have been enough time for Men in Black and Men in Black II to have blended into a distant yet somewhat positive bubble of aliens, memory erasing agents and cartoon style action-comedy with Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones. Well… it may not have been heralded, but like it or not Men in Black 3 is back with […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Snow White and The Huntsman
30 May 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Snow White & The Huntsman is a beautiful magpie and revision of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. While it may sound like a pretentious new wall paint, you won’t feel like you’re watching it dry. Recent Snow White adaptation Mirror Mirror is a pantomime compared with Snow White & The Huntsman, which spins an intensely dark, mature and captivating […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: The Rum Diary
23 May 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
I hate it when a movie trailer turns out to be a 2 minute highlights reel. The Rum Diary is one such movie that promises a Dagwood and serves up a crouton. On paper, The Rum Diary should have been all that and more, reuniting the legendary actor-writer team behind Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Johnny Depp and Hunter […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Wuthering Heights
16 May 2012 by SPLING / No Comments
Wuthering Heights… the title demands a sigh and conjures up women fainting and swooning on mountain tops. Emily Bronte wrote the book with the protagonist of Heathcliff modeled on her brother, Branwell, which would suggest she had incestuous tendencies. It’s difficult to blame the girl, who lost her mother as a toddler, dreamed of imaginary […]
-
SPL!NG Movie Review: Shame (2011)
09 May 2012 by SPLING / 2 Comments
Steve McQueen is a fine artist turned film director, who shares the name of the more famous action man and Hollywood icon – yet they are distinctly different. McQueen’s latest offering is another dark drama in the wake of Hunger and gives his audience a voyeuristic glance into the world of a man living with a sexual addiction aggravated by a painful past. Ag, Shame.
-
-
-
2oceansvibe Partners
-
-
