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.
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.
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.
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
Christopher Nolan is a perfectionist, a conductor who insists that every instrument at his disposal is finely calibrated and double-checked. This means his films are always beautiful and reinforced by strong writing, powerful music and breathtaking visuals. His clinical precision could be accused of siphoning the warmth, imperfection and joy out of film, but he does tend […]
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 […]
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.
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
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.
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 […]
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.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
Transformers was essentially a 20 minute advert for the collectible figurines, which went on to become a series of Michael Bay blockbusters. While merchandise is probably the main reason George Lucas gave Star Wars a 3D overhaul. Just when you thought Hollywood had milked the “toy” department dry… Hasbro smashes a mini champagne bottle on Battleship, a popular table top game and now $200 million […]
The most anticipated superhero movie of the year is here! Marvel’s The Avengers has received plenty of hype ahead of its release and the bottom line is that it won’t disappoint… much. This superheroes-on-steroids spectacle manages to do the near-impossible, containing several of the world’s biggest superheroes and Hollywood egos in one literal blockbuster.
If you’ve never survived a plane crash only to be pursued by a pack of bloodthirsty wolves whilst bracing a bitter Alaskan blizzard, tired, afraid and hungry… you need to see The Grey. It may not be as informative as Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls, but it’s fascinating in a White Fang meets Alive kind of way.
The Hunger Games is old hat. We’ve seen our fair share of films involving a group of children, forced to do combat in a confined area in a kill-or-be-killed situation. Suzanne Collins has just commericialised the format made famous by William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, writing a novel that has enough human interest and viral appeal to capture a […]
American Pie followed four young high school students as they tossed their wild oats to the wind in a last ditch effort to enter college without their virginity. The mix of gross out comedy and spirited coming-of-age school nostalgia was infectious, instantly igniting film careers and spurning several sequels with diminishing returns, until American Reunion…