Reviews

This really is a great movie, it's just a shame I didn't get to see it in a cinema, with or without Emergo. It really does suffer from being watched at home without the darkness and the sound system of a cinema.

Vincent Price is wonderful as always, Elisha Cook almost steals every scene he's in, Carol Ohmart and Carolyn Craig are GORGEOUS and also both shine in their roles.

Even the sound, despite being on semi-decent headphones rather than the full-on movie theatre sound system it deserves is wonderfully creepy and atmospheric.

Maybe one day someone will wake up to what's needed here are resurrect Emergo so this can have another run at the cinema!

Yes, the main character is an utter FOOL and one of the stupidest people 'alive', but by Bowie is he perfectly watchable. The movie is hilarious, too!

Seriously, this is the kind of thing that spoof movies like Scary Movie/Not Another Teen Movie/Superhero Movie etc wishes they were. This is the kind of comedy that ALMOST reaches the heights of Zucker Abrams Zucker, and it's a real shame there aren't more like it in that regard. No, not more cookie-cutter clones, more movies that know what they're trying to be and know how to get there without living in the gutter or being too ridiculous. It's a tough balance to strike, but this movie strikes it incredibly well.

"But why male models?" "What is this? A center for ANTS?" "Do as you were trained and KILL THE MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER!" so many memorable quotes, so many hilarious performances, it's just a great laugh-out-loud movie.

Michael J Fox is NEVER disappointing in ANYTHING he makes, and here is no exception. It helps that the rest of the cast are really good in their roles, too, but Fox absolutely shines. As for the rest of the cast, they really are very good, especially Jake Busey. Poor guy does tend to pick more than his fair share of stinkers to work on but here he's great, seeming to really relish his role and milk it for all it's worth.

As for the story, it's really well paced and hides its secrets fairly well from anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Hell, I've seen it before but not for YEARS and even I forgot some of the secrets.

Honestly, while it's not cinematic brilliance or an epic for the ages, it's WELL worth watching.

I think they just tried too hard to switch genres while keeping the same flavour, and it just doesn't quite work. Don't get me wrong, it's not a terrible movie at all, it just doesn't really hit the same. At all.

Like, the cast are great. Both the returning group and the new group are great. Except maybe the doctor/professor/whatever he is Gregory, he was kinda cheesy in a bad way. Almost like he was trying to channel Cary Elwes but only managed Rob Schneider.

I just kinda feel like, maybe the writers rushed it a bit? Like they wanted to capitalise on the success of the first without actually focusing on what made the first one so good?

I don't know, I just kinda really want to know what the other explanation the writer had in mind for how Tree got stuck in the loop in the first movie now, because this one was meh.

Considering that this movie is, on paper at least, just the love child of Scream and Groundhog Day, it's far FAR better than it deserved to be. It's almost like everybody involved knew what they had on their hands, knew what they could do with that, and had fun doing it. Maybe other filmmakers could learn a thing or two from that?

Anyway, yes I went in with SUPER low expectations, considering the premise, and I knew absolutely nobody in it, but dammit I was IMPRESSED! The characters were all well cast, the fact that I knew nobody from anything else meant I had no baggage and could fully buy into the characters they were creating. The writing was fantastic insofar as they knew when to embrace the tropes and run with them and they knew when to subvert the tropes. The score was great and never really outshone anything that was happening, but instead really helped sell the scenes it was used to sell. Oh, and that one scene really brought out the sap in me and had me crying actual emotional tears, but that's probably just me.

One of the most intelligent and refreshing slasher movies I've seen in a LONG time, and I've seen a LOT of slasher movies. Especially lately.

Do yourself a favour and don't skip it.

Hopefully, if they continue to adapt Alten's novels, whoever gets their hands in takes more from the first Meg than from this sequel. Don't get me wrong, the creatures were great - especially the Tyrannosaur and little Protosuchus-looking beasties of the opening scene - and the cast were decent enough (plus it was nice to see them bring back some of the supporting cast from the first one), but it just kinda felt a bit flat? On the note of the returning cast, though, I was a bit saddened to see Suyin disposed of so carelessly...

It was almost like they were trying to make one movie out of two movies worth of plot. Like, I feel like they could have easily made a full movie out of the 'rogue mining operation' plot from the start of the movie, then left us with a cliffhanger leading into the second half. OR maybe make a slightly longer movie with everything from this movie but a bit less squashed in?

If they'd given the movie a little more runtime and room to breathe, it might have even lived up to the 'legacy' of the first, and been just as fun to watch. Sadly, it's a bit of a step down...

Honestly? I had fun watching this. It's not quite the usual Jason Statham movie, which is a good thing because it's nice to be reminded that he CAN be more than Big Dumb Fun Action Hero #3, but it's also not a huge departure as he still gets to do the Statham Scowl and he still gets to be the Action Hero Guy. I do kinda wish I'd been able to go see it at the cinema, but I'm not that financial...

The supporting cast are decent enough, and I really appreciate that the Token Black Guy wasn't the first guy to die. I ALSO thought they did a pretty damn good job on the shark, tbh. Granted, it wasn't particularly true to life for how a Meg would actually look and behave, but it was still pretty true to how most Big Sharks would behave, it was still fast and cunning, and it was still pretty intimidating.

It's also a FAR better shark movie than Black Demon or The Requin, so there's that.

All in all it's probably never going to go down as a classic of cinema history, but it's a lot of fun if you let it be.

A powerful movie in more ways than one, this is just Nolan once again at the top of his game.

The cast are incredible, from Cillian Murphy's titular J. Robert Oppenheimer and Emily Blunt's Kitty Oppenheimer all the way 'down' to David Dastmalchian's William Borden, Gary Oldman's President Truman, and Florence Pugh's Jean Tatlock. Everyone is sublime. Extra praise should perhaps be given to RDJ as Lewis Strauss for showing that he IS still a great actor after seeming to have become so comfortable as Tony Stark in the MCU. It's nice to see that he hasn't become as complacent in his craft as one might be tempted to be after so much work in the MCU.

Praise must also be given, of course, to Nolan's screenplay which stays remarkable close to the reality of how everything went down at the time, only taking small liberties with who said certain lines, and whether or not certain people even said certain lines in reality.

It's a long movie, at 3 hours, but never really quite feels like it's that long because the score and sound design help keep the tension ratcheted at times when what you're watching may not SEEM tense, the editing is masterful, never lingering too long at times when lesser movies would nor cutting away too soon. And then of course we have the usual sort of tricks Nolan employs, though never unreasonably, to help drive home the mental state of the protagonist at certain times. Be it here for Oppenheimer himself, or in Memento, or Inception, or anywhere really. Nolan knows his craft well, knows his tools well, and knows exactly when to employ them and for how long in order to get the most out of his movies.

It may not be something you could easily rewatch, but I cannot recommend highly enough that you at least watch this movie once.

And that's almost a shame. A genuine American take on The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert would be interesting. What we get here, though, is only marginally less interesting than that would have been.

It's a lovely little movie, and it DOES suffer in comparison to Priscilla, mainly because that movie doesn't have its drag queens in drag for the entirety whereas this movie does. It bills itself as a kind of Drag Queen Road Trip movie, but presents its leads as either trans women or cross-dressers - what used to be called transvestites - because the closest we get to seeing any of them out of drag is when Swayze's wig gets snagged off his head.

All that being said, it's still a movie worth watching. Even if just for the chance to see the lead actors - or at least, 2 of the three leads - so convincingly play women. In addition, though, it's worth watching for the rest of the featured cast as well. Stockard Channing is great as usual, Blythe Danner, Beth Grant, Alice Drummond, Chris Penn, Jason London, all play their roles extremely well.

Finally, even though the story is as predictable as a straight line, it's still a joy to watch and shouldn't be dismissed so easily.

Although I don't enjoy this movie as much at 47 as I did at 16, I still love it for the message it tries (and mostly succeeds) to send - standing up for yourself, although daunting, can be all the power you need to live your life.

Lots of kids have imaginary friends, and most of us completely grow out of needing them in our lives as we get older, but some people are anxious enough to benefit from a visit with them as we become adults. Elizabeth Cronin is one such person. When her estranged husband tells her he wants a divorce, followed by her losing her purse when her car is broken into and then the car itself is stolen - all on her lunch break - AND she gets back to her workplace only to get fired, she ends up being escorted back to her childhood home by her overbearing mother. There she unexpectedly reunites with her imaginary friend Drop Dead Fred.

Drop Dead Fred then proceeds to try to help her get her husband back and fix her life, in completely unconventional ways, all while trying to also deal with her overbearing mother.

While not a great movie by any stretch, it's still a worthwhile watch if you can view it through childlike eyes AND realise that it's really just an extended metaphor for the spiral one can find themself in when their life falls apart.

What an incredibly moving story, and what a beautifully-made adaptation!

Despite what others may have you believe, there is nothing about the story itself that kids need to be protected from, it's just that this movie is rather more dark and violent than anyone probably expected from an animated movie that was made in 1978. And it truly is quite dark and violent. However, it's also quite beautiful, powerful, and uplifting, and brilliantly voiced by all involved.

A story probably more timely now than when it was written, it's about a colony of rabbits who are told of a vision that comes to one of their number urging them to leave before Men come through, leaving nothing for the rabbits but death and destruction. We follow them on their journey to a new warren, leaving behind them the darkness promised by Men, struggling against the threat of other rabbits who live in a more regimented warren as well as the violence promised by other enemies - known in Lapine as elil - such as cats, dogs, foxes, raptors, and Men.

That closing sequence, though...that's something that will live with you for quite some time afterwards.

A novel as brilliantly disturbing as this deserves a proper adaptation, and this movie delivers in spades. It's incredibly faithful, and steers as close to the source material as any adaptation ever did, only changing/condensing/ejecting what it genuinely needs to in order to fit into a movie's runtime without being overly long.

The casting is fantastic, the performances believable, the editing great...everything about the movie is a joy to behold, and does the source material a great service by changing so little of it.

Rosamund Pike, particularly, is a revelation here. The way she effortlessly switches between Amy's multiple facets, from sweet and people-pleasing to determined and conniving, and everything in between. Yes, the whole cast are great, but this is truly Rosamund Pike's movie.

A quiet, introspective short about the daily life of a young Palestinian man's struggle to make it through daily life as a refugee in Athens.

Far more is conveyed to us through what isn't said, and what isn't shown directly, than what is seen or told through dialogue. The musical cues, environmental sounds, and quietness of each moment tells us far more than any spoken words could tell us without feeling unwieldy.

Though it's 7 years old at the time of this review, it still feels more relevant then any sensationalised news story, and does a lot more to help humanise the struggle faced by refugees everywhere, not just in Athens and not just of Palestinian descent.

Although it did elicit at least one actual laugh from me, and a number of quiet chuckles, I wouldn't say this short is overly funny though it IS amusing.

It's a cute little short about a family of Israeli settlers whose car breaks down outside a convent of 5 nuns who have taken a vow of silence, inadvertently crashing into the nuns' statue of the Virgin Mary, and the lengths they all go to uphold their religious beliefs (the Sabbath has just taken effect so the father can't operate a telephone, amongst other things, while the nuns have to weigh the responsibility of their vow of silence against the family's need for their help.

Whilst it's not overly memorable, nor is it entirely forgettable as the characters are all well written and well acted.

This show is absolutely incredible. Not a single wasted frame, word, or moment in the whole thing, and not a single weak performance. From the powerhouse performances of the leads all the way down to the 'incidental' characters, every single actor brings their A game to this production.

Kate Winslet is at a career-best as the titular Mare, Julianne Nicholson is brilliant as her best friend Lori, Jean Smart is amazing as her mother Helen, making the central three. Evan Peters as Det. Zabel is his usual fantastic self, Cailie Spaeny as Erin is amazing, Sosie Bacon (Carrie), David Denman (Frank), Angourie Rice (Siobhan), Joe Tippet (John), Jack Mulhern (Dylan)...EVERYBODY is incredible. Everybody.

The story is a powerful one - a young girl is found murdered in a small town where another young girl went missing recently, and the detective who has so far failed to find the missing girl works even harder to find the killer, all while struggling to come to terms with a son who killed himself and a marriage that's fallen apart.

Seriously, do yourselves a favour and watch this NOW if you haven't yet. Don't make the mistake I did and wait longer than you absolutely must.

Hell, it's not even really King's Children of The Corn. It's not terrible though, and is actually better than it deserves to be.

The plot diverts substantially from the original movie AND the story it's based on, adding a lot more around the adults and steering relatively clear of the religious overtones. It also changes the actual story quite a bit, to the point that it's not even really that closely connected to the King story. It's actually more like a fanfic than a remake or reboot. And that's not bad.

The few adults who get a focus are pretty well acted (and I'm always a sucker for a bit of Bruce "The Gyro Captain" Spence), and the featured kids are great - especially Elena Kampouris (Boleyn) and Kate Moyer (who is INCREDIBLY creepy as Eden. Seriously, she has a huge future in acting if she chooses to pursue it) - hell, even He Who Walks Behind The Rows is decently realised! The movie would probably have fared better if they'd given it a different title, to differentiate it from the original movie and King story...

That ending though? Ditch that. That was naff.

Although the series itself may have had some fluctuations in quality, this episode made up for a LOT of that for me.

Granted, it's another episode of a whole lot of not much happening, but what does happen is BIG for the characters that we've come to love so much. Everyone gets their closure, most everyone gets their new start in life and the two who don't get a new start DO get their perfect ending. It really is the perfect quirky, off-kilter, adult-mouthed ending to a series the lived, and died, by being exactly that. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but it was perfectly Doom Patrol.

The final scenes hit me like a truck, though, and I wept the entire time. They really couldn't have POSSIBLY chosen a better way to close out the final episode of the final season of such a brilliantly tilted and foul-mouthed series centred on family and on love.

"It's ok...I made it home."

No, it's not 'new' that the kids TV/movie industry can be toxic and destructive, and anyone who says it IS new is a fool. Anyone who uses that to defend those who contribute to the toxicity, or question why nobody spoke up at the time is being disingenuous at best and is a predator (or potential predator) at worst. "Dan Schneider says it didn't happen that way" of COURSE he said that, of COURSE he's not gonna admit to being disgusting of his own free will!

Nobody said Dan Schneider directly molested any kids. That's not what this documentary series is trying to say, and anyone who says it is trying to say that is a fool. What it IS trying to say, and succeeds in saying, is that he was a garbage human being to anyone he worked with.

Now, granted, the first two episodes do seem to drag on a little with showing how toxic Schneider is to work with and for, but by the same token, if it did less it would be easier to say 'so what? So a couple of people didn't get on with him' but this showed he was controlling rather than just hard to get along with. The man was toxic, controlling and unarguably sexualised children, especially young girls. He's disgusting.

The real power of this documentary, though, is the Brian Peck story. Which, again, NOBODY is trying to blame Schneider for. What Peck did is reprehensible and the fact that he only served 16 months in jail before walking straight back into a job in Children's TV is horrendous and my heart absolutely breaks for what Drake Bell endured. I have incredible respect for Drake, on the other hand, for being able to come forward like he has for this documentary. It takes immense bravery to step up and tell the story of what happened.

It may be widely known that child-stardom is a dangerous thing in a lot of situations, and that child stars are often mistreated at best, and abused at worst, this documentary helps put a tangible face to it all. Rather than just a generic "we know bad stuff happens", it spells out what happens in a lot of cases.

Nickelodeon has a LOT to answer for here. Yes, Brian Peck was the one who committed sexual assault. Yes, Dan Schneider is the one who treated his co-workers terribly and sexualised pre-teen girls. But Nickelodeon are the ones who turned a blind eye to it all as long as the money kept rolling in. Shame, Nickelodeon. Shame, shame, shame.

If it wasn't for the fact that I've got other things to do while I watch this, I'd have switched it off in the first 20 minutes. Even for the genre and for Gordon & Yuzna, this is bad. Really bad. Not even close to 'so bad it's good' like the original, either. The original was fantastic but this one is akin to Disney and their live-action adaptations of their iconic animated movies. It's almost like this one was made purely as a contractual obligation rather than because they actually cared about the material.

Which is a shame, really, because the original IS an iconic piece of movie history. The original is up there with The Room as a testament to what can be done with a terrible script and very little money, as long as you have a passion for what you're doing. This one...is not.

This show is up there with The Last of Us and Arcane as proof that video games CAN be adapted to TV shows successfully, as long as you treat the source material with respect.

I don't know the games well enough to comment on the small details, but from what I do know of them, Jonathan Nolan and co have definitely got the world right. It feels very authentic to the games, capturing the awe every player feels on exiting the vault for the first time, on seeing the destruction of the wider world around the vault, on discovering the various settlements, on encountering the various weirdos around the Wasteland...taking the route of creating a wholly new story within the established world of Fallout was definitely the best creative decision they made here.

The cast are incredible, too. From relative unknowns (to me, at least) like Aaron Moten (Maximus) and Moisés Arias (Norm MacLean), to better-knowns (to me, again) like Zach Cherry (Woody), Leslie Uggams (Betty), Sarita Choudhury (Moldaver), and Ella Purnell (Lucy MacLean), all the way up to the iconic Kyle MacLachlan (Hank MacLean) and Walton Goggins (The Ghoul), everyone is impeccably cast and each plays their role perfectly.

The story itself is REALLY good, with the three distinct journeys - Lucy's, The Ghoul's, and Maximus' - being woven together brilliantly at times while also getting enough room to breathe and build on their own. I can't wait to see what this series has planned for the future. I only wish it was a couple of episodes longer.

Way back when I first saw this on VHS, it still had the "Banned in QLD" sticker on it and I think that was actually what pressed me to rent it. I didn't regret the decision for a moment, nor do I regret finally rewatching it all these years later.

It might not be high art, or as good as some of the 'low budget' indie horror flicks of today, but it's still a LOT of fun to watch, especially with all the practical effects used. The glowstick fluid is especially fun to see used.

It really is a shame that it doesn't have a higher profile, or a bigger fanbase these days, because it really does deserve it It's a masterpiece of the genre and era it came from, and there's a reason Jeffrey Combs is spoken of in the same breaths as Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Doug Bradley, Tony Todd, Barbara Crampton, Heather Langenkamp, Brad Dourif and co.

It may not be considered actually scary these days, but it's still an icon of horror.

Before there was The Asylum, before there was Tommy Wiseau, almost before there was Troma, there was Vestron. I'd actually forgotten Vestron were a thing until I started watching this.

It's a decent enough premise - evil guy runs a magical waxworks, traps locals to enhance his displays, seemingly teleports his mansion around the place to find more victims - and the cast is decent enough for the time - David Warner, Zach Galligan, Dana Ashbrook, Deborah Foreman - but the writing is atrocious, the supporting cast are terrible, and the big fight scene is ridiculous.

Seriously, you should only watch this if you're up for a cringe-laugh. Or because you're a fan of one of the actors.

It may not set any new standards, or do anything drastically different from others like it, but it DOES have Dan Radcliffe and Adam Driver playing brothers, and that's enough for me. The fact that it also has Zoe Kazan, Rafe Spall, and Mackenzie Davis is just icing.

While it is 'just another young-adult rom-com', it's the interactions and chemistry between all the cast that sets it apart from most. Daniel Radcliffe & Adam Driver are perfect as brothers - and in fact it's a crime it hasn't happened before or since, Adam & Mackenzie Davis play well off each other and share the same kind of loud chaotic and excited energy as each other, and Dan & Zoe Kazan have some great low-key-nerdy and awkward chemistry that all together just lift this movie above its peers.

If all you know of George Miller is his Mad Max movies, this is nothing of what you'd expect from him. If, however, you know his wider work, it's very much what you might expect from him.

It's a beautiful, vibrant, determined and considered tale of loves and lives, jealousy and anger, desperation and dedication over centuries of existence.

Tilda Swinton is her typically wonderful, understated self in the role of Alithea, a writer of truths and mythologies who has a chance discovery with a delicate glass bottle that later reveals itself to be the home of a Djinn, beautifully played by Idris Elba, who tells her 3 tales of his past.

I barely remember Smile, but 20 Minutes With Cassandra is excellent. And not just because I'm low-key crushing HARD on Samantha Sloyan. Ruth Codd is great in this as the titular Cassandra, too, as is Franckie Francois as the ray-of-sunshine pizza delivery guy Okwe. But the real stars are Sam Sloyan as Lorna, and Carey Jones as The Monster.

It's a pretty standard, kinda predictable premise, but where they take it is, at least for me, somewhere very new. I'm already a confirmed Mike Flanagan fan, but it's looking like Jamie might be almost as good a storyteller as Mike.

Then there's Smile. And yeah, I barely remember it tbh.