Film Review : A Boy and His Dog

Monday, April 12th, 2010

World War IV blasted the surface of the Earth to a barren wasteland across which roving bands of scabby bandits compete for sparse food supplies. Vic (Don Johnson!) is a young man who has teamed up with a telepathic dog to survive - Vic finds food for them both while ...

Film Review : Fantastic Mr. Fox

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

Mr. Fox was a world class chicken thief but gave it all up years ago for a quiet middle-class existence when his child was born. He still yearns for some old-time larceny and naturally jumps at the chance for one last big score. Things do not go entirely to plan ...

The Aliens Rap

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

Following up on the epic 10 minute rap summary of Robocop, the same team has released Aliens: open at youtube.com Watching this reminds me what a great film Aliens turned out to be and how Avatar (by the same director) pales in comparison. It's not that Avatar was terrible but nobody ...

Film Review : Avatar

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010

James Cameron has always been an interesting film maker. Although on one level most of his films could be classified as pulpy genre-related fare, they usually have a more interesting subtext lurking below the explosions. Previous Cameron films have investigated such themes as mother/daughter relationships, humanity's fear of the unknown, ...

The Phantom Menace Was Not a Very Good Movie

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

I own all of the Star Wars DVDs except for one - The Phantom Menace. Even the weakest of the others have a certain charm, but TPM was stupid through and through. Even the title is stupid! I have yet to work out exactly what the titular menace actually was. ...

Film Review : Paper Solder (Bumazhnyy Soldat)

Monday, July 27th, 2009

The New Zealand Film Festival is on at the moment, giving us all the chance to see exciting, stimulating cinema from around the world; and also this film. Paper Solder is a Russian production set in the weeks before the launch of Yuri Gagarin's famous day trip. The story focuses on ...

Film Review : Star Trek

Friday, May 15th, 2009

Once again Hollywood dredges up the corpse of a much-loved TV show to desecrate with a pointless remake that misses the whole point of wha....Hey wait a minute! My brain just typed that automatically. Even now I have trouble gathering my wits to write the truth, so shocking and unbelievable ...

Movie Review : Watchmen

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Watchmen is a difficult movie to categorize. As an adaption of an existing work, it is excellent. The attention to detail is amazing, the cast all fit well with their characters and an impressive amount of the plot is exactly the same. A for effort. As a stand-alone work, Watchmen is ...

Movie Review : Taken

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

A man reluctantly lets his teenage daughter take a trip to Paris. As soon as she arrives she a kidnapped (or taken, if you will) by an evil white slavery ring. Luckily she was on the phone to her father at the time and manages to scream out a description ...

But who will watch the Watchmen?

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008

I have just finished rereading the comic book graphic novel Watchmen. It's a cracking read, filled with Big Ideas and it uses the comic graphic medium to great advantage - telling the story in a way that really wouldn't work in a traditional written novel. The artwork is visually stunning ...

Movies in the New Zelanad iTunes Store

Thursday, August 14th, 2008

Apple has finally gotten its act together and added movies to the New Zealand iTunes store. Most older films are available to both rent and download outright, and the selection seems pretty good if not totally complete. The prices are not too bad either, you can definitely do better but ...

A Tabular Summary of the Rambo Movies

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

I didn't make this, but I thought it interesting enough to steal. For the record, I quite liked the first Rambo film, it is almost a "proper movie" about a man who no longer fits into the society that sent him away to war. Rambo II was a sharp right turn ...

Movie Review : Black Book

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Director Paul Verhoeven is a complicated man, whose interests include violence, sex, robots, dismemberment, breasts, violence, explosions, resurrection imagery, and breasts; a set that broadly mirrors my own. So of course I have been a fan of Verhoeven's films ever since Robocop. Black Book is a WWII resistance movie about a ...

Movie Review : Iron Man

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

In the pantheon of super heros, Iron Man is strictly C-list. Batman and Spider Man are the top of the heap, Superman is boring but gets a pass by being there first. Who else? Possibly Wolverine and the Hulk on a good day. Wonder Woman? Maybe. The Silver Surfer? If ...