In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Lucasfilm head Kathleen Kennedy noted that the company had learned valuable lessons from their failed live-action Star Wars film Solo. The problem is that the company appears to have learned the wrong lessons. … Continue reading TV REVIEW: Obi-Wan Kenobi 1.01
How many times can audiences tolerate another rock biopic? They are cut from as formulaic a cloth as popular cinema can provide: the humble beginnings, the prodigy talent, the rise to fame, and the crash spurred on by drugs and … Continue reading REVIEW: Rocketman (2019)
This week Loren Bouchard’s Bob’s Burgers follows in the footsteps of fellow animated comedies South Park and The Simpsons with its own theatrically released feature spin-off. As with those films (released in 1999 and 2007 respectively) the central question remains the same: what is the … Continue reading REVIEW: The Bob’s Burgers Movie (2022)
One of the longest-running film series in the world was Daiei Studios’ Zatoichi. They starred Shintaro Katsu as the titular blind samurai-turned-masseuse, and ran for 26 feature films and 100 episodes on television. It has been revived and adapted since – even … Continue reading REVIEW: The Tale of Zatoichi (1962)
Comic book adaptation Ghost Rider (2007) was one of the last pre-Iron Man superhero movies, taking a second-string Marvel character and casting world famous comic book geek Nicolas Cage in the role. It was directed by Mark Steven Johnson, whose 2003 Marvel adaptation Daredevil had … Continue reading REVIEW: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2011)
Children are fodder for some of the best horror cinema ever made. The genre thrives on making the ordinary unfamiliar, after all, and what could be more normal than your own children? They are expressed as innocent and vulnerable across … Continue reading REVIEW: The Innocents (2021)
It seems fitting that Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick was delayed by a bewildering three years since it completed shooting. It finally reaches cinemas around the world this week, set back first by an extended post-production and then by the … Continue reading REVIEW: Top Gun: Maverick (2022)
“Strange New Worlds” I really do not like prequels. Anyone that has followed my film writing over the past decade or two will no doubt be aware of this, but it bears repeating. Nothing of dramatic worth comes from a … Continue reading TV REVIEW: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 1.01
That’s Entertainment! is a rather strange movie franchise: one that prefigured audience demand slightly ahead of time, and then prefigured newer demands all over again almost two decades later. The original 1974 film comprised a series of MGM musical numbers, all … Continue reading REVIEW: That’s Entertainment! III (1994)
“Gods and Monsters” Against all odds, Moon Knight’s finale managed to pull together all of its flailing disparate story threads into some form of conclusion. I honestly had my doubts, given just how wildly anarchic the preceding five episodes have … Continue reading TV REVIEW: Moon Knight 1.06
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