Warcraft (also known as Warcraft: The Beginning) is a gorgeous fantasy production on a grand scale with a narrative that never quite lives up to its visual spectacle and epic action. Directed and co-written by Duncan Jones, and based on the fantasy video game series of the same name by Blizzard Entertainment, Warcraft is set […]
The assumption about wuxia movies is that they are all about exciting action and fantastic costumes and set design. The 2015 Chinese movie The Assassin offers something different – tedium. In the 8th century, provinces in China are breaking away from the authority of the Emperor. Yinniang (Shu Qi) is a noble woman who has […]
Despite receiving mixed reviews and being a mostly forgettable fantasy movie, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was a financial success, making over $1 billion Worldwide. With numbers like that it is easy to see why Disney would want to make a sequel and after six years it has come in the form of Alice Through […]
The Club tackles weighty themes and difficult questions, but robs a potentially powerful story out of any sense of drama, intrigue, tension or emotional investment. Directed by Pablo Larrain, The Club is a 2015 Chilean drama that centers around a group of former priests that live in a secluded house in a small town. The house is […]
Have you ever had those nostalgic moments and pulled out some of your favourite films from the past? After watching them for awhile, you realise that they contain more mature themes than you remembered? This has happened to me multiple times when trying to share films with others from the 80’s. Some are more subtle […]
1971’s A Touch of Zen is regarded as one of the most important movies in the wuxia genre – being a major influence on the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers and Hero. It has been resorted by the Taiwan Film Institute and the Taiwanese Ministry of Culture and re-released as […]
John le Carré is known as the master of the spy novel, a man who worked for British Intelligence in the 50s and 60s so known for realism, complex plots and characterization. Many of his novels have been adapted into successful movies and TV shows like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker […]
There’s a powerful, moving story at the heart of Battle for Sevastopol. That, and being a beautiful production that almost enough to make up for its narrative and dramatic shortcomings. Battle for Sevastopol is a biographical film about Lyudmila Pavlichenko (Yulia Peresild), a young woman that joined the Red Army during World War II and […]
X-Men: Apocalypse is a colossal misfire for the venerable comic book movie franchise. The ensemble cast and potentially interesting story are drowned out by clunky writing and hollow, overblown action setpieces. Ten years after the events of Days of Future Past, the world is slowly starting to adapt to the existence of mutants. Charles Xavier […]
Money Monster is a new film directed by Jodie Foster starring Julia Roberts and George Clooney focusing on the collapse of the stock market and what lengths of desperation that it drove the general public to. Money Monster begins as a satire, but it devolves in a sentimental “root for the everyman” thriller without a […]
