MOVIES
IF YOU CAN FIND A PATTERN HERE YOU'RE A BETTER MAN OR WOMAN THAN ME HORATIO!
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Sinners the Movie: But What About the White Guy?
CAREFUL: SOME MINOR SPOILERS I already knew before I started watching Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” that there was a vampire in there somewhere and if the word vampire even appears in passing, I’m in, both feet, and up to my neck – if you’ll pardon the pun. My first tingle of connection with the legendary blood suckers was when in my pre-teens I discovered a road near to my then home was named after Sheridan LeFanu, writer of the vampire novel “Carmilla”, which predates Stoker’s Dracula (another Irishman). The road led down a steep hill to the little village of Chapelizod, where LeFanu lived for a time and even set some of his stories. I’m fairly certain I wasn’t aware at that stage that Carmilla was the first depiction of a lesbian vampire in modern western fiction,…
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INCEPTION
IN A SENTENCE: A mind-bending intelligent sci-fi thriller that keeps you on your toes from the first scene to the last.
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XMEN – APOCALYPSE
IN A SENTENCE: The re-emerging Xmen must do battle with an all-powerful mutant to save the world and themselves (and the franchise of course).
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SOLACE
This movie is most memorable for me because it once again allows Colin Farrell demonstrate the fact that he can hold the screen no matter whom he shares it with. Anthony Hopkins is a dab hand at stealing the screen (okay maybe not in Van Helsing) but Farrell makes sure that doesn't happen in Solace.
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PAY THE GHOST
There's nothing new here - a couple, a kid, a ghost, an unbelieving cop, a broken relationship, a psychic (shades of poltergeist) and a lot of over-acting.
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HIDDEN
This is a story about a husband and wife who are trapped in a fallout shelter with their 7-year-old daughter for a prolonged period following a major disaster. That doesn't sound riveting I admit, but if you were to judge the movie on that basic premise you'd be wrong.
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THE BLING RING
I'll keep this short because the movie The Bling Ring has stolen enough of my life and I don't want to contribute any more precious time to it than I absolutely have to. Based on a true story usually means there's enough substance to keep you interested but in this case even that failed. The story follows a number of spoiled Hollywood brats who discover that Hollywood celebrities are quite a dull crowd and can't even lock their doors when they're away, never mind have a house alarm installed (Orlando Bloom being the exception but he is a Brit after all).
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MOVIE SEASON
I’m of a vintage that makes me old enough to remember a time when one of the most exciting things about Christmas was the fact that almost every channel (there were 4) had a Big Movie – around two years old – premiering on either Christmas Day or New Years Day. That would be a real event because obviously if you weren’t parked in front of your TV when the movie started then you were going to miss it; VCRs didn’t always exist you know and DVRs weren’t even a twitch in some techies brain. Add that to the perennials like Miracle on 34th Street, Wizard of Oz and A Wonderful Life and you begin to realise the 12 days of Christmas meant a movie a day (and no school). The current equivalent of that cultural…
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MOVIE REVIEW: THE HOST
"What the heck", I said to myself, "why not review both the novel The Host by Stephenie Meyer and the subsequent movie of the same name?" "Why the heck not?" exclaimed the little voice in my head, but something deep beneath the surface of my tiny mind kept screaming out a warning.
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THE HOBBIT
As a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings movies and an avid reader of the books of JRR Tolkien I had a bunch of mixed emotions tying tiny knots in my stomach when I sat down to watch the DVD of The Hobbit. For a myriad of reasons I missed the movie when it was in the cinema and held off watching the DVD version for as long as I could in fear of being disappointed. In the end I wasn't seriously disappointed but I was a little underwhelmed.
