After the previous outing turned out to be a disaster, it makes sense that the latest Predator movie plays it safe. This may also be down to a bold premise: taking the franchise to the early 1700s and setting the film amongst the Comanche Nation. It’s a hell of a pitch, and the film goes far on it. The end work is always solid if rarely remarkable. It coasts by on inherent appeal but brings little in addition to this,…
Favorite films
Recent activity
AllPinned reviews
More-
-
Mariner of the Mountains 2021
All external journeys are also internal journeys. This is the beauty of travel cinema, where a visit to a different place is a catalyst for a deep exploration of the self. Mariner of the Mountains is one of these films, to great effect. It is an atmospheric travelogue of filmmaker Karim Aïnouz’s first journey to Algeria, his father’s homeland. Algeria exists in his personal history, a place he was always supposed to go to – a…
Recent reviews
More-
Blow the Man Down 2019
Seemingly derivative, a film one may wish to reduce to Fargo meets Hot Fuzz, but really much more unique than it first appears. This is a solid thriller with a well established sense of place and a lot of character.
Margot Martindale is really brilliant here, truly. She’s the character it revolves around and her, and the other strong turns, raise the film above its plotting. The sense of mystery and a town with secrets is nicely maintained but there’s…
-
Valley Girl 1983
This is an oddity, but not in the way it perhaps should be. It’s a formulaic teen romance made on the cheap; a loose adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. But, it’s also really atypical, with performances and sequences that sit outside of genre expectations.
It feels muddled, the characters don’t make sense and the construction of an opposites attract romance is built on bizarre caricature of both social groups. It feels like it doesn’t understand these people but it does…
Popular reviews
More-
The Tragedy of Macbeth 2021
As an English Literature teacher who has taught Shakespeare’s Macbeth for seven years, my perspective on adaptations will differ to most. While I understand that Joel Coen’s turn is a striking piece of cinema full of good actors saying pretty words, and certainly is cinematic (on a visual level), it is a lukewarm adaptation that is often at odds with the strength of the source material. Coen’s Macbeth feels like what people think Shakespeare is: an arch, arty thing to…
-
The French Dispatch 2021
The Twin Geeks Review
Usually, it's easy to review a Wes Anderson film. Really, it's as simple as employing a flow-chart: do you like Wes Anderson films? If yes, you will like this one, now read on for a breakdown of what flavour of Wes this is; if no, you will not like this movie. This time, it is not so simple. You see, I love Wes Anderson films. I've seen them all and have found things to love in…
