Month: March 2017

Movie Review: EINSTEIN’S GOD MODEL – decent premise, but the story is far too big for the limitations of its low budget

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie Reviews2 Comments

Confession time: I’m an agnostic skeptic.  A perennial fence sitting, no-side choosing unbeliever.  It pertains to science as well as religion.  I’m squarely on the side of empirical data.  If you can’t show me something that exists, all your anecdotal, mathematical models, and theories of the mechanics of the universe isn’t going to sway me.  But I’m conflicted because I LOVE all that stuff.  I love quantum physics, I love the supernatural, and I can because I’m no “expert” in either of them-  meaning, I can enjoy the concepts and mentally consign them to the sci-fi and horror realms I enjoy without having to invest any “faith”.  Einstein’s God Model, a low budget sci fi feature written and directed by Philip T. Johnson, attempts to tell a story combining theoretical physics and the afterlife – how could I not be drawn to it?

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Movie Review: XX – selling itself on the gender of the moviemakers, this horror anthology barely rises above mediocre

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Horror anthology movies go back decades.  It’s true, kids!  Further back in time than the V/H/S franchise, there was Tales From The Darkside The Movie, a little while before then, Creepshow – a decade before that Amicus played around with Tales From The Crypt, and The House That Dripped Blood.  The format has been around for a long time, and has its origins in the famous EC Comics of the 1950s.  It’s likely to be with us for some time too, but the stories have evolved over the years.  I just finished watching one of the latest such movies, XX – billed with the header “Four Deadly Tales By Four Killer Women”.  What’s this, a feminist horror anthology?

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Movie Review: KONG: SKULL ISLAND – mostly enjoyable franchise reboot, but lack of strong characters don’t do the fantastic visuals any favours

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I don’t know exactly how old I was when I saw the original King Kong, but I couldn’t have been any older than five.  I recall with reasonable vividness sitting in front of our black and white TV in the Springburn neighbourhood of Glasgow, Scotland, absolutely enthralled by the sheer spectacle, the charm, of the 1933 production that heralded a new era of moviemaking.  There is likely nobody in the western world who doesn’t know King Kong – even if they have never seen the original, Kong exists among the pantheon of famous movie monsters, along with Godzilla, Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhees, Frankenstein, and Dracula, to name a few.  Kong has a place in our hearts because he reminds us as ourselves.  Possessed of a humanistic sense of justice and primal strength, Kong represents us – stripped of the daily bullshit and phoniness that we all succumb to, Kong is us laid bare, and mostly shat on by the kind of assholes we have to deal with now and then.  Too high and mighty an opinion for you?  Not a problem – Kong also works as a spectacle monster movie, even when the scripts are no good, the nature of the beast guarantees battles between colossal creatures to feed the eyes.

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Movie Review: LIFE AFTER BETH – good performances from Dane DeHaan and Aubrey Plaza keep this low key zombie comedy from flatlining.

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie Reviews6 Comments

 

I finally got around to watching Life After Beth ,a zombie “comedy” starring Dane DeHaan (Chronicle, A Cure For Wellness), and Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza.  The movie, written and directed by Jeff Baena concerns the return from the dead of Beth, Zach’s girlfriend, and the gradual deterioration of things both inside and outside both character’s families.  Doesn’t sound like a comedy, right?

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Movie Review: KUBO AND THE TWO STRINGS – beautiful animated feature with great voicework and an ending that satisfies.

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My negative comments about the animated Batman: The Killing Joke and Justice League Dark were definitely affected by my lack of love for animation, but mostly because the animation was ugly, and the stories weak.  My comments on the animated stories within A Monster Calls were positively glowing, so I guess it isn’t animation overall I don’t get into, though that’s my biggest complaint.  Another complaint is that I don’t feel that animated stuff is much more than fanservice once it goes beyond the child demographic.

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