Category: Movie Review

Principal Cast : Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam DeVine, Priyanka Chopra, Betty Gilpin, Brandon Scott Jones, Tom Ellis, Jennifer Saunders, Jay Oakerson. Synopsis: A young woman disenchanted with love mysteriously finds herself trapped inside a romantic comedy. ******** I’ve never hidden my general disdain for the romantic comedy subgenre. Generally, I actively avoid watching them, because I find them to be generally inane, filled with cliches and characters as obnoxious as all get out. Most of them follow one of about three archetypal plot arcs involving the boy-meets-girl (or vice versa)…

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Principal Cast : Val Kilmer, Elizabeth Shue, Rade Serbedzija, Valery Nikolaev, Henry Goodman, Alun Armstrong, Michael Byrne, Yevgeni Lazarev, Irina Apeksimova, Lev Prygunov, Charlotte Cornwall, Tommy Flanagan, William Hope. Synopsis:  Simon Templar is a thief for hire, whose latest job to steal the secret process for cold fusion puts him at odds with a traitor bent on toppling the Russian government, as well as the woman who holds its secret. ******** As a functional Mission Impossible clone, Phillip Noyce’s 1997 big-screen adaptation of The Saint, formerly a television series starring…

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Principal Cast : Buster Keaton, Sally O’Neil, Walter James, Budd Fine, Francis McDonald, Mary O’Brien, Tom Wilson, Eddie Broden, Snitz Edwards Synopsis: A love-struck weakling must pretend to be boxer in order to gain respect from the family of the girl he loves. ******** Buster Keaton is rightly renowned as one of silent cinema’s greatest artists; a comedic genius, Keaton’s prowess in front of the camera made him one of Hollywood’s earliest megastars, alongside contemporaries like Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin. Battling Butler, however, is not a great example of…

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Principal Cast : Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garret Hedlund, Pedro Pascal, Adria Arjona, Reynaldo Gallegos, Madeline Wary. Synopsis: Loyalties are tested when five former special forces operatives reunite to steal a drug lord’s fortune, unleashing a chain of unintended consequences. ******** Boasting a pretty hefty cast, a terrific location in which to tell its story, and a solid director behind the camera, the Ben Affleck-starring Triple Frontier ought to have been a lock for one of the better highbrow action films of the year. Ought to have been,…

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Principal Cast : Gene Evans, Andre Morell, John Turner, Leigh Madison, Jack MacGowran, Maurice Kaufmann, Henri Vidon, Leonard Sachs. Synopsis: Marine atomic tests cause changes in the ocean’s ecosystem resulting in dangerous blobs of radiation and the resurrection of a dormant dinosaur that threatens London. ******** An early exponent of the giant-monster movie genre, of which Godzilla and its ilk remain prime examples of, 1959’s The Giant Behemoth is a redundantly titled exercise in atmospheric build up and low-budget payoff, the kind that makes you giggle with how silly it…

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Principal Cast : James Cromwell, Magda Szubanski, Brittany Byrnes, Wade Hayward, Paul Goddard, Zoe Burton, John Erwin, Roscoe Lee Browne, Christine Cavanaugh, Miriam Margolyes, Hugo Weaving, Danny Mann, Miriam Flynn, Russi Taylor, Michael Edward-Steven, Charles Bartlett, Evelyn Krape, Paul Livingston. Synopsis: Babe, a pig raised by sheepdogs, learns to herd sheep with a little help from Farmer Hoggett. ******** If there’s a single film more responsible for turning people vegetarian, I’m yet to find it. Babe, the little Aussie “talking pig” movie, is a sweetly told fairy-tale fantasy from the cutesy…

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Principal Cast : Kirsten Dunst, Carey Elwes, Eddie Izzard, Edward Hermann, Joanna Lumley, Jennifer Tilly, Claudia Harrison, James Laurenson, Ronan Vibert, John C Vennema, Ingrid Lacey, Victor Slezak, Chiara Schoras, Claudie Blakley, Steven Peros. Synopsis: Semi-true story of the Hollywood murder that occurred at a star-studded gathering aboard William Randolph Hearst’s yacht in 1924. ******** If there’s one thing Hollywood loves, its movies about itself. Films about cinema – particularly the early years of Hollywood – are almost always entertaining in some manner, and The Cat’s Meow is no different, despite a…

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