Ethel & Ernest

Posted 1:09pm Sunday 17th September 2017

Rating: 4.5/5 What a nice film. Ethel & Ernest is an animated film based on a book by Raymond Briggs, the author of a number of beloved ‘80s and '90s children’s picture books, about the lives of his parents, milkman dad Ernest and lady’s-maid mum Ethel, voiced superbly Read more...

The Haunting

Posted 2:09pm Sunday 3rd September 2017

Rating: 3/5 This is an… interesting movie. A late ‘90s entry in the Haunted House genre, it is imprinted in my memory because I vividly recall as a kid being torn between wanting to see it and thinking that it was going to be terrifying. More specifically, I remember making it as far Read more...

Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction (1997-2002)

Posted 1:43pm Sunday 16th July 2017

Rating: 3/5 “We live in a world where the real and the unreal live side by side. Break through the web of your experience, and open your mind to things... Beyond Belief.” You may or may not remember this spooky anthology series, which ran for four seasons from 1997 to 2002. A bit Read more...

Personal Shopper (2016)

Posted 12:32pm Sunday 14th May 2017

Rating: 4/5 It’s best to go into this movie knowing little about it, so that you can be taken on a mysterious ride and not know what to expect. So I won’t reveal too much. But you’ll know from the title that it’s about a personal shopper (played by Kristin Stewart); a Read more...

Power Rangers (2017)

Posted 12:31pm Sunday 30th April 2017

Rating: 3.5/5 Man. Where do I begin? Maybe I’ll quickly outline the three reactions I had to this film, in chronological order. The first third I didn’t like because it was so different to the TV show, the second third I liked because it differed so much that it was almost comically Read more...

Life (2017)

Posted 12:39pm Sunday 9th April 2017

Rating: 2.5/5 The overall critical response to Life seems to be that it’s an adequate and competently made space-disaster flick, but that it doesn’t give us anything we haven’t seen done better in other films of the genre. Which, yeah, sums it up pretty well I guess. Set aboard Read more...

Blood Father

Posted 12:22pm Saturday 24th September 2016

Rating: B+ It’s harder to enjoy Mel Gibson’s movies now that his various forms of insanity are out in the open. Every time he loses his shit on screen, you can’t help but wonder how much of it is really “acting”—and it’d be nice to travel back in time Read more...

Poi E: The Story of Our Song

Posted 1:49pm Saturday 17th September 2016

Rating: A One of the great things about this documentary is how well it places you in this period of New Zealand’s history. This is approximately the period that my earliest memories of New Zealand come from (or a few years earlier): the era of Crowded House, the Son of a Gunn show, the Read more...

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Posted 12:43pm Sunday 4th September 2016

Rating: B+ Honey I Shrunk the Kids is a guaranteed nostalgia-tastic viewing experience for any kids of the '80s or '90s. Whether you grew up with the movie or not (though I did), the pre-CGI effects, elaborate sets, gentle pace, and general look and feel of the film place you right in Read more...

A Perfect Day

Posted 12:29pm Sunday 21st August 2016

Rating: B- In A Perfect Day, Benicio Del Toro, Tim Robbins, Olga Kurylenko and Mélanie Thierry play four aid workers stationed in the Balkan Mountains, during a period of armed conflict. They are trying to retrieve a rotting corpse from a well, to prevent contamination of the local water Read more...